L'Eau Commotion Westabout

This is the wind steering setup I am now using. The only change is the extruded aluminium box sections that look like mini davits allow the pulleys to be set farther apart to give less slack in the steering lines. Now this system works well - up to a point. It is excellent on the wind and a close reach in all wind strengths but on other points of sail it does have its limitations. On a broad reach in solid conditions there is a tendency to round up and tear off fast in a direction that you don't want to go. Again under full sail dead downwind as the yacht half surfs on the crest of a wave the wind vane, which is not far above the surface of the sea, finds it has no apparent wind and the yacht can veer off causing a collapse or backing and jibing. The solution is to reduce sail and slow the boat down or - use an autopilot! The autopilot of course uses electricity and formerly this was supplied by solar panels and a windmill. Again there are limitations as downwind the windmill is again using apparent wind which turns it too slowly to produce meaningful current or alternatively on a reach the apparent wind can be strong enough to shut down the system on over voltage and in my system required a manual start up. The other problem I found was in a knockdown both solar panels on a typical arch with a wind turbine tend to get wiped out so I have gone for one removable solar panel and a Watt & Sea hydrogenerator which I installed initially in the Falkland Islands, but not really in the right position. It was too far off centreline and mounted too high. It seems to be placed in the right position now.

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