With my plans to go around the block it had become obvious from comments of friends, already half way round, that I was going to need a wind vane steering system.
Over the last few years I have visited many windvane sites and as the cost of the commercial products became clear I started to concentrate on the home built variety. I investigated all the commonly visited web sites and did a fair bit of reading. From time to time I made the decision that this one or the other was going to be the one I would build but I never did really start. Even as late October this year I was talking to Ramona about his home made windvane and preparing drawings to build a copy.
Then I picked up the September copy of the English sailing magazine, Practical Boat Owner [www.pbo.co.uk]. The article that caught my eye was about a new design of home built windvane called the Hebridean Windvane. I then found the web site of John Fleming [www.windvaneselfsteering.co.uk] the designer, and gleaned what information I could. I decided that there was enough information to reverse engineer the windvane, but most importantly, it would be cheap and quick to build. I decided to not import the components offered on the Hebridean web site as the cost would have been over a thousand dollars landed. It took me about two weeks to prepare the required drawings and material list. While I thought I had the design down pat, I was to discover as I built the windvane that some information was not as evident as I thought and it took careful reading and viewing of photographs and videos to extract the information.
Original Hebridean Windvane.
First Hebridean Windvanes in use.
Looking at my stock of timber I discovered some Blue Gum that I had had for some 20 years, so it was well seasoned. With some Tasmanian Oak I had, as well as buying a 2 m length of Pacific Teak flooring for the pendulum vane, there would be enough timber to build the windvane. My first action was to get all the timber dressed at the Laurieton Men's Shed so I could begin construction. The first part built was the main frame, which I made of three parts to be laminated and screwed together. The pendulum blade was reduced using an electric planner. I have changed the original design of the wings to make them easier to construct. I have spent about 16 hours doing the woodwork so far. This is the first Hebridean Windvane to be built here.
Port side of frame.
Center part of frame.
Starboard side of frame.
Cutting mortise for upper part of frame.
Upper part of frame.
Assembled frame, port side.
Assembled frame, starboard side.
Next I made up the stainless steel parts to my designs as the original seemed to be fussy in some cases. I welded the main pivot block [originally bolted together] but didn't quite get this part righ,t so I had several goes at drilling the right size holes giving me four alternatives. I didn't realize the cost of some drills [the one I needed, but didn't buy, cost $50!] and if building a seconded windvane would use a slightly smaller diameter SS pivot rod, luckily the Laurieton Men's Shed had the laths to reduce the pivot rod. I have spent about 4 hours on the steel work.
Reducing the diameter of the pivot rod.
At present I am constructing the upper vane part, but this will require the expertise of the Laurieton Men's Shed laths again to complete [around the 12th Jan 2015].
Vane part requiring lath work.
In the mean time I will be gluing and preparing the wood parts for painting, completing the final bits of SS fittings and assembling the finish components of the windvane.
Mounting the windvane on Seaka is still in development but it will be mounted using SS tube and Bimini fittings. I am trying to lighten the weight of the fitting as the Pacific Teak I am using at present is fairly heavy.
View of Windvane as will be fitted to Seaka.
So far I have spent around $150 on timber, stainless steel bits and pieces including fixings, $120 on paint and glue and $100 on rigging parts. Final costs should be under $500 plus my labour.
Thanks Guys,
Worked out how it will be mounted on the stern of Seaka today.
Glueing up tomorrow.
Well, maybe a reasonable copy. But Christ, you know how to not encourage a genius Scotsman trying to make self steering cheap and better. Carriage for John Fleming's kit would have been £100 or you could have got the plans.
I was customer no 1 last year when the plans only were available. I'll be interested to see if you can get it to work without the plans. For the info of anyone interested, getting the parts cost me more than the price of the current kit! The result is the darker coloured version in your images photographed in my yard and the Faroe Islands.
Any way it really does work well. It can be mounted in a seaway and stowed when not needed. The innovation is in the geometry of the top angled piece of wood which effectively feathers the vane as the pendulum swings. This allows the vane axle to be truly horizontal, a unique feature and a marvel of ingenuity not devised by anyone else in half a century of wind vane steering (all others being offset 20 degrees to reduce snaking). The implications of this feature are many and take a bit of trying to understand. Suffice to say the Hebridean may be the most powerful and most responsive servo pendulum wind vane available in both light and heavy airs. On top of that, friction is not an issue either. The amazing thing is that everyone can afford one and see for themselves if these claims are true.
Actually the early Horizontal windvanes from the 1960's were really horizontal. Current ones are about 20 degrees off horizontal. The reason they changed was a true horizontal vane develops the same power for all of it's arc where as a tilted axis vane the power reduces at the extreme of it's arc. This makes for a smoother response.
In a market full of tilted axis windvanes it's certainly unusual to go against the tide. The Youtube videos do not show this vane sailing downwind in light conditions, wind about 2 knots over the stern. I will wait patiently for reports.
Thanks elrig,
Yes would have brought the plans if reasonably priced, unfortunately John decided that kits were the only way to go for him.
Unfortunately the postage would have made the unit as costly as a commercial second hand unit [Aries etc] here in Australia,
so decided to go with what I had. Seemed silly to be sending coal to Newcastle.
Anyway I'm enjoying the discovery and the construction of this type of windvane.
Ramona, that's interesting, I missed finding anything that resembled this wind vane. Seems all that's new is not always the case.
There is very little that is new in windvanes since Horizontal servos appeared in the '60's. The Hebridean appears to be based on a Walt Murray design with the only real difference being the variation of the Z crank principal. Yes the oar slopes back but so do several other manufacturers. The picture here is of one of Joern Heinrich's version of a Walt Murray. The info on the picture is very handy. More info can be found on this site after a bit of searching about. http://windvaneselfsteering.com/content/walt-murrays-website
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