From: Terry Low
Sent: August 16, 2018
To: Will Curry
Subject: Tiller pilot

Hello Will, I have been a proud owner of a Hydrovane on my Najad 390 for years now and I have also been a strong advocate for your magnificent product which I love.

However, the wind doesn’t blow all the time and my ancient Autohelm 6000 has packed up. I don’t really want to spend thousands replacing it when I believe I can use a tiller pilot in conjunction with the Hydrovane to steer the boat under power.

Can you recommend which model I should buy to steer my boat which is 9.5 Tonnes displacement but more like 11 tonnes with all the gear on board!

I’m hoping a basic and small integrated model will suffice.

[Editor’s Note: Adding the tillerpilot to the Hydrovane works surprisingly well.  Because it is driving the semi balance Hydrovane rudder it does not matter what the pilot is rated for.  We used the Raymarine 1000 on our last boat which worked well.  For center cockpits some prefer one that has remote adjustment capabilities.  You can view photos of what others have done here – https://hydrovane.com/galleries/tiller-pilot-addition/

Soon we hope to have tiller extensions available that are setup for tillerpilots.  You need to have a minimum of 15 inches fore/aft from the shaft pivot to tillerpilot attachment.]

Many thanks
Terry Low

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