Windvane or auto-helm or both or what?

[Bay Sailor]

This subject is not a small one I know, but even though I'm not a voyaging sailor yet I feel one should have both rather than a pair of auto-helms. It seems to me that if I'm relying on battery and engine to power my auto helm I'm taking a huge risk if I find myself with no battery at a time when I need to be saved by an auto helm or windvane.

I'm told that windvanes are useless when running downwind yet I often read of sailors going for days and weeks on nothing but a Monitor or the like.

Can someone give me the benefit of their experience on this. I want to start making coastal trips in prep for casting off by April of 2012.

Thanks guys.

Mark

[POG]

Mark,

I sailed around the world from 1970 - 1976 on a 40' wooden cutter with my friend and later business partner Hans Bernwall.  After a few improvements to our home-made windvane it did all the steering from San Diego, round the globe and back again to San Francisco.  In 2006 I single handed my Yankee 30 TOOTSIE to Tahiti with a MONITOR windvane on the stern.

Once back in civilization in 1976 Hans and I made windvanes our business - and Hans is still at it at Scanmar International in Richmond, CA.  You should know that I have no commercial interest whatsoever in these activities since I sold my half of the company to Hans in 1987.

The idea that a good windvane cannot steer a boat downwind is a myth that has its base in the fact that more "sailors" than you can imagine don't know how to balance their boat so as to not be asking the impossible of the windvane or, for that matter, autopilot.  Nothing will teach you proper sail choice and sail trim like the desperate wish to get some rest from the tyranny of the helm.  Once you know what you are doing the windvane will steer you just fine as long as there is some decent wind and a bit of boat speed.

Save the autopilot for the most boring steering of all: motoring in no wind, with a steady cloud of diesel exhaust rolling over the stern and into the cockpit.

POG now sports a shiny new MONITOR on her stern (paid for - not a gift).  By now she should already have arrived in the Marquesas, but I got a bad case of viral pneumonia just as we were ready to push off early April.  Hopefully we will be able to cast off in the next few days and squeeze by the approaching hurricane season just on the edge of it.

Carl / POG

[Bay Sailor]

Carl,

Thanks much for your very useful reply proving again that there is no substitute for experience. Sailors around my marina roundly dismiss me when I say that having two autopilots is not as half as smart as only one plus a dependable Monitor or the like. As for balancing my boat, I do need some work on that but it will come with practice and probably what I need most is constant winds.

It's rotten luck for all kinds of reasons that you've come down with pneumonia. Do what it takes to get well and push off.

Mark