RTW PLANS WITH CHILDREN – ADVICE ABOUT WIND VANE STEERING
Dear Peter, I was looking for informations about the Windpilot Atlantik model and I was very happy to find your website which is full of usefull pictures and informations!
I’m a 28 year old Swiss fellow and with my wife, we just purchased a 1982 Dufour 31 in south of France. We have 12 months to prepare the boat before leaving France for a 2 years circumnavigation :-)))))))))
My philosophy is « Less is More » and I want to prepare the boat as simple as possible (as less electricity dependence as possible : use of sextant and wind pilot as main tools etc.). We will be more than happy if you could give us a little help !
Here are some pictures of our little Noam so that you see who we are and how is the back of the boat. As you can see, she has a stern skirt below that is very usefull.
We were lucky to find an Atlantik on south of France and I would like to know if you have some technical drawings of it so that I can make some drawings myself and see how can I adapt it to the boat (need to drill the stern skirt for the rudder axis passage).
My Idea is to build an aluminium structure to hold the solar panels and the dingy engine. The problem is that the huge windfane of the Atlantik will need to be extended so that it will be above the alu structure (rollbar arch). Here is a little drawing that shows the idea.
Do you think that I can increase the length of the inox tube to allow the windvane to be above the future rollbar arch (needed to be 1m longer than actually) ? Will it loose some power because of the extansion of the distance between windvane and rudder ?
Thanks a lot for your precious help.
Best regards,
Nico and Sophie
My immidiately answer:
Good morning to you,
got any points, here my straight answers:
If you intend to go offshore with one of my earlier Atlantik units, which originally has been advised for vessels up to about 30 ft … you should consider that the unit is almost beyond of what this kind of unit will be able to perform in serious circumstances, as the vessel will be loaded / heavier that for normal cruising .. and might come to the end of her answers … with the need of hand steering at the end.
Not a perfect idea to fit the gear in the way your drawing shows, as sugar scoop through will be a challenge to get strongly fitted … and extending the vane mast will be the next challenge. Not mentioning the additonal weight of this measure … the Atlantik might end with about 35 – 38 kg easily.
Not to forget the proxinity of the main rudder, causing lots of turbulent water right behind for the poor auxiliary rudder …
All in all: not my advice – not at all!
And please understand that this advice has not been give to acellerate my balnace for sales … its just straight in advice.
In all the todays PACIFIC b-y f-a-r will be the better solution, performance- wise, weight-wise and realiably overall in any circumstances … Many ways to fit, just compare some picts:
Please let me know the berth of the vessel and I will provide a quote for a suitable unit. for further queries you will realize that I am almost always just a mouseclick away from you
best from Hamburg
Peter Foerthmann
