self steering

[bill broome]

don't like the sound of that 'universally', grasshopper.

one possibility: lee rudder does most of the steering, lee vane might be occluded by windward hull.

might have to go with tiller control if that turns out to be the case.

[rayaldridge]

Bill, it can be done, apparently. Here's an old thread about self-steering on Wharrams:

http://www.wharram.eu/cgi-bin/yabb2/...num=1114909465

[bill broome]

ray, thx for wharram link, although it's a bit discouraging.

now your 'slider', that's worth a smile! narrow dory is my choice too, on a fun per dollar basis.

[rayaldridge]

Bill, thanks for the kind words. I was pretty much forced to use that hull form, in order to get enough displacement for two and a camping outfit in a cat under 16 feet.

While poking around looking for self-steering info for cats, I came across a story about Cooking Fat, the Tiki 21 sailed around the world, mostly solo. The boat was equipped with a home-made vane, but it wasn't used for short tacking, as it had to be moved to the windward transom to work well. Fine for long passages, of course, but might be a clue as to why cats seems to be less amenable to self-steering.

[popperspop]

Bill......Some of us are currently hooked on the travel blog of a canadian by the name of Tony Bigras. His sixteen foot catamaran "Miss Cindy" has self steered down most of the length of Baha California due to having a " Bi Plane " sail arrangement. He even has some video footage of the tiller while self steering.
No wind vane or mechanism, just two parallel main sails. You could e-mail him with a question on self steering. His Blog :

http://www.ideaintegrator.com/boats/tmc/default.html

Dwight

[bill broome]

thx pop= will take a peek