I am looking to install a small self steering vane on my 24' cutter, her cruising weight is about 8k lbs. I should state that I'm poor and don't use credit. Are there any good recommendations for a solution to this. I had planned on setting out in 2.5 years but am at the point where every single day being stuck in this society puts me closer to putting a bullet in my skull. I need out now. Please help. :0)
I am looking to install a small self steering vane on my 24' cutter, her cruising weight is about 8k lbs. I should state that I'm poor and don't use credit. Are there any good recommendations for a solution to this. I had planned on setting out in 2.5 years but am at the point where every single day being stuck in this society puts me closer to putting a bullet in my skull. I need out now. Please help. :0)
Don't waste the bullet going to sea in a 24' boat should do it Just kidding. I bought a used aries vane for 100.00 and repaired it myself for 30 bucks in parts. I think making your own is not worth the trouble or expense with that size boat most any gear will work just keep your ear to the ground and put the word out and it will show up in your time frame. Good luck with the adventure I have felt the same way many times well, not the bullet part
Obviously, not a substitute for keeping a proper watch, etc. but certainly useful for freeing your hands to grab a drink, eat a sandwich or go forward to make adjustments to sails or whatever.
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S/V Old Shoes
1973 Pearson 30 #255
The home-made unit shown at the mindspring link should work fine on the Roo. You may have some fun fitting it around your rudder, but nothing insurmountable. I would recommend looking around that site as there's a picture of one that was done in copper tubing that looks nice as well.
It seemed to work fine on most points of sail (except deep reeches and runs) and in most windspeeds. There were subtle and not so subtle differences in our design and frankly ours was much cruder than the one that this article might suggest. I would expect that the one in the article would probably work better and more precisely than ours but would have cost a lot more to build.
Of course this type of rudder mounted trim tab only works on boats with outboard rudders.
We used a horizontal shaft windvane since it generated more force than a vertical or angled axis vane and we hoped was easier to build. The only short comings were that horizontal axis vanes tend to be less sensitive, and need to be perfectly balanced and it would be thrown around a little more than ideal in a chop. If I had to build one again, I would do a slightly angles axis vane.
We used mostly salvaged materials; it just takes some ingenuity. The one that I worked on used light dacron line as the link between the vane and the rudder. The pulleys that the line passed over were plastic belt pulleys from a washing machine or dryer. Frankly some of the parts probably were not the best choice like the copper grounding rod that we found in a junk yard (easy to machine but corroded quickly). For us, the hardest part was coming up with low friction bearings.
I am not sure I'd want to cross an ocean this way, but it worked well for shorter range cruising and the parts were almost free.
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To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Curmudgeon at Large- sailing my Farr 11.6 on the Chesapeake Bay
Ahh, thank you all, I will dig into all the links and see where I get. I should have mentioned that I have a stern hung rudder and a very balanced boat. I have used sheet to tiller but always seem to be tripping over it. A
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Just kidding. I bought a used aries vane for 100.00 and repaired it myself for 30 bucks in parts. I think making your own is not worth the trouble or expense with that size boat most any gear will work just keep your ear to the ground and put the word out and it will show up in your time frame. Good luck with the adventure I have felt the same way many times well, not the bullet part
