From: Dan Hogarth
Sent: October-07-11
To: Will Curry
Subject: Eschaton’s Hydrovane

Hi Will.

Good to meet up with you all at the Boat Show a couple of weeks ago and to see the latest improvements – by co-incidence, I had already moved my stern light to the case frame to improve visibility and reduce reflection. Admittedly your version is rather more elegant!

Henry (after the Navigator) has now completed 3 Transatlantic circuits plus a wee diversion up through Norway to Svalbard to chat with Walrus. Without complaint he has successfully steering my Rustler 36 through all weathers and conditions including the tail end of a hurricane and downwind for several days in very light airs. If he could just make cups of tea…..

He was fitted from new based upon the experience from other Rustler owners who are, to say the least, strongly opinionated about most things, and of the ones that I spoke with that cross oceans the consensus was that a Hydrovane was the answer. I concur. Whilst one could ramble on about its virtues, I believe that they can be summarised very simply:

It works as and when required;
It is completely independent;
It is very robustly built.

I speak with experience on the latter as it has been proven on several occasions when other boats have tried to share the same spot as me. The most dramatic was a heavy 42’ yacht that blew down hitting Henry square on with their CQR anchor. It stopped. Smartly. The only damage to Henry was a chip out of the axis knob plus some scarring to the casting.

My one regret (apart from tea making) is that I did not affix my Tillerpilot to the tiller arm. Having a Tiller steered yacht this would make obvious sense (after the event of course) and I suspect that it is only a matter of time before I add that option as the load – even on a reasonably balanced rudder – must be far less and will thus reduce the stress on the pilot as well as consuming less power. Having fitted a Duogen wind/water generator a year after commissioning, I would have gone for the offset mounting but it all works just fine although a tad tight.

The personal service provided by the Curry’s is excellent and it is always a pleasure (well for me anyway) to meet with them at Boat Shows and to find out the latest improvement/enhancements. It is good to know that the product is continually being enhanced to keep up with the improvements in materials and engineering capabilities.

About half of my trips are classified as single handed although with Henry constantly at the helm, this is probably not strictly true – thank goodness.

With thanks for an excellent product & personal service.

Best regards to all

Dan (Hogarth)
SY Eschaton

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