Paul Heiney The magic of the wind vane goes beyond just holding a steady course; it becomes a companion and therapist on a long passage. It is something that no electric autopilot can ever rival
H
ands up everyone in the room who has an electric autopilot. A sea of waving palms appears before me. Autopilots are as common on boats these days as baked beans used to be. They are, without doubt, useful little critters, and so common that there are some amongst us who wouldn’t even consider a trip from Hamble to Poole if the little buzzing box wasn’t in working order. The cruising population now divides into two camps; those with electric self steering, and those who are about to get it - with apologies to that couple at the back of the room who have turned up in sou’westers and tarred canvas smocks and have never heard of them. The trouble is, they go wrong. And quite often. It’s not that they’re badly designed or built, but that we ask too much of them. If you are finding it hard work to hang on to the wheel or tiller as the rolling sea attacks you from bow or stern, what makes you think your autopilot is going to find it any easier? Too much responsibility and poor thing has a nervous breakdown, which is when we curse, put on our grumpy face, and lash ourselves merrily to the wheel for the last fifteen hours before home. I competed in the solo transatlantic race some years back; forty five of us crossed the start line, and only fifteen of us made it to the finish. Of those who dropped out, more than half were because of autopilot failure, some with high-spec devices too. Make of that what you will. But mine didn’t fail because I never used it. I might press its big red button for a minute or two while I reefed, but I never asked more of it than that. And if that sounds smug, that was exactly how I felt every time I glanced at my wind-driven, mechanical self steering, hanging off the back of the boat, never complaining, always keeping me on the straight and narrow. You can be best friends with a wind vane and like the ‘four-legged - friend’ in that old song - it will never let you down. I don’t know why there aren’t more of them. They’re not cheap, but neither is a decent electric gizmo these days. On the plus side they require no battery, have no USB sockets,
and they love it to bits if they are constantly sprayed with salt water, and love life even more the windier it is. Perhaps it’s down to aesthetics. I knew a chap who wouldn’t have one for all the tea in China; he said he ‘wasn’t going to have scaffolding hanging of the back of my boat!’ The way the world is going, he may have to change his mind. If politics doesn’t seriously disrupt the precious metal trade, it’s quite likely that nature will. Have you heard of lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, samarium, europium? No, neither have I but everything from mobile phones to satellites is stuffed with them All these unheard-of precious metals that make modern life tick are in ever shorter supply, and the world hunger for ever more fiendish electronic systems will surely trump any requests for a bag or two of neodymium from the autopilot makers. Practical matters apart, there’s pleasure in a wind vane that feels lacking in other systems, and it’s no coincidence that most owners give them a nickname, as if they were friends, although I never have. My favourite pastime, on a fine day, is to grab a mug of tea, settle myself down on the stern, and simply watch it doing it’s magic. I’ve owned pretty much all the major models over the years, and all are fascinating. On some you can watch the strings swinging to and for in time with the passing waves; others have a mechanical linkage which is beyond my understanding, but nevertheless riveting. I could no more go the sea without one hanging around behind me, than I could without....and here I am struggling to think of something more important and I can’t. Windvanes are not just for ocean work. I wouldn’t use one in the Solent on a Sunday afternoon, but just the job for a quick dash to Cherbourg or across Lyme Bay. Once you’re the master of it, it’s just a quick to set it as pressing that big red button. On my return from the south Atlantic, I was asked how long I had spent behind the steering wheel. I think the chap asking the question imagined that I grimly clung to it beneath the baking heat of the sun for days on end like the Ancient Mariner. I answered, ‘About twenty minutes. Ten leaving harbour and ten arriving.’ He didn’t believe me.
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MAY 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
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ILLUSTRATION CLAIRE WOOD
‘Practical matters apart, there’s pleasure in a wind vane that feels lacking in other systems’
