Need wind vane solution

[Pacificseacraft]

Hi guys,
I'm committed to a very special pacific sea craft 25 mk11
1978, I've done an entire refit and am trying to decide what is the best
Self steering to install, being that I have a boom kin that surrounds
My rudder.
Is there one I could hang off center or would a simple wind vane be enough
I plan a crossing the pacific so I don't mind spending the $

[rebel heart]

Cape Horns can sit off center. I have a boomkin as well and am going with a Hydrovane because I want the spare rudder. We have worm steering which although great in a lot of ways creates a lot of friction and is hard for most vanes to overcome in light winds. The Hydrovanes are pretty popular in Mexico and for folks crossing the Pacific. Pricey, but good.

[roverhi]

rebel heart, are you sure the boomkin can handle the torgue of an auxilary rudder??? Think you'll need to go to rigid tubing reinforcement to keep from twisting the boomkin off.

Monitor, Cape Horn, Aries have all been mounted to boomkins on Westsail 32s. Any of those should work.

[Snowpetrel]

Trim tabs work pretty well if they are designed right. At the least could be worth making a removable one as an emergency self steering.

[sanibel sailor]

I made a Pardey style vane on backstay coupled to rudder trim tab for a few hundred dollars. Get John Letcher's book "Self Steering for Sailing Craft" and you can design your own

[Mike OReilly]

We have an Aries that hangs off the end of our boomkin. Works fine, although our boomkin is pretty beefy.

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by roverhi

rebel heart, are you sure the boomkin can handle the torgue of an auxilary rudder??? Think you'll need to go to rigid tubing reinforcement to keep from twisting the boomkin off.

Monitor, Cape Horn, Aries have all been mounted to boomkins on Westsail 32s. Any of those should work.

Oh no it certainly won't, or I don't want to chance it either way. It mounts to the hull at two points on the topsides, then I'll cut a hole in the lattice in the boomkin for the big stainless steel post to go through, then have it mounted that way. The boomkin is great but beefy self steering is way more important to me. I'm pretty sure I can have both, but if I can't I'll just hack into the boomkin as much as I need to.

[roverhi]

FWIW, Rebel Heart is going with an auxillary rudder vane which will actually steer the boat with the boats rudder acting only as trim tab, if at all. That means the vane has very large forces acting on what it is mounted to counteract the vane's steering rudder force. RH has figured that out and seems to be mounting it through the boomkin but not attached to it.

Pendulum Servo Vanes create relatively little twisting force on their mounts because they are only creating the force to turn the wheel or tiller with the boat's rudder doing the steering.