On a previous boat I used a tiller pilot connected to the emergency tiller on the Hydrovane self steering as a second steering alternative. This worked well as a low current draw alternative to the main autopilot in light conditions when there wasn't enough apparent wind for the Hydrovane etc. The tiller pilot was a Raymarine ST4000 which was a bit of overkill for driving the relatively small Hydrovane rudder.

I am planning to set up my current boat with a similar arrangement and was wondering if anyone had experience of using such a setup with a smallish tiller pilot as I would like to limit the current draw as much as possible without compromising performance. Would for instance a ST1000 be man enough for the job?

The boat is a 40' longish keel cruiser around 10 tonnes displacement.

Thanks
Colin Campbell

Colin I have never done this but would be really interested in any replies as I have been thinking of doing the same for some time.

Hi Colin,
The following url (http://www.selfsteer.com/products/monitor/autoPilot.php) is for a set-up similar to what you wish information about, but for a Monitor wind vane. I thought it might be helpful anyway.
Let us know what you do and how it works out.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

I really like the idea of placing the tiller drive in the lazarette and connecting to the windvane via a morse cable. I hadn’t heard of that before and it keeps all the electrics out of the elements. Great idea.

As the power required to move the vane is miniscule I presume the smallest tiller drive would do the trick?

Dick, Simon,

Thanks for your input and ideas. I see the Hydrovane website has a mass of different tiller pilot setups in the picture gallery if you search on 'tiller pilot' with plenty of examples of different installations and fabrication ideas. There seems to be enough examples of ST1000 units in use on boats of a similar displacement to mine to make me think its worth going for that model and see how it goes.

Regards
Colin

I have just purchased a Raymarine ST2000+ to fit to my Hydrovane.  I am undecided as to whether to install it as a complete stand alone, or to connect it to my Raymarine MFD - I am inclining towards the latter.

I will be very happy to share experiences once I have installed and started using it.

I used a Raymarine ST1000, which was fine for steering the boat with the Hydrovane rudder in fairly calm conditions, but it occasionally got overwhelmed when the waves picked up, especially from abeam. I subsequently sold my boat, but if I were to do it again I would probably go with the ST2000.

Thank you so much for raising your topic Colin…

I had not considered a tiller pilot for a Windvane 🫡

Fair winds,


Sonia
SY Salacia

Hi All,

We have recently crossed the Atlantic from Cape Verde to Brazil and we killed our Autopilot with the Sargassum Sea weed fields we encountered on our crossing.
A bad decision to switch from the Hydrovane, we were having difficulties steering with it because of the Sargassum and in a moment of stupidity and exhaustion we switched to the autopilot without thinking.
With the autopilot dead we returned to the Hydrovane and sorted out that we needed to clean its rudder every couple of minutes with a boat hook.
Anyway by the time we arrived the doldrums we needed a solution to steer under engine given at this point the exhaustion levels were through the roof and hand steering for another 5 days was not on our top wishes.

We used a tiller pilot quite successfully.
And given how much time it took to get a new pilot in Brazil I can tell you we used that solution for 2 months.

We are on a 50ft monohull around 20tons with all our stuff.

You can read in detail at this blog post with photos and all

https://www.svthedream.com/post/transat-the-hydrovane-and-the-jury-rig