From: Steve – Offshore
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 3:55 PM
To: Ronald
Subject: Hydrovane

Hi Ronald,

Apologies for not replying sooner. Very busy and then thought I’d wait till I had some experience with it to report.

CHENG FENG arrived safely on 3rd March 2009 in Scarborough, Tobago after a 24 day passage from Gomera, Canary Islands . Single handed. The newly installed VXA 2D Hydrovane did the steering. I didn’t even bother to seatrial it before departure, knowing from your good self that it works on a NC40 ketch. I thought I’d work it out on the way. That took about 45 seconds.

It wasn’t the easy tradewind passage it’s supposed to be, we were beset by an almost continuous stream of showers and squalls, day and night. The wind varied in direction over the full NE quadrant and this created a cross sea most of the time. We sailed countless miles with seas on one quarter and the wind on the other, making for very difficult steering conditions. It was quite amazing to watch the Hydrovane deal with such conditions with only the apparent wind on the vane to control to.

I would recommend the VXA 2D Hydrovane to any NC40 ketch owner. As you say it gives you a nice peaceful ride, especially with no other crew on board.

I tried replying with this on the Nauticat group to something from you on Hydrovanes but it didn’t get through.

Best Regards,
Steve Burrows
NC40-054
CHENG FENG
Scarborough, Tobago