True Stories

From: Steven Hertik/ Heather Francis
Sent: March-04-14
To: Will Curry
Subject: Re: Email

Will

We are in Wangaratta, just a few hours north of Melbourne, visiting Steve’s family and preparing for a few weeks get away on the motorbike. Maybe we’ll cross paths!

Our boat Kate, a Newport 41’, had a wind vane on her transom when we bought her in 2008. It had barely been used but the spider web of lines running through the cockpit looked like trouble. We replaced it with a Hydrovane and couldn’t be happier. Will was great at answering questions and helping us decide which vane was right for us. And the installation was straightforward, Steve managed to pull it off with his leg in a cast while we were tied to the dock.

We are full time sailing live aboard’s and despite the “dirty wind” created from the solar panels and other necessities aloft, our vane performs extremely well. It is one of the most important pieces of equipment we have on board, and one of the easiest to use.

If you’re planning on doing any long distance sailing we highly recommend Hydrovane, it makes long passages with two crew members almost relaxing, allows one person to make sail changes and course corrections without assistance and, the best part, requires no power!

Thanks

Heather

November 15, 2013, Juan Antonio Martin wrote to us on facebook:

Foto del Hydrovane instaldo en 1991 en s/y Vagabundo, con él he realizado 10 travesías del Atlántico en solitario.

Translated to:
Photo of Hydrovane installed in 1991 on SY Vagabundo, with him I made 10 Atlantic crossings alone.

February 16, 2014, Juan Antonio Martin wrote:

Hola Sarah, ayer llegue a Martinica, despues de 18 dias cruzando el Atlantico, el hydrovane, como siempre, muy bien bajando olas de los alisios. Mi “viejo” hydrovane ya ha cruzado 12 veces el Atlantico.

No hay problema para que pongas my foto del hydrovane en vuestro website.

Un saludo.

Translated to:
Hi Sarah, yesterday reached Martinique, after 18 days crossing the Atlantic, the hydrovane, as always, very well down waves of the trade. My “old” hydrovane has already crossed the Atlantic 12 times.

No problem to put my photo on your website hydrovane. A greeting.

Thanks, Juan!

On 18 February 2014
‘Kit and Belinda’ wrote:

Hi Will
Thanks for that. Please find attached a pic of the repaired vane – please feel free to use as you wish, sorry it was not taken in rougher weather!

Boat is a Bowman 40 named Quilcene – passage from Mindelo to Paramaribo 15 days.

A point of interest – other yachts that crossed at similar time said that their lighter wind vanes didn’t steer so well. We sailed under ‘poled out’ Yankee to leeward and a ‘poled out’ stay sail to windward – although most of the time it was almost ‘dead downwind’

couple of ‘pics’ attached
Regards

Kit (Chris) & Belinda

From: Brian Anderson
Sent: January-21-14
To: Will Curry
Subject: more i Vane applause

Hi Will.

You may still be spoiling yourself in the South Pacific, or you may be back in the dull chill of home setting up for the boat show. Whatever the case, I hope this finds you flourishing.

We’ve crossed to the Caribbean as of a couple weeks ago. We had a fast 18 day passage in strong winds, multi-directional swells and relatively few squalls. Rolly and Quick (sounds like a law firm you wouldn’t want to deal with?). And, not surprisingly, iVane drove us door to door with quiet efficiency, no appetite and patience. We used the twin head sail set and it too was the answer for short handed crew. But iVane was voted the Passage Prize, 2700 down miles without a miss-step or whimper. I know you have a drawer full of applause for the H’vane and ours are not extraordinary service notes, but I feel the need to shout out to someone who cares.

Hope all is well and even better….
cordially,
brine

From: Peter Stonard
Date: January 3, 2014
To: Sarah Curry
Subject: Hydrovane

Hi Sarah,

A happy and healthy 2014 to you. I said I’d write a little of my experiences when my Hydrovane unit, “Horatio” took me around the planet on good ol’ Contessa 32′ “Ianda”.

I can only say that the unit did all it says on the box. Handling a modest yacht of around 5 tonnes fully laden was no problem for the Hydrovane in both heavy weather and quiet conditions. The ability to maintain a selected course was excellent from wind on the nose round to broad reaching. She did allow a bit of a wander down wind, as maybe expected; after all, all mechanical self steering systems are by their nature purely re-active and just like their human substitutes, don’t steer so well dead downwind!

The mechanics of the unit I consider well made and of robust design. I liked the idea of having good clearances on bearing surfaces and even after some 20 years of exposure to harsh conditions, nothing has seized or broken. The windvane with its drum tight covering of spinnaker like fabric shoots flying fish off in all sorts of interesting directions, albeit one of the larger fellows punched a hole clean through it.

My one bone of contention tho, is the rudder unit. After but a short period, the retaining pin, which is too small in diameter, wore the hole in the plastic rudder, somewhat oval and from then on the wind vane had to over compensate for the consequent slackness between rudder an main spindle. But it gets worse, on anchor the slightest swell would set up a clonking sound between rudder and pin which whilst not particularly noticeable when in the cockpit, drove me to distraction when below as the sound travelled thru’ the hull. I managed to mitigate this to some extent by drilling a hole thru’ the aft top corner of the rudder and tying it off tight to one quarter. This helped, but even with the addition of a strong bungy cord I never completely eradicated the clonking. I have since had to put stainless steel bushes in the rudder and increase slightly, the retaining pin diameter. You may say that the rudder should be removed when anchored but this entails the use of a dinghy, not always practical.

If it were possible I would suggest a re-design of the rudder unit to allow it to be removed easily from deck or to be swung up, out of the water when at anchor. Not an easy mod I grant you but [I think] worth consideration.

Graduations on the course setting mechanism would be a nice touch when altering direction. Every 10 degrees would be good.

[Editor’s Note:  Peter’s is a VXA1 model, no Remote Course Setting]

And so in summary, thank you for supplying a 1st rate unit, notwithstanding my comments on the rudder I have been very happy with dear ol’ “Horatio” and expect to remain so for a long time to come.

From: jørgen andersen
Sent: September-12-13
To: Valerie Williams
Subject: Vedr: Shipment of hydrovane to Jorgen Vaagan Andersen

Hello Valerie.

I’ve had time to mount and test the Hydrovane now, so I thought I should give you some comments.

The equipment was exellently packed in strong boxes and arrived without any damage. All components seems strong and very well constructed. The mounting instructions were good and after some planning and a few days of work it was securely mounted to the transom of my boat.

There were a few minor problems with the equipment:

• The bolt that tightens the clamp on the A-bracket to the shaft was seized when I tried to loosen it the first time. I had to cut it and get a new one.
• The two M12 bolts that secures the struts on the A-bracket to the piece that is attached to the shaft was too short for the nyloc locking nuts to secure the bolt, so I had to buy two bolts that where 5mm longer.

None of this was a big deal because I was able to get the bolts in the next harbour I visited.

We have tested the hydrovane in the Irish sea and when we crossed the bay of Biscay. We had heard many stories of how hard it is to use and understand a wind-vane, but our experience was that it worked right away in all wind-directions and forces except with weak wind from astern (which i understand is normal). All in all we are very pleased so far and we have already demonstrated it to several fellow sailors that are considering to buy a wind-rudder.

Best regards
Jørgen Andersen

—

From: jørgen andersen
Sent: December-30-13
To: Will Curry
Subject: Shipment of hydrovane to Jorgen Vaagan Andersen

Hi, Will.
Here are pictures of the aluminum backing plates I have in GRP inside the boat, and from the fitting of the brackets using plastic pipes (which was a very good tip). I have also added some pictures of the finished installation.

We have now crossed the Atlantic from Gambia to Trinidad and the Hydrovane has been in “charge” as long as the sails have been up, and has performed excellent.

Best regards
Jørgen Vaagan Andersen

From: Keith McGuire
Sent: December-25-13
To: Valerie Williams
Subject: Fargo Beneteau 361

Hi Valerie

Fitted Hydrovane – tried over Christmas – does what it said on the box ‘it works’.

Regards Keith McGuire

From: Barbara Sforzini
Sent: November-20-13
To: Will Curry
Subject: Question about our Hydrovane VXA2 D

Hi Will,

We are Alessandro Epifani and Barbara Sforzini, in December 2010 we bought from you wind pilot VXA2D. We are very satisfied with our choice, we never steered during Atlantic crossing even with rough seas with cross waves during the all 16 days. Here enclosed a video during Atlantic navigation under genoa spinnaker pole only.

Less than 6 months later, during our haul-out in Carriacou, we already noticed corrosion on black low collar, we attached some picture even if not very clear. After one year the collar was totally broken.

Does this problem happened to someone else?

[Editor’s note: the Bottom Collar (#26) is now made of Stainless Steel]

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Ciao
Ale e Barbara

From: Bob Packard
Sent: December 03, 2013
To: Hydrovane
Subject: Hydrovane on Realtime

We’ve reached New Zealand on our boat, Realtime, and we need a new cover for the vane.

It’s probably not a big revelation to you, but I want you to know that our Hydrovane turned out to be a super good steering system. It steered our Norseman 447 all across the Pacific and worked great from light winds on the stern to strong winds on the bow. Although I had some trouble in the beginning, I am now a true believer, and I’ll tell anyone.

Much thanks to Will for his help in Puerto Vallarta to look my installation over and make a couple of suggestions.

Best regards,
Bob Packard

From: W. J. Irwin & Son Solicitors
Sent: November 08, 2013
To: John Curry
Subject: Re: new rudder

Hello John,

I have been making use of the new rudder and I find it is a very great improvement on the old one; I can now rely on our Hydrovane, known to us as Baldric because he has his own cunning plans and is not paid or even fed, to a very much greater extent – I used to have to adjust either the vane or the sails for every small change of wind speed and the old rudder was frequently overborne either by the boat’s rudder turning the boat to lee as the wind lightened or by increased weather helm as it strengthened – now I find that the vane will cope with an acceptable variety of wind strength on all courses. The improvement is a great relief, as I was beginning to think it would be necessary to find a different boat, perhaps long keel, to make vane steering more reliable. I can use the vane inshore in spite of the variations of inshore winds [while keeping close watch all round] without having to adjust settings every five minutes. As I dislike having to use the autopilot when there is wind to be used I am much happier than before. I anticipate that offshore it will be precisely what I originally expected it to be when I first fitted it 6 years ago. I am now finding at last that I actually need to angle the vane more because it is oversensitive, which I never had to do before the new rudder arrived. I may soon change the bearings and fit the new mid bearing as well.

I want to thank you for solving my problems by selling me the new rudder. I appreciate your generosity and have no hesitation in recommending both Hydrovane and the people making and selling it to friends and acquaintances.

Best wishes,
Tony
Tony Irwin

—

From: W. J. Irwin & Son Solicitors
Sent: November 11, 2013
To: John Curry
Subject: Re: performance report

Include it on the website if you wish.  I will take a few photos and send them to you to pick from.  I had a good sail yesterday afternoon, about 25 miles around Belfast Lough and through Copeland Sound, with true wind from 5 up to 18 knots and Baldric did virtually all the steering, with very minor adjusting as winds rose and fell and as we altered course; close reaching in 21 knots apparent, running in about 3 knots apparent, close hauled in 16 knots, etc, all with no problems at all and at boat speeds from 2 to 7.5 knots.  Great improvement over the old rudder. I had an experienced crew with me, a Yachtmaster, who was very impressed indeed!

From Chris & Anne-Marie’s Blog – SV Starship

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013
1000 Nautical Miles Down! – Day 10
1000nm down, about 1800nm to go!

Hard to believe it has been 10 days already! I think we have been doing quite well progress wise, especially with our slow 3-4 days getting off the coast, to pull off a little over 100nm per day. Hopefully now that we are in the trade winds we will be able to routinely knock out 125+nm days. Alas it looks like I have lost the bet with my guess of us completing the crossing in 21 days.

One piece of equipment we have been exceptionally happy about has been our Hydrovane (www.hydrovane.com)! There is no doubt it would be a totally different experience out here had we been relying solely on our electronic autopilot as initially planned. To the best of my knowledge no one has hand steered since we shut off the engine just outside of Banderas Bay. The Hydrovane has been doing all the tough work of keeping us on course, while we enjoy the scenery and tend to other tasks onboard.

Here is a brief rundown of why we like the Hydrovane so much:

What sold us on it:

• Could be installed off center, since our transom had a lot of stuff already on it
• Only 4 bolts to install the unit on the transom
• Emergency totally independent rudder
• No power drain when compared to using the electric autopilot

From our experience with it:

• Works as advertised (or better)! We used the Hydrovane running down wind in 35kt winds crossing to Banderas Bay from the East Cape of Baja, and it only seemed to work better the windier it got! On this crossing we were using it to keep us heading in the right direction with only 2kt of apparent wind!
• No steering lines enter the cockpit as on some other windvane self steering systems. The Hydrovane is totally independent on the transom of the boat. No connections to the main wheel or rudder post. Simple, clutter free and redundancy.
• Quiet! It just does it thing back there and you’d never even know it was there until you look. In comparison with our electric autopilot which is always making noise as it alters the course….sqeekkk…sqeeekkkk..sqeekk… I’m sure we would have went insane by now listening to that!
• The wheel is stationary! With the electric autopilot (and some other windvanes), the main wheel spins as the course is adjusted. This makes the wheel a dangerous thing to be around. It is so nice to have the wheel locked down, and not to worry about it when relaxing in the cockpit.
• Huge power savings! There is no power draw whatsoever with the Hydrovane. Compared to possibly as high as 50Ah/day with our electric autopilot. This has allowed us to keep fully charged under solar power alone for our first 10 days. That is with running computers, the fridge, checking emails/weather 2x a day, and Anne-Marie being net controller for the puddle jump fleet (30-45 minutes of talking on the SSB radio, ~12Ah of battery).

If you are in the market for a windvane, give the Hydrovane a good look. Somehow I didn’t consider them when looking at windvanes before leaving the US, and only after meeting Will & Sarah of Hydroquest, who work for Hydrovane did we consider it an option. Will was super helpful in checking out all the stuff on our transom to ensure the Hydrovane would work, which made it a lot easier for us to make the decision.

Full Disclosure: Although we are friends with Will & Sarah, we are not associated with the Hydrovane company and they have no idea I’m writing this post.

[Editor’s note: It’s true! We had no idea Starship was writing such a great testimonial… we were in the middle of the Pacific, ‘puddle jumping’ at the same time!]

From: Kirk Patterson
Sent: September 25, 2013
To: info@hydrovane.com
Subject: Parts order

Hi!

This is Kirk Patterson from S/V Silk Purse, out of Victoria. I am currently trying to be the first foreigner to circumnavigate Japan. I arrived in Japan in June, crossing the Pacific via Hawaii. During that crossing, I used my Hydrovane constantly…it was great! However, my electronic autopilot died 4 days out of Japan and the wind died 12 hours later, so I had to hand steer for 3.5 days in cold torrential rain, thick fog, and, as I neared Japan, heavy shipping traffic…eventually had to get rescued by the Coast Guard! But all is well now.

Anyway…I would like to order 2 pins and a vane cover (plus instructions for how to easily put on the new cover) and have them airmailed to Japan. Please advise cost and I will give you the shipping address and credit card information.

Thanks and regards.

Kirk

[Editor’s note: Kirk went on to be the first foreigner to circumnavigate Japan, and he will soon publish a cruising guide to Japan. He also added a tiller pilot to his Hydrovane – so he can use it while motoring!]

From: Verde, Patrick
Sent: September 06, 2013
To: info@hydrovane.com
Subject: Some comments on my hydrovane

Hi,

I bought a Hydrovane from you – I think it was 2009 – I installed it 2010. I took the boat to the Med (though with truck through Europe) in 2010. It was not in much use the first years because I had a working autopilot and did not do much shorthanded long distance sailing. The truth is I never came up to learning to use it.

3 weeks ago my Auto broke down while I was on a single handed tour from Crete up to Istanbul. (island by island). So suddenly I needed to learn to use and trust my Hydrovane. It became a delight – a revelation. Now she is my “her” on the boat. The boat being a male called REVEN (means The Fox).

My boat is an old (45 years) ferro cement boat (13,5 tons/40 feet – half long keel). I mounted the pilot off center because my stern is quite narrow and I also have a wind generator.

In these weeks I have done all kinds of sailing. Hard up wind in 14-17 ms: it steers better and more precisely than me even when I totally concentrated. The same on every course up to 120 off wind. Then she starts to “slalom” a little – but who doesn’t?.

Butterfly downwind it’s a little bit difficult to get her working precisely. Sure you can reduce sail and get more relative wind – but who wants to loose speed? But I found that I can make her work if I counter steer the main rudder a bit. That makes her (the Hydro) counter steer the other way and getting more relative wind. The arrangement does not allow the skipper sleeping (because as soon as it gets out of balance it reacts wrongly – ex if the wind speed changes), but it is a fine arrangement when down wind speed is the priority.

One of the best parts of using it is that it is so easy to calibrate and re-calibrate. I used it even when beating up narrow channels, which means re-adjusting every five minutes – no problem as adjustment is done in seconds. I am really in love with this piece of gear.

ps – you may publish this text where ever you want – with my name and contact info on it.

Regards

Patrick Verde
Professor
Oslo Business School

From: Wayne on Dante
Sent: August-23-13
To: Will Curry
Subject: Re: Hydrovane Report on Harmony 42

Hi Will & Sarah,

“I fitted a Hydrovane steering system on my yacht DANTE which I recently purchased in Tortola B.V.I. for a trip back home to Australia. DANTE is a Harmony 42 and I was a little bit apprehensive as to how the off-set position would affect the performance. After nearly 8,000 miles I’m happy to say the Hydrovane has performed brilliantly, in light air as well as heavy and on all points of sailing, quietly keeping the yacht on course with only minor adjustments needed for the wind shifts. In my opinion the Hydrovane is the best piece of equipment on board and well worth the investment. Wayne Jenkins – SV DANTE.”

Happy sailing guys, I’ll hopefully catch up with you on New Years eve in Sydney harbour.

Cheers,
Wayne Jenkins

[Editor’s note: We were anchored next to Wayne in Suva, Fiji]

From: Kosta
Sent: July-15-13
To: Will Curry
Subject: From Kosta

Hi Will,

In June I ended up sailing my own boat from Hawaii to Vancouver. It took us 21 days to get to Port Hardy, very different weather and wind conditions, some easy and some not so easy days…, but very good trip overall.

Hydrovane performed very good, we did manual steering less than 5% of the time. Your piece of equipment managed to sail us through 28-32 knots of steady beam winds and very confused rough seas between the Maui and Big Island for approximately 6 hours. Few times we recorded speeds of 14-14.5 knots!

From your blog it was very nice to see pictures of familiar places in French Polynesia. We did just about what you guys did, including hike to the top of Bora Bora, we also did not hire anybody to help us with it.

Regards, Kosta

[Editor’s Note: custom top bracket]