My cousin went to buy a self steering device for his 28ft stell yacht
last week. The mechanical type, an arm that expands and contracts and
it attached to the tiller, uses 1 amp approx.

Price was about $600 Aust ($400 US)... good so far.


When he asked if it would work on a steel yacht they said no and
refused to sell it to him, presumably the steel would affect the
electronic comapss in the unit.

Has anyone with a steel boat found this to be so?

The other alternative is a unit with a separate compass, where the
compass would be placed high on the mast, but these are many times
more expensive.

Comments anyone?

N. Peter Evans

Have you thought about servo pendulum wind vane steering? No electronics to
bugger up and no power consumption. Plenty of second hand Aries/Hasler
vanes(and others) on the market that can be refurbished cheaply and will
provide effortless steering in conditions that would make a tiller pilot
pack it in. You could also add a small tiller pilot to the vane to make it
more efficient in holding a steady course or for use in lighter conditions.

FWIW

Andrew

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 05:49:41 +1000, "Andrew Denman"
wrote:

Have you thought about servo pendulum wind vane steering? No electronics to
bugger up and no power consumption. Plenty of second hand Aries/Hasler
vanes(and others) on the market that can be refurbished cheaply and will
provide effortless steering in conditions that would make a tiller pilot
pack it in. You could also add a small tiller pilot to the vane to make it
more efficient in holding a steady course or for use in lighter conditions.

FWIW

Andrew


We have a 44ft 18 ton steel ketch with primary hydraulic steering
(with autopilot) and the original rod and chain steering as back up.

We have an Aries for when we are sailing. But we can also fit a
tiller pilot onto this when motoring and while we don't use it any
more with the new steering system, it worked fine in the past.

We too are from Melbourne with the boat at Royal Brighton. If you'd
like to see the set-up drop me an email.

Peter

(info (at) oceanodyssey (dot) net)

www.oceanodyssey.net
"Do not measure your life by the number of breaths you take,
Rather by the number of times life just takes your breath away"