Exactly what I was hoping for someone would do here on YT, thanks a lot. two questions, I see a lot of rudder installation being off centered, as in your case. Have you seen any handling difference when the boat heel over when you compare port and starboard tacks? Second question, consider that most cruisers has lot of stuff added to the stern, have you seen any effect on your boat when that affects the Hydrovane ability to steer depending on wind direction?
Glad you enjoyed the video. No worries at all. So I have not noticed any handling difference when comparing tacks at all, the rudder on the Hydrovane is very long and my guess is that it does not loose any effect. Also being off the centerline would place it in cleaner water flow rather then being in the wash from the main rudder. On my boat with all my equipment mounted there is no negative effect on the vane with wind from aft of the beams, but when forward of the beam it can sometimes be shadowed behind the spray hood or other obstructions. Hope this helps.
Yea there is a bit in the hydrovane website, they are designed to be installed of centre to allow for walk through transforms. Still figuring mine out, sail balance is a big piece of the puzzle. Great vid!
Hey, heyyy! Just found your channel, outstanding! I’m a wannabe sailor living vicariously thru vlogs such as yours. Perfect simple tutorial on wind vane steering. Your installation looks clean and professional. Looking fwd to watching more of your vids. Be safe and fair winds.
All hail the hydrovane, love this bit of kit, they're bloody expensive but worth every penny, I just got a quotation from them for a transom hung rudder Miura 31' and it was well over 4K pounds sterling for the specific model required, but I wouldn't sail offshore without it, the biggest advantages with the hydrovane are that it's an auxiliary rudder style and can be mounted offset on the transom as opposed to all your servo pendulum vanes like Aries and Monitor which steer the helm and require steering lines and the functionality of the main rudder, the other thing I really like about the hydrovane is you can mount a tiller directly to it. Like I said, all hail the hydrovane.
Totally agree with you on that one Jonno. Being offset from centerline non negotiable for us with the type of transom we have. Having a backup rudder is also a very good feeling. We were very happy to find a second hand unit to keep the price down but they do not seem to loose much value being such a solid design and simple mechanics. All hail the Hydrovane 🤙
Best piece of equipment on the boat,you will never regret your purchase, the only drawback if you change your boat you will definitely want another Hydrovane.
Sam and Nicole: Great video! I have also installed the Hydrovane on my Oceanis 40 (I used the "stubby" vane in order to clear the bimini) and I put it in the same exact location as you after the nice folks at Hydrovane sent my your installation photo. When I tried it out for the first time, I could not believe how easy it was to use. It's too bad for folks who have the newer boats with the drop-down swim platforms, I believe that the vane would probably be too far off centerline. One the Oceanis 40, it's no big deal and there is plenty of room for using the platform for swimming and boarding the tender.
Thanks for watching Randy, glad you enjoyed it. Sure is a perfect setup for the Oceanis 40. Stocked that our pictures could help with your instillation and we hope you have many good miles sailing with it. 🤙
Excellent ! Have you seen any boat with a large aft platform how they position the hydrovane well on the edge of the stern , does that still works or when heeling the paddle would be off water too much to generate lift ?
Thanks. I have seen many boats with this setup but I believe there is a maximum distance. This link on the hydrovane website has many different setups to give you an idea. hydrovane.com/galleries/
Hi can you tell me does the hydro vain do the steering as your one has a large rudder on some Hydro Vains there is a small rudder and a cable then tied to a strating the turn the rudder on the boat can you explain as to how the Hydro Vains worked on your boat as the rudder is larger than other Hydro Vains thanks Brendan.
Hey Brendan no worries, So with the Hydrovane, the vessels main rudder is locked and the Hydrovane rudder does all the steering as an independent system. Other self steering systems use a different concept and usually steer via the vessels rudder. I preferred the independent rudder as a form of redundancy. Lots of info explaining on www.hydrovane.com
Hi Sam and Nicole, you have a great channel with so much potential. I love your style of videos and all the background information and details on your gear. Look forward to your next video. I see you still smiling around in the Caribbean. Wishing your good winds and safe passages.
Michael, thank you very much for your kind words that means a lot. We shall do our best and have another video shortly. We sure are smiling in the Caribbean doing our beat to enjoy our time here. Cheers mate 🤙
I've installed mine off-centre on my Hallberg-Rassy 38 because I'd lose the swim ladder otherwise and my main rudder seem to project slightly proud of the stern too. I think mine is closer to central than your's though.Just about to test-sail to Falmouth, prior to sailing to Lisbon. Yes, not the time I wanted to head south but the huge delays with tradies for a number of things, as well as lockdowns, have just eaten up time. Question for you though, which sensitivity setting and vane height seems to work best? Also, how do you take to stop worrying about destroy it when docking? oh, a ps - i wondered if you'd forgotten the adjustment cord - until I saw it in the final picture.
Hope your trips progressing well. We always use the middle setting an minimum vane height unless the wind is super light and we raise the vane. Fair winds 🤙
Same place as last time you asked mate, so your point is still valid. You can head over to our instagram accounts to get live updates on our current locations. 🤟
I have a question on your hydrovane. Do you ever encounter issues with the rudder over powering your vessel rudder. Example when you are backing out or tacking with it? I have encountered issues on both. I went to tack and went into irons. I had to turn both rudders in order to tack. Same goes with backing out. Nobody ever talks about it. It can't just be me. I am almost to the point of calling hydrovane. I also get disturbance when motoring with the rudder on it. Its a little tough for me to get it off because i have a double ender. Thanks Don
Hey Don, I can see this would be an issue with limited access to the rudder. Although we don’t have this we do usually remove the rudder if we are in a marina and when not in use. When tacking as long as the locking pin is disengaged the rudder just freely turns and we have no issue. We do have good access on our stern to help with this. Cheers
@@SailingBeaver interesting on the locking pin. Mine sorta stays in the center even when backing out with the pin disengaged. Thanks for taking time to answer. As well as these work they do have this one flaw.
Nice!! When you shop the Hydrovane website. Does the price include H and E connectors in that top price? Or do you have to calculate all the parts individually? Thanks
Im not 100% sure as we puchased ours second hand, but I believe you would have to email to get a total price of the parts you actaully require for your boat as there is a few variations.
Get advice from Will at Hydrovane about the parts you need for your particular hull, they have masses of pictures of different install too. There are different bracket options for different hulls and their experience helps. Yes, you essentially pay-by-the-part. As far as delivery, HydroVane is a Canadian company now, which matters when you try to ring them, but manufacture happens in the UK and they ship from there. As far as installation, a spirit level helps and a dummy instal shaft is easily made prom PVC pipe.
That was insightful. You seem to have gone for some pricey solutions, but all the calls look spot on. Saw your outboard motor but did not see a dinghy anywhere. Is that to replace the Yanmar headache or you have an inflatable dinghy?
Thankyou sir much appreciated. Some solutions have been pricey I guess but we have saved a lot doing all the work ourself and purchased a lot of gear second hand. The dinghy is rigid inflatable in a flat pack canvass bag on the bow and sometimes under the boom. 🤙
@@SailingBeaver I very much enjoy your editing style. The quiet scenes, the video snippet montages leading the viewer to your next step without having to just narrate things, the muted excitement. I aspire to be this good someday
Hi folks, Just discovered your channel today and subscribed...great stuff! Three questions on the Hydrovane: Do you think the difference in boat motion and comfort you mentioned between autopilot and HV could be because AP steers to a waypoint or heading, whereas HV always steers to apparent wind? Do you find that the HV is sensitive to sail trim and balance, weather helm, etc.? Any problems with air flow at the vane itself when going to windward with cockpit and transom appendages upwind of the vane? Thank you so much for a very engaging and informative channel.
Well lots more footage of the Hydrovane in action in our Atlantic and Caribbean crossing videos with our Pacific crossing coming up shortly. Ya never know, might even be enough to get a little smile from ya Ralph. 😀
Hello guys, really enjoyed watching all you posts, Love your sailing journeys, nice boat. Just wanted to ask, did you buy the boat with the spiniker pole, or did you guys have it added, as I am looking to buy a 40 oceanis, but most of them don’t have the spiniker Appreciate any info Thanks
Glad you enjoyed mate and thankyou for this comment. It came with a standard Z spars spin pole but we installed a bigger Selden spin pole and track system as they are much more solid and better to use and we occasionally use both poles together.
Thanks mate unfortunately we had to remove the swim ladder to make it fit there. We found this at a French boatshop Diffusion. They are available off the shelf. 🤙
Hi again, just an update regarding a question I asked earlier. Interesting that you guys used Portugal-Canaries for shakedown as I did something similar, on my solo crossing to Panama, except my checkpoint was more that I'd have to be comfortable with the system between Madeira and the Canaries or else I'd have to stop. But by Madeira what a revelation and not long after turning west (got caught in a weather shadow for half a day, grrr), my use of even the autopilot and completely changed - accepting the autopilot mostly stayed switched off and the HydroVane was doing its thing instead. I found myself more completely tuned into the world of "virtual wind" because that's how HydroVane works and when I used my AP as a "crew member" for gybing, I'd set the Autopilot running as well, switch it through to windVane mode, autogybe with me running the sheets, then reset the HydroVane and switch the Autopilot off. A change of focus with navigating too, because instead of maintaining a heading and tracking speed secondarily, for dead reckoning purposes, I sailed a more stable speed and tracked heading secondarily. Yes, I use GPS primarily but this matters too. BUT this likely wouldn't work sailing coastal because the proximity of land matters more there; Autopilot instead of Hydrovane then IMHO.
Hi Ian, Few good points there for sure and would have to agree. The Hydrovane definitely changed our thinking towards apparent wind and also just the wind shifts in general. Originally we would change our angles of an evening with the diurnal shifts but now we have become more comfortable drawing a slight S course over time which might loose miles but gains ease and comfort. Good idea for the gybes on AP and we also agree to use the AP close to land as the shifts are much more frequent. Hope your trip is progressing well and fair winds ⛵️
Hi Guys, just stumbled upon your channel and thoroughly enjoying. I'm planning to fit a Hydrovane to my vessel in the next few months - I see yours has the shorter vane/sail which I will likely have to use as I have various items in the way (wind generator, arch, etc). Do you know if the shorter version as any disadvantages over the full size version and has yours performed ok in light wind conditions?
Thanks. We have the XT vane (extendable) which is perfect for us due to our solar arch. In light following winds we extend for more leverage if needed.
Exactly what I was hoping for someone would do here on YT, thanks a lot. two questions, I see a lot of rudder installation being off centered, as in your case. Have you seen any handling difference when the boat heel over when you compare port and starboard tacks?
Second question, consider that most cruisers has lot of stuff added to the stern, have you seen any effect on your boat when that affects the Hydrovane ability to steer depending on wind direction?
Glad you enjoyed the video. No worries at all. So I have not noticed any handling difference when comparing tacks at all, the rudder on the Hydrovane is very long and my guess is that it does not loose any effect. Also being off the centerline would place it in cleaner water flow rather then being in the wash from the main rudder. On my boat with all my equipment mounted there is no negative effect on the vane with wind from aft of the beams, but when forward of the beam it can sometimes be shadowed behind the spray hood or other obstructions. Hope this helps.
Yea there is a bit in the hydrovane website, they are designed to be installed of centre to allow for walk through transforms. Still figuring mine out, sail balance is a big piece of the puzzle. Great vid!
Your very right! Website has a wealth of knowledge and sail balance is very important for the system to operate well! 🤙🏼
Hey, heyyy!
Just found your channel, outstanding! I’m a wannabe sailor living vicariously thru vlogs such as yours. Perfect simple tutorial on wind vane steering. Your installation looks clean and professional. Looking fwd to watching more of your vids. Be safe and fair winds.
Hi Christopher! Thank you so much for the kind words! Glad to have you onboard! Yew
All hail the hydrovane, love this bit of kit, they're bloody expensive but worth every penny, I just got a quotation from them for a transom hung rudder Miura 31' and it was well over 4K pounds sterling for the specific model required, but I wouldn't sail offshore without it, the biggest advantages with the hydrovane are that it's an auxiliary rudder style and can be mounted offset on the transom as opposed to all your servo pendulum vanes like Aries and Monitor which steer the helm and require steering lines and the functionality of the main rudder, the other thing I really like about the hydrovane is you can mount a tiller directly to it. Like I said, all hail the hydrovane.
Totally agree with you on that one Jonno. Being offset from centerline non negotiable for us with the type of transom we have. Having a backup rudder is also a very good feeling. We were very happy to find a second hand unit to keep the price down but they do not seem to loose much value being such a solid design and simple mechanics. All hail the Hydrovane 🤙
love the rough weather sailing bits with the swells and all.
would appreciate more of them.
Cheers 🤘
Best piece of equipment on the boat,you will never regret your purchase, the only drawback if you change your boat you will definitely want another Hydrovane.
Yep that's spot on! Could always do a sneaky removal
Excellent. I installed mine four months ago and love it.
Glad your happy with it mate! They are awesome 🤙🏼
A great British invention........engineering of the highest standard.....Bill
Sam and Nicole: Great video! I have also installed the Hydrovane on my Oceanis 40 (I used the "stubby" vane in order to clear the bimini) and I put it in the same exact location as you after the nice folks at Hydrovane sent my your installation photo. When I tried it out for the first time, I could not believe how easy it was to use. It's too bad for folks who have the newer boats with the drop-down swim platforms, I believe that the vane would probably be too far off centerline. One the Oceanis 40, it's no big deal and there is plenty of room for using the platform for swimming and boarding the tender.
Thanks for watching Randy, glad you enjoyed it. Sure is a perfect setup for the Oceanis 40. Stocked that our pictures could help with your instillation and we hope you have many good miles sailing with it. 🤙
Congratulations, great vídeo.
Thankyou sir 🙏
& No food , no rum & no power , fairwinds . The perfect crewperson .
Hahaha yeah he’s pretty easy going. Cheers mate 🤙
Excellent ! Have you seen any boat with a large aft platform how they position the hydrovane well on the edge of the stern , does that still works or when heeling the paddle would be off water too much to generate lift ?
Thanks. I have seen many boats with this setup but I believe there is a maximum distance. This link on the hydrovane website has many different setups to give you an idea. hydrovane.com/galleries/
Hi can you tell me does the hydro vain do the steering as your one has a large rudder on some Hydro Vains there is a small rudder and a cable then tied to a strating the turn the rudder on the boat can you explain as to how the Hydro Vains worked on your boat as the rudder is larger than other Hydro Vains thanks Brendan.
Hey Brendan no worries,
So with the Hydrovane, the vessels main rudder is locked and the Hydrovane rudder does all the steering as an independent system. Other self steering systems use a different concept and usually steer via the vessels rudder. I preferred the independent rudder as a form of redundancy. Lots of info explaining on www.hydrovane.com
Hi Sam and Nicole, you have a great channel with so much potential. I love your style of videos and all the background information and details on your gear. Look forward to your next video. I see you still smiling around in the Caribbean. Wishing your good winds and safe passages.
Michael, thank you very much for your kind words that means a lot. We shall do our best and have another video shortly. We sure are smiling in the Caribbean doing our beat to enjoy our time here. Cheers mate 🤙
I've installed mine off-centre on my Hallberg-Rassy 38 because I'd lose the swim ladder otherwise and my main rudder seem to project slightly proud of the stern too. I think mine is closer to central than your's though.Just about to test-sail to Falmouth, prior to sailing to Lisbon. Yes, not the time I wanted to head south but the huge delays with tradies for a number of things, as well as lockdowns, have just eaten up time. Question for you though, which sensitivity setting and vane height seems to work best? Also, how do you take to stop worrying about destroy it when docking?
oh, a ps - i wondered if you'd forgotten the adjustment cord - until I saw it in the final picture.
Hope your trips progressing well. We always use the middle setting an minimum vane height unless the wind is super light and we raise the vane. Fair winds 🤙
Where are you now ?
Same place as last time you asked mate, so your point is still valid. You can head over to our instagram accounts to get live updates on our current locations. 🤟
@@SailingBeaver you didn't leave for hurricane season?
No we are staying for hurricane season. We decided to stay in the water and sail the southern islands.
What terrible music, i get stressed 😮
whats with the music
Hi Guy
What about it?
I have a question on your hydrovane. Do you ever encounter issues with the rudder over powering your vessel rudder. Example when you are backing out or tacking with it? I have encountered issues on both. I went to tack and went into irons. I had to turn both rudders in order to tack. Same goes with backing out. Nobody ever talks about it. It can't just be me. I am almost to the point of calling hydrovane. I also get disturbance when motoring with the rudder on it. Its a little tough for me to get it off because i have a double ender. Thanks Don
Hey Don, I can see this would be an issue with limited access to the rudder. Although we don’t have this we do usually remove the rudder if we are in a marina and when not in use. When tacking as long as the locking pin is disengaged the rudder just freely turns and we have no issue. We do have good access on our stern to help with this. Cheers
@@SailingBeaver interesting on the locking pin. Mine sorta stays in the center even when backing out with the pin disengaged. Thanks for taking time to answer. As well as these work they do have this one flaw.
how dependable are they compared to traditional electronic autopilots?
Nice!! When you shop the Hydrovane website. Does the price include H and E connectors in that top price? Or do you have to calculate all the parts individually? Thanks
Im not 100% sure as we puchased ours second hand, but I believe you would have to email to get a total price of the parts you actaully require for your boat as there is a few variations.
Get advice from Will at Hydrovane about the parts you need for your particular hull, they have masses of pictures of different install too. There are different bracket options for different hulls and their experience helps. Yes, you essentially pay-by-the-part. As far as delivery, HydroVane is a Canadian company now, which matters when you try to ring them, but manufacture happens in the UK and they ship from there. As far as installation, a spirit level helps and a dummy instal shaft is easily made prom PVC pipe.
That was insightful. You seem to have gone for some pricey solutions, but all the calls look spot on. Saw your outboard motor but did not see a dinghy anywhere. Is that to replace the Yanmar headache or you have an inflatable dinghy?
Thankyou sir much appreciated. Some solutions have been pricey I guess but we have saved a lot doing all the work ourself and purchased a lot of gear second hand. The dinghy is rigid inflatable in a flat pack canvass bag on the bow and sometimes under the boom. 🤙
Great job! When do you start the crossing?
Cheers, some crossing videos coming up shortly.
Have you seen the Swedish vampire movie "Let The Right One In"? Your editing style really reminds me of that movie, for some reason
Haha, I havent yet seen this but for now thanks.... I think!
@@SailingBeaver I very much enjoy your editing style. The quiet scenes, the video snippet montages leading the viewer to your next step without having to just narrate things, the muted excitement. I aspire to be this good someday
Wow, this is a very kind comment and truly appreciate the feedback! Glad that you enjoy this and hope we can keep it up! Cheers and fair winds 🤙🏼
Great job there. I subscribed 👍👍
Cheers Edward, lovely to have you!
Hi folks,
Just discovered your channel today and subscribed...great stuff!
Three questions on the Hydrovane:
Do you think the difference in boat motion and comfort you mentioned between autopilot and HV could be because AP steers to a waypoint or heading, whereas HV always steers to apparent wind?
Do you find that the HV is sensitive to sail trim and balance, weather helm, etc.?
Any problems with air flow at the vane itself when going to windward with cockpit and transom appendages upwind of the vane?
Thank you so much for a very engaging and informative channel.
A really good video - I learnt and enjoyed.
Great, glad to hear! Cheers 🤙
I was looking for more given the title. Where was the footage your spoke about?
BTW the Intro music is absolutely terrible.
Thanks for voicing your opinion Ralph. The video as titled is our installation of the Hydrovane, nothing more nothing less. Cheer up! 😩
@@SailingBeaver your welcome. Feed back is the best way to improve. Me? Happy as maate.
Well lots more footage of the Hydrovane in action in our Atlantic and Caribbean crossing videos with our Pacific crossing coming up shortly. Ya never know, might even be enough to get a little smile from ya Ralph. 😀
Hello guys, really enjoyed watching all you posts,
Love your sailing journeys, nice boat.
Just wanted to ask, did you buy the boat with the spiniker pole, or did you guys have it added, as I am looking to buy a 40 oceanis, but most of them don’t have the spiniker
Appreciate any info
Thanks
Glad you enjoyed mate and thankyou for this comment. It came with a standard Z spars spin pole but we installed a bigger Selden spin pole and track system as they are much more solid and better to use and we occasionally use both poles together.
I love the way you fitted the life raft, did you have the bracket made up? Or is it off the shelf?
Thanks mate unfortunately we had to remove the swim ladder to make it fit there. We found this at a French boatshop Diffusion. They are available off the shelf. 🤙
Hi again, just an update regarding a question I asked earlier.
Interesting that you guys used Portugal-Canaries for shakedown as I did something similar, on my solo crossing to Panama, except my checkpoint was more that I'd have to be comfortable with the system between Madeira and the Canaries or else I'd have to stop.
But by Madeira what a revelation and not long after turning west (got caught in a weather shadow for half a day, grrr), my use of even the autopilot and completely changed - accepting the autopilot mostly stayed switched off and the HydroVane was doing its thing instead. I found myself more completely tuned into the world of "virtual wind" because that's how HydroVane works and when I used my AP as a "crew member" for gybing, I'd set the Autopilot running as well, switch it through to windVane mode, autogybe with me running the sheets, then reset the HydroVane and switch the Autopilot off.
A change of focus with navigating too, because instead of maintaining a heading and tracking speed secondarily, for dead reckoning purposes, I sailed a more stable speed and tracked heading secondarily. Yes, I use GPS primarily but this matters too. BUT this likely wouldn't work sailing coastal because the proximity of land matters more there; Autopilot instead of Hydrovane then IMHO.
Hi Ian,
Few good points there for sure and would have to agree. The Hydrovane definitely changed our thinking towards apparent wind and also just the wind shifts in general. Originally we would change our angles of an evening with the diurnal shifts but now we have become more comfortable drawing a slight S course over time which might loose miles but gains ease and comfort. Good idea for the gybes on AP and we also agree to use the AP close to land as the shifts are much more frequent.
Hope your trip is progressing well and fair winds ⛵️
ps. I also found it not essential to lock the wheel as, with ample keel, it didn't really seem to matter.
Hi Guys, just stumbled upon your channel and thoroughly enjoying. I'm planning to fit a Hydrovane to my vessel in the next few months - I see yours has the shorter vane/sail which I will likely have to use as I have various items in the way (wind generator, arch, etc). Do you know if the shorter version as any disadvantages over the full size version and has yours performed ok in light wind conditions?
Thanks. We have the XT vane (extendable) which is perfect for us due to our solar arch. In light following winds we extend for more leverage if needed.
@@SailingBeaver many thanks for reply - I will likely go the same route.
You make very good videos.
Thanks mate!
Thanks for this.
No worries!
So good legends 🤘🤘🤘
🤙