When we decided to add windvane steering coupled with a hydrogenerator to our sailboat, our focus was on the practical aspects: conserving battery power, adding rudder redundancy, and enhancing our off-grid capabilities. It wasn’t until we sailed with the vane overnight for the first time that we came to appreciate the transcendent thrill the devices also deliver. When the wind is both powering and steering the boat, a satisfying synergy of motion is achieved.
Steering in the before times had always been a fight where constant correction was required to maintain course, and the electric autopilot was always on the back foot trying to catch up. The windvane, in contrast, is a peacemaker that provides equilibrium using pure physics, freeing the boat to go where we need her to go as if she knows the way on her own. I never considered steering a fight, until all of a sudden it wasn’t. The vane represents a transformational change, and we fly the red vane sail as a badge of honor marking our sailboat’s arrival into a higher state of being.
Attaining balance with the sea is cool. But banking amp-hours is cool too. Shutting off the electric autopilot and steering by vane saves power while at the same time, the attached hydrogenerator creates power. Not only are these two pieces of equipment mounted together, they also work together to balance the onboard energy budget.
My wife, Alex, and I are out cruising full time aboard our 36-foot Morris Justine. One of our goals is to keep the engine out of our battery charging equation and instead rely exclusively on solar and hydropower. The 2022-23 Golden Globe Race is proof positive that this is achievable. Most of the boats in the race, including Kirsten Neuschäfer’s winning boat, Minnehaha, were equipped with the exact vane/hydrogenerator setup we chose for our boat. In fact, the success of that equipment on the racecourse around the world is what helped us trust it enough to install it on our boat.
Several brands of vane steering systems are available in the marketplace, and many sailors have built their own. The systems come in two varieties: One type of vane controls the ship’s rudder to steer the boat. The other locks the ship’s rudder and uses its own ancillary rudder to steer the boat. On the latter systems, the additional rudder also serves as an independent spare should the main steering system fail. The new breed of rudder-eating orcas off the coast of Spain is one of many threats to a boat’s crucial steering system, so it’s smart to have a backup (“Whale Watch,” January/February 2024).
We chose the ancillary rudder system built by Hydrovane. Their customer support is excellent, and they talked us through a number of challenges during the installation. Sailboat transoms come in all shapes and sizes, and Hydrovane has a variety of mounting solutions to accommodate almost all shapes. In theory, installation is simple; just six bolts hold the vane to the boat. It’s getting those six bolt holes drilled in precisely the right spots that proved tricky.
In-water installation is encouraged so that measurements to the waterline and to vertical can be more easily and accurately assessed. Our traditional transom angle made this project challenging, as everything was overhead. Lying on a paddleboard under the back of the boat put me in the right position to work. I rigged a tarp in the water under the back of the boat to catch anything I might drop. I also added lanyards on all parts for belt-and-suspender security. A few things did indeed go for a swim, but the safety nets worked, and nothing went to the bottom.
Installing the Watt & Sea hydrogenerator was much easier. Hydrovane sells the Watt & Sea machine and they have also designed a mount for installing it to the frame of the steering vane, saving additional holes in the transom. If this setup was good enough for Kirsten Neuschäfer, it’s good enough for me.
The total installation was mostly a one-person job and I did it on my own; I estimate it was about 70 hours of labor to install plus another 20 hours to plan and measure before ordering parts. It wasn’t an easy project, but the instructions were excellent, as were the phone and email support. Drilling those six holes was worrisome, but the people at Hydrovane have installed a lot of these and have developed a system for measuring. They explain it well, and it worked flawlessly. Maybe the best judge of project efficiency is retrospection; if I were to do this one over, I wouldn’t change much of anything.
The hydrogenerator tilts down for use and then tilts up out of the water when charging is complete. Control lines make this easy to manage from the pushpit rail above. A cable runs from the drive in the water to a small and colorful Watt & Sea-provided controller mounted in a dry and out of the way spot down below in the cockpit locker. A pair of wires then deliver power from the controller to the house battery bank.
A Bluetooth-connected app on my phone lets us track production. Power output is directly correlated with boatspeed. If we could sail our boat at 12 knots, the Watt & Sea 600 would produce 600 watts of power. At our more typical speed of 6 knots, the generator produces about 200 watts of power. Surfing down a wave at over 8 knots, I’ve seen it touch 400 watts. The generator keeps producing day and night, whereas our solar array only works during daylight and only puts out top power for a few hours around peak sun.
As with most major new gear, there have been some learning curves and challenges with the equipment, some anticipated and some not.
The Watt & Sea hydrogenerator must be tilted up once the batteries are fully charged. If we fail to lift it out of the water at full charge, the company warns us that we will destroy the generator. The drive makes a faint noise when it’s time to pull it out, but we haven’t always heard it, and the human error factor here has me nervous. I wish it would shift to a “float” status on its own like every other charging device I’ve worked with and continue to spin without harm should we forget to lift it out when a full charge status is reached.
The vane rudder chatters when motoring. It works like a magician when we’re sailing, but when we’re motoring or docking, we wish it would disappear.
Removing the vane rudder from deck and reinstalling it is difficult. Dropping the rudder can be managed with the help of a boathook, but reinstalling it requires a trip to the back of the boat in a dinghy—at least on our boat that’s the only way to do it. With other shaped transoms, you might be able to accomplish this from a kneeling position on a swim platform, but even then, the boat would have to be stopped, and it wouldn’t be easy.
The truth is we want to remove and reinstall the vane rudder frequently. It’s great for steering the boat when offshore, but we don’t want it down when piloting near-coastal from buoy to buoy, handling the boat in close quarters near the dock, when motoring, or if we were to see an orca coming for a visit (highly unlikely where we sail, at least for now, but still). It’s also good to remove the rudder when at rest to prevent marine growth. Some sort of rudder pivot similar to the pivot the Watt & Sea outdrive uses would be a great improvement for this vane.
Both the vane and the hydro drive are prone to catching seaweed and plastic in the water. This is easy enough to clear and is mainly just a nuisance. But I can also imagine that a snag on a lobster trap or other fishing gear could cause significant damage. This equipment isn’t intended for inshore use where fishing gear tends to live.
The vane structure can be a sharp hazard to a dinghy tied astern when at anchor in light and/or rolly conditions. A friend’s dinghy was destroyed by his own vane when a wake came by and sent the vane with the rudder removed down into the inflatable like a spike. Our hard dinghy has a few new vane attack scars—nothing too serious, and she lives on to fight another day. We’ve learned from these mishaps and have developed healthier dinghy tie habits. If there’s plenty of wind to keep the dinghy back, we can still safely leave her tied astern when at anchor. But if there is any concern, we revert to either a side-tie or hauling her out. It’s good practice to haul a dinghy out of the water when not in use anyway to protect against theft, marine growth, and wear and tear. The vane adds one more reason to pull her up and out.
One other consideration: The gear isn’t inexpensive, even without installation costs, making this a serious investment. I ordered both directly from Hydrovane. The Watt & Sea cost $6,290, while the Hydrovane was $7,715 (this includes shipping and almost all installation and wiring supplies).
As the Eagles sing, “Every form of refuge has its price.” Tradeoffs are plentiful here. The vane may not be great for coastal cruising, but it’s awesome offshore. All things considered, we’re delighted to have our new vane and hydrogenerator bolted on out back, and the practical benefits are enhanced by the intangibles. While other equipment often adds complexity and detracts from the alone-with-the-wind-and-sea experience most of us seek, vane steering goes in the opposite direction. The vane adds purity to sailing. Electricity is neither needed nor consumed, steering is no longer a fight, and the boat floats on in a silent, effortless groove.
It does take a little getting used to. There is no NMEA2000 cable connecting it to a chartplotter. We can’t set it to steer to a waypoint, and it won’t maintain a compass course. Instead, it simply maintains a constant wind angle. When the wind shifts, so does our course. This steering technique lets us leave the sheets untouched while the vane maintains optimal sail trim through oscillating shifts. When course changes are needed, a closed loop of line running back alongside the lifelines to the cockpit allows us to easily adjust course to the new desired wind angle.
A devoted cult of sailors has been evolving vane self-steering technology since the 1950s. Once you try it, your mind opens, and the newfound balance becomes addicting. The vane works tirelessly all day and night without pay or complaint. It’s a piece of boat kit that can put your head into a new gear. A Bernard Moitessier sort of gear. A Kirsten Neuschäfer sort of gear. A headspace that can make you want to keep sailing and never stop.
SAIL Contributing Editor Christopher Birch is the founder of Birch Marine Inc. in Boston. He and his wife, Alex, are now cruising full-time aboard their 36-foot Morris Justine. Follow their voyage at EagleSevenSailing.com
May 2024
