Anyone here actually strapped a servo-pendulum windvane to a Catalina with a sugar-scoop transom and stern rail seats without turning the aft end into a nautical plate of spaghetti?
I’m trying to add a vane to a Catalina 30/34-era boat for offshore-ish trips, but I also like:
- Using the swim ladder without practicing yoga
- Not decapitating guests with control lines
- Keeping the outboard bracket and BBQ where they are, because priorities
Every vane manufacturer swears “it’s totally fine” until you show them a photo of the scoop + seats + aft pushpit zoo, and then suddenly it’s a “custom solution” with the price of a used dinghy. Before I start fabricating stainless art I can’t unsee, who’s actually done this and lived to explain the routing?
Specific things I’m trying to sort:
- Mounting: Did you go transom plate below the ladder, offset to port/starboard, or build an external frame off the pushpit legs? Any reinforcement to the inside of the scoop/transom knees? Photos, templates, or beer-napkin sketches welcome.
- Rudder link: For wheel-steered boats, did you run the vane’s tiller lines to a wheel drum, an auxiliary quadrant on the rudder post, or a temporary emergency-tiller adapter? Any interference with the emergency tiller or cockpit table?
- Line routing: How are lines cleared of the stern rail seats and ladder? Low-friction rings on stanchion bases? Under the seats via fairleads? Did you add a removable “bridle bar” just aft of the helm for clean geometry?
- Ladder access: Clever hinge/detach setups so the ladder still works? If you made a center cutout in the vane’s lower mount, how much stiffness did you lose and how did you get it back?
- Autopilot integration: Anyone running a wheel pilot for motoring and the vane for sailing using the same wheel drum? Problems with slippage or the pilot fighting the vane? Bonus points if you’ve tried “tillerpilot drives the vane” Frankenstein mode.
- Backing plates: What did you use inside the transom/scoop-G10, aluminum, or overkill stainless? Did you tab in knee braces or just big washers and wishful thinking?
- Waterline clearance: With a cruising load, does the vane paddle kiss the wake at 6 knots, or stay clean? Any shim angles to keep it out of exhaust burps?
- Tender/davits: If you carry a dinghy on the stern, how bad is the tango with the vane? Is an offset mount actually livable long-term?
Also curious which models fit best out of the box on a Catalina 30/34 hull: Monitor, Aries, Hydrovane (yes, I know that’s direct-drive), Windpilot, Cape Horn, etc. If you picked one, why that and not the others for our particular transom geometry?
Measurements, part numbers, and “do this or you’ll cry later” lessons earn eternal gratitude. Bonus if you’ve found a way to keep the BBQ lit, the ladder usable, and the stern rail seats functional while the boat steers itself like a caffeinated sea wizard.