Off topic, I know, but I can't help being excited about the first Brittany, indeed, French junket since the Brest Festival of 1996.  (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong here.)  Any more takers?  If so, maybe Brian could start a new thread :-)

Matt said:... as soon as the weather is favourable the dog and I will leave dreary Plymouth for foreign shores.

Matt, we added a Simrad tiller pilot to Paradox's Hydrovane system last season and it worked a treat, replacing our B & G system that had died. Less current draw and powerful enough for the sort of sailing we do. There are some threads about tiller pilots here: http://www.junkrigassociation.org/Sys/Search?q=tiller%20pilots&types=7&page=1, and some good info on Hydrovane's site, bottom of the page:http://www.hydrovane.com/our-product/emergency-steering/

We'll be in Brest from June 1st, Marina du Chateau. Drop by if you're in the area? Chris Gallienne may turn up in his junk too, you never know...

Thanks Annie,

I have a confession; I built about  95% of a Belcher OGT1, and have discarded it. When I test mounted it on the pushpit, high enough for the counter weight part to clear the pushpit, the whole thing was so huge that it looked more like a mizzen!

It's hideous hugeness, plus something Chris Gallienne said (about the torque needed on the tiller when the wind is a abaft  the beam) was enough for me to give up on the OGT1. I also went and had a second look at the two or three blogs that described having built an OGT1, and had a look at their latest blog posts, and noticed that none of them were still using it.

So I'll take Arne's advice; go sailing and see how Mariposa behaves, then decide. So I've bought myself an electronic tiller pilot and installed it, and as soon as the weather is favourable the dog and I will leave dreary Plymouth for foreign shores!

If the tiller pilot will put up with my abuse for the summer, I'll tackle a windvane project during the winter (while teaching English in Spain, if all goes to plan).

By the way Annie, where can I find pictures and description of the self steering windvane solution you went for on Fantail? I presume you wrote a blog post about it, but I can't find it.

Best, Matt

Some news about my Hebridean windvane selfsteering unit.

I had a short trial last Saturday in a light breeze and things seemed to be working. Unfortunately my camera ran out of juice... so no photos of the unit under sail. I hope to rectify that this coming weekend.

The remote course setting works just fine. Because it's based on a worm, it does not matter if the line goes slack at times (in practice the amount of slack is minimal) as the course setting disk cannot rotate against the worm. I'd be willing to make the details available to anyone who may want to make their own remote course setting devise. I could also make it into a kit for those who do not have the skills to make their own from scratch if there was interest.

Photos of the unit and the remote course setting can be seen in my members album and should be mostly self explanatory. I'll be more than happy to provide any other information.

Hopefully I'll have more news after next weeks sail.

And while I'm musing on self-steering, has anyone got any experience with the "Quartermaster" windvane as described on page 86 of the AYRS book?