DIE QUAL DER WAHL – ABOUT CHOICES
Hi Peter, I am looking for a windvane selfsteer for my Phantom 35 (tiller). Once had one, but sold it to a harbour neighbour – now cruiser who wanted to leave, still regret it.
Now choosing between a used Aries, used windpilot pacific, used windpilot pacific plus or a new pacific, thinking it should be a new pacific.
What would be the total price for a new pacific for a phantom 35 with tiller? Are there any options to use the windpilot as an emergency rudder?
Quite a few questions compressed in a short mail. Here some answers to help you to get out of this labyrinth:
ARIES no complaints but perhaps you should get some info to understand a bit about the differences between units of yesterday and today:
If you want to read about the experiences in the Golden Globe Race, here is the lesson:
PACIFIC or PACIFIC PLUS
The PP unit would be perfect for my Windpilot balances – but might not be the perfect choice for you due to some serious considerations:
– proxinity to the main rudder with interfering turbulent zone
– heavy weight 75 kg against 20 kg of the Pacific
– price
PRO-LOVED UNIT
EMERGENCY RUDDER
WORD OF MOUTH
To be straight: your PHANTOM 35 is extremely strongly built as the GENZEL BOATYARD did not even had a slight idea about how thin one could built a yacht in the earlier times – and glassfibre has been cheap at that times.
Several Phantom 35 have gone around the playball.
Most importantly: Your boat has a strong skeg hunged main rudder with 3 bearings = even after grounding the part above the skeg might last for further steering.
ORCAS will damage / eat / or playing punching ball with an auxiliary rudder unit FIRST, before they will discover: hej, there is another rudder to eat just in front.
Sailing will be balance of risks and compromises … its the skipper who will have to take decisions.
For further queries you will realize that I am almost always just a mouseclick away from you
best from Hamburg
Peter Foerthmann
Hello Peter, You supplied me with a Pacific Plus Longshaft wind-vane steering gear in 1997 which I fitted to my ferro-cement yacht „Ramprasad“ (a Hartley Golden Cowrie Fijian 37); and then we met in person in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in November 1998 where you inspected and serviced the gear; and then you took photos of us departing on our first ARC. You provided very useful advice when the system’s rudder broke off in heavy weather in 2005. Ten years later in 2015 after nine Atlantic crossings, a Pacific and Indian Ocean crossing I lost poor „Ramprasad“ on a reef in Madagascar.
Now I have a new monohull yacht „St David’s Light“, a 1963 Illingworth designed cold-moulded ocean-racing yacht which I believe would be well suited to a Pacific Plus self-steering system. I can send photos of the yacht. I would be interested to know what you think. Looking forward to hearing from you! Best Regards from Sam Coles