True Stories

From: Darryl Laurin
Sent: November-06-09 11:40 AM
To: John Curry
Subject: from Client Darryl Laurn S/Y Vimy

Hi John and Will

I apologize that it has taken me such a long time to send some feed back to you. First my Lap Top feed the fish in Barcelona and later my camera off the Ionian islands. And, I have sailed more or less solo from Gibraltar to here, Marmaris Turkey this summer. Not a lot of great wifi along the way!

In Review.My boat is a Beneteau First 47.7 or 48ft or 14.8 m. – weight only 11.3 tons – extremely fast yet with perfect sailing characteristic. I could not imagine single handing a better boat.

So the Vane is installed on the high end of performance sailing. Never was passed in over 2k and just loved to be powered up with the Vane steering swilling a beer while I passed crewed up boats working their butts off trying to keep ahead. The final blow was the big red Vane. I love it!

Installing on the 47.7 – could have used a cm or two more pipe for the upper and just made it – as you can see. MM between the drop down platform and the vane. It works but we stood off the transom lower fitting with wood. (which I epoxied to preserve)

Two of us put it together very quickly. The toughest part was being crunched up down in the transom answering the screws with bolts on the inside.

Sailing: As I have said this is high end fast sailing yacht – a Bruce Farr designed racer. I regularly sail to windward at 8.5 knots and downwind with just the main, 11kts is not difficult. I have used the Vane intensely. Indeed my so call bullet proof B & G hydraulic ram so beloved of the round the world folks crashed. I spent a month single handing the 15 m boat with just the vane. If there was a wisp of wind, I had the vane working and with this boat we could actually achieve a speed of 2kts in virtually no wind with the vane.

Sailing down the passage off  Ithaca, it was a F5. The Vane maintained a correct track hour after hour and the wind was about 120deg. That far aft did surprise me. But as I say there was lots of blow.

Personally, I dumped the lines (of the remote course setting). I stand between the V of the support struts and move the wheel with my hand. The helm is so balanced it’s not even tied off until I am sure the Vane is happy.

I try and sell your product where ever I sail. Its great.   And as an aside. I burn much less fuel and create much less Co2 as I don’t charge nearly as much as when I am on the B &G.

Thank you both for your input.

Fair winds,
Darryl Laurin
S/Y Vimy

(P.S.) having your vane is like being part of a club. Every time I see a vane its a sure thing that that crew will want to have a chat.

From: Roy Goodman
Sent: September-04-09 1:04 AM
To: Will Curry
Subject: Re: Hydrovane for Delphia 37

Hi Will

…My new Hydrovane does exactly what it says on the tin – and it fitted round a central stern step and side bathing ladder! With the sails nicely set, you simply engage and enjoy the confidence of self-steering which results from quality engineering. I can’t begin to think how it works… it just does!!

Very best,
Roy

From: Ian
Sent: September-25-09 7:29 AM
To: John Curry
Subject: Re: Hydrovane

John

Hope you enjoyed the Southampton Show.

Here is the photo for your website. I include this one as it shows the Hydrovane in use with our dinghy to show that you can actually use the Hydrovane with a dinghy stowed in the davits – not a very windy day though! This set up works really well like this and the dinghy does not interfere with the Hydrovane – in fact the Hydrovane helps to keep the dinghy solid and stop it moving around.

When we were researching wind steering systems we couldn’t find any images of a Hydrovane fitted to a boat with davits – although you said this was possible – so you may find this picture useful in your marketing. If you need any more please let me know. Note also that the Hydrovane is slightly offset to allow us to use the centre gate to access the bathing ladder. Although the stern looks crowded it all fits pretty well together – the important thing was to plan everything!! I didn’t plan as well as I should have and very nearly made a significant mistake with regard to positioning but corrected it just in time.

Regards
Ian

From: Ian
Sent: August-28-09 8:30 PM
To: John Curry
Subject: Hydrovane

Dear John

We took delivery of our Hydrovane in Feb and installed it during Jun – these things always take longer than expected. But we have now left our home port in UK and are heading down towards the Med. I had never used the Hydrovane before and was slightly aware that this was a huge investment for something I had never tried. We have gone for a slight offset to give us access to the bathing steps.

On our channel crossing recently the wind was ideal to use the Hydrovane as we were pretty much close hauled for most of the way and needed to claw some distance up wind if possible. I had read the instructions but at the first attempt the Hydrovane took up the steering flawlessly – it was fantastic and took us all the way across the channel without any problem – far more comfortable and safer than if we had been steering and importantly without using any electrical power. We made a few course changes using the course correction line so we didn’t need to get out of the cockpit. I am now a Hydrovane convert and realise that it is one of the best purchases that I have made to prepare for our cruises.

Hope that you enjoy the Southampton show if you are over for that. I will not be there but will be at London in Jan so may see you there.

Regards
Ian

Subject: RE: Hydrovane Parts for Swan 38
From: Alison Burnett
Date: Fri, September 11, 2009 8:39 pm
To: Will Curry

Hello Will

Sorry for the long delay, hope you had a good weekend

We bought our Hydrovane self-steering at the 2000 London Boat Show, once it was installed we christened him Harold after my grandfather who was a keen sailor but in his 90’s when we left for our first transatlantic cruise.

Harold is an amazing part of our crew on Roxi and to look aft and see the vane cheerily keeping us on course can be mesmerizing. We use him upwind, downwind and even with our asymmetric spinnaker

Have included some photos for your gallery:

The Old Harold:

We are in the Galapagos Islands, Simon is holding up the old vane with its patchwork of repairs telling its history, this vane took us on; one Atlantic circuit from Europe in 2000-2001, into the Med for 18 months – it didn’t get as much use during that trip, and then in 2006 from Portugal across the Atlantic again, through Venezuela to San Blas, through Panama, down to Ecuador and across to the Galapagos Islands. There in Isabella – our departure point for the Marquesas – in May 2007 we decided to treat Harold to the spare vane cover which we had stowed aboard.

The Atlantic 2006:

This our original vane cover with its many patched repaired still working happily to take us West

Tropical Sailing:

Our new vane cover with Harold beating towards Minerva Reef May 2008 So far the new one has taken us from Galapagos to NZ, then on a 4,000 mile trip up to Tonga and Fiji and back to NZ, we are still many miles from home so am sure the repairs needed in the future will start to have their own story.

We have no photos of our installation – which we are very happy with – and currently ‘Harold’ is not attached to Roxi’s stern as we will be painting our hull, if you would be interested we can send some at the end of the year when our refit should be completed.

Best wishes

Alison and Simon

Subject: Outstanding Hydrovane performance
From: Brett Wilson
Date: Wed, September 9, 2009 12:32 am
To: Will Curry

Hi Will!

Your email prompted me to reply and let you know how delighted we have been with the newly-installed Hydrovane on our Bowman 40 this season.

Its performance has been simply outstanding! It was also extremely easy to set up and learn how to use. We simply balanced the sailplan (as usual) and plugged in the Hydrovane. As easy as that!! Excellent performance without any additional messing or fiddling about.

‘Humphrey’ is now a valuable extra crewmember who relieves us of much of the tedious business of having to stand behind the wheel all the time. Until you experience the benefits of good self-steering it is difficult to appreciate the additional freedom it brings. You don’t need to be a blue-water sailor crossing oceans to derive this benefit either. We also use it on much shorter passages of around 50 miles or so when short-handed and delight in the extra freedom it brings.

Well done Hydrovane! We used a well-known servo-pendulum design on our previous boat but suffered annoying problems with line tension and adjustment. Not so with Hydrovane. Truly ‘plug and play’.

Regards

Brett Wilson

From: Mike Pitts
Sent: September-01-09 10:47 AM
To: Will Curry
Subject: Silverthorne and Her Hydrovane

Will,

It’d been almost a year since I wrote last… I’m finally underway to Hawaii, Marshall Islands, Guam or Palau and on to the Philippines. Choices on further SE Asia stops will be made later.

I’m currently 700 miles out of San Diego making for Hilo. I’m really pleased with my Hydrovane now that I’ve gotten the sail trim coordinated with the fine tuning capabilities of the steering unit. Compared to my past experience with my autopilot, the Hydrovane has fully provided the reliability and confidence levels that I was seeking when I made the purchase.

More Later

Mike Pitts

From: Bengt
Sent: August-13-09 1:56 AM
To: Will Curry
Subject: Photos of Hallberg Rassy 312

Hi Will,

Last spring I and my friend Par Olofsson purchased Hydrovanes to our yachts (HR312 and HR36 respectively). We found the installation quite straight forward and not too time consuming, and we have tested the rudders during our vacations in the Baltic Sea this summer. We are both very satisfied! Unfortunately the winds have so far not been very strong (6-10 knots) and only once above 20-22 knots, but I was running before the wind then, so the apparent wind was only about 16 knots. But it worked!

I still have to make some adjustments as the vane is touching the backstay, so I have to add about two inches to the timber pads, making them 4″ (upper) and 6″ (lower). If that should not be sufficient, can I shorten the vane 2 inches? I think such a small change shouldn’t matter, or what do you think? I don’t want to add more to the pads as that should increase the leverage on them.

Next summer I need to antifoul the rudder as we are heading south then (the Med and the West Indies) where the rudder will be more exposed to fouling than in the Baltic (where the salt content is rather low, and therefore not too much fouling). Can I just apply the antifouling on the rudder or do I need some type of primer first? [Editor’s note: When the boat is moving, salt water scours the rudder – keeps it clean – best to remove the rudder when not at sea – then no need to paint. Otherwise, a hard paint like that used by power boats is best – not messy when handling it.]

I’m enclosing some pictures of my yacht, maybe you can use them as the rudder is both off-center and with an external swimming platform.

With kind regards

Bengt

From: Phil
Sent: August-10-09 5:13 AM
To: Will Curry
Subject: Re: spare HYDROVANE – 2

Dear Will

I have enclosed some photos of the vane. The Stubby size was only OK if I lowered the shaft. Needless to say it does put the bearing almost on the water but I shall keep a close examination of it in the next few months. You will see that in harbour I put on the rubber strop to stop the rudder “chattering” at night. I did find that the friction on the vane angling device was NOT strong enough such that it tended to slide back to the vertical?

However, the performance overall was amazing! As you say in the instructions the key to it all was trimming the sails. But with a solo journey of just under 4000 miles (Grenada to Largs on the west coast of SCOTLAND, it came into it’s own in the first two weeks of the trip.

The wind increased from 20 to 40 kts. with gusts to 50+. The direction was fairly reasonable giving me a fetch of about 40 degrees off the wind. With the waves hitting from various angles it became very uncomfortable and to be able to leave the VANE “in charge” was a great asset. To the credit of the equipment I did allow myself 2 hour sleep periods and was confident that I would not wake up to any disasters. The worrying times were always as the wind increased and to see the vane in its fully raked position just laying over while keeping the boat on track was a delight. As expected the light off wind sailing was not so good. BUT I was so well topped up with battery power it was easy to switch on the Autohelm 7000 and let it do some work.

A humorous ditty occurred as I decided to “find” the AZORES High, and steered on a northerly track making it a 70 degrees wind angle. Having reset “stumpy”–the vane, I went to sleep. When I awoke on the alarm and did my usual check of the track, I found that “stumpy “had decided to go back onto a heading for the AZORES!! NOT what I had wanted but cunning. Of course on closer inspection I realized the wind had veered to achieve this!

I could go on but I will finish by saying that as a retired pensioner I thought the price was a bit hard to bear, BUT only days into the trip I was blessing the day I decided to install it.

Thank you for a great piece of gear.

Regards Phil

From: Andrew Frost
Sent: July-27-09 12:51 PM
To: Valerie Williams; Will Curry
Subject: Hydrovane experience with Slavonka

Hello Valerie and Will

From the blog of SV Bremer Speck:

In a previous post I mentioned “Emma”, our “Hydrovane” wind vane. A wind vane is also referred to as a self-steering and or emergency steering system. The Hydrovane employs an auxiliary rudder to perform its duties and does it extremely well.

Just a couple of weeks ago, on our way to Bermuda, we got caught in a Nor’easter for almost 3 days with sustained winds of 60 knots and very confused seas! A normal autopilot would almost certainly have blown its pump trying to cope.

Not the Hydrovane!

Emma steered our yacht through it all, while the crew of Bremer Speck sat “high and dry” inside the pilothouse, protected from the elements. I have owned this Hydrovane for almost 7 years now and am extremely happy and satisfied! It is not cheap but worth every penny! I would not want to be without it and I use it every chance I get.

A wind vane uses…, guess what?…, …the wind!… to steer the vessel. Thus, unlike the typical autopilot which you hear grinding below deck, a wind vane is totally quiet. No noise whatsoever! All you hear is the water rushing past the hull. Peaceful and quiet.

From: Jeffrey Kornblum
Sent: July-01-09 8:46 PM
To: ‘Will Curry’
Subject: Caliber 40 LRC

Will,

My son and I installed the hydrovane last week and I wanted to share these pictures with you. As an amateur I would like to offer some suggestions for others who want to do this project on their own. The off center installation is ideal for this boat. My swim ladder is intact.

We built a dam with a tarp as you can see in the picture. We were lucky not to drop anything and had all components secured with a line. Nevertheless I was worried about dropping tools and bolts that would not be easily replaced. Working from the dinghy simplified the job and since we tied it from both ends it was a good platform.

I purchased all my hardware as 316 SS. This was special order and one of the holes had thicker fiberglass such that I needed a longer bolt. To get the job done we overnighted a pack of 3″ bolts. I had overbought in case I dropped something but didn’t buy two sizes to cover this potential problem. Those these bolts are relatively expensive they are cheap compared to the cost of the project and I would advise having a few extra bolts of different sizes on hand.

Instead of backfilling the backing plates we mixed the fiberglass with high density filler to make a peanut butter texture (suggested by Cory at Triton Marine) which applied easily and squeezed out nicely and neatly leaving a complete fill behind the plates.

We taped out the hull and bracket feet and also applied high temperature grease to the bolt head and wrenches before tightening down which simplified cleanup.

The post is to be vertical, however that is assuming the boat is not listing. A small breeze results in a small list of the ship. I put a level at several locations along the centerline of the boat and they were all different. We ended up using the levels near the stern and made certain the post had the same level as the boat. Standing on the stern even for a 16000 lb boat makes a difference with the list when you are trying for perfection. Looking from afar the post has the same alignment as the mast though up close when you are working on it you can’t make this assessment. Vertical alignment also not exact. The CG of the boat varies with load and load placement and therefore the transom squat also varies. In the Caliber when under power there is enough squat that water is up on the lower transom step and obviously will cover the H-Bracket. Under sail the degree of squat and vertical alignment is going to vary with how full your tanks are when you install vs when you sail as well as how much weight in provisioning you add. Hopefully when we are loaded for cruise and anchoring out the pole will still be above the water.

We used G-10 for the timber pads which are rock hard and long lasting.

You can cut three timber pads from one 12X12 sheet. We cut the templates and drilled their holes at home. At the boat we sanded them using the technique of 60 grit on the hull with double sided tape. This took many hours by hand to get a flush fit. Tape a block of wood to the timber pad with double sided tape to give a good mechanical advantage on the timber pad and preserve your fingers from the sand paper. Teak would have cost about the same and would have sanded in about 10 minutes. Once done the G-10 obviously will not require further maintenance.

Nylocks are nice but can still loosen over time and stress. All of the bolts on my plane have a heat stable wax line over the bolt/nut interface that immediately shows if there has been any loosening. I am applying the same thing on these bolts for easy inspection particularly in the lazarette.

The instructions spoke of using 2 inch PVC as a template. The SS tubes are 2 inch outer diameter. I have both 2 inch and 1.5 inch PVC neither of which worked. Two inch PVC has a two inch inner diameter and 2 3/8 outer diameter. This was too big even with the plastic sleeve removed from the brackets. The 1.5 inch PVC has a 1 7/8 inch outer diameter which was too small even with the plastic sleeves. We jury rigged the PVC to get accurate measurements before cutting the SS pipes.

This job took a total of a day and a half spread over three and a half days waiting one day for larger bolts and losing one day to weather.Over half the work time was in sanding the G-10. Two people are a must and when aligning the pole, three would have been nice. Had we used Teak it would likely have taken about 6-8 hrs.

I will be on the boat in August for three weeks and look forward to running trials on the hydrovane. I am happy to talk with anyone who wants to do this job on their own. I will drop you a line in late August.

Regards,
Jeffrey Kornblum, MD
S/V Ko Olina

From: Olena Boyko
Sent: June-10-09 8:33 PM
To: John Curry
Subject: Quality of Vane Cover

Greetings

This is kind of petty considering the replacement price, but I am perturbed in having to replace the nylon vane cover replacement as the original disintegrated in only 2 years (no tropics) and we sailed back from the Black Sea to the States with it duck-taped. Unit still worked fine but I am musing about sewing a new cover or re-inforcing the duck tape. It has been in storage for 10 years but now am preparing for another trans-Atlantic. Have you by chance upgraded the material?

This is the only weak spot of the whole system as even the A tubes bent only slightly in saving our stern from an ugly pier in a messy storm surge in Greece. Those tubes are great for hooking your legs around, bending back and being towed thru the sea. Also doubles great as a boarding ladder.

This is my second Hydrovane on my second cutter, steel hull, no corrosion problems after 15 years in the water. First unit was bought in Annapolis in 1974, those of the wooden vane, of which I made 2 spares with gold lettering and never had to use in 5 years of cruising(still have those as souvenirs). We figured out the need for counterweights on that early model; good thing we had extra zincs in the Atlantic.

For those bitching about the cost of the unit, get real with all the other expensive toys and trinkets put on the modern yacht. There has never been a life-raft or epirb or refrig on my boat (nothing electric on the old one) but I would never sail without a Hydrovane. I have been with you for 30 years and yes, I will replace the rudder pin.

Thanks for not letting this product die. It was an iffy situation a few years back.

Cheers

Olena Boyko

Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 5:01 AM
To: Valerie Williams
Subject: RE: Wind vane cover

Valerie,

Thanks for that. If it lasts 20 years it could possibly see me out!

Incidentally over the 20 years I have sailed with the Hydrovane I have found it the most amazing and helpful member of the crew. It never complains or gets tired, doesn’t eat anything and seems to enjoy what it is doing. On the odd occasion it is a little irritating, ie in light winds when there is an awkward sea running it can lose its way every so often. Mind you it is bound to have a fault it is a woman after all. Mine is Gwendolyn who was John Benn’s granddaughter. [Editor’s note: John Benn is the name of the boat]

Regards
Robert H Hamer
Honorary Secretary
Royal Cornwall Yacht Club

From: Stuart Gough
Sent: May-30-09 6:22 AM
To: Will Curry
Subject: Passport Yachts Europe