Rick: You are 100% correct about the safety factor. When it's working correctly, a self steering boat is NOT going to round up and stop, or circle back to pick you up. It's going to keep going where the wind blows it. I believe it was Blonde Hasler who said it, "if you fall overboard, be prepared to drown like a gentlemen". It is a serious issue. I built a working wind vane, but am going to re-visit the sheet to tiller method this year. Reason being, I took the swim ladder off the stern to mount the wind vane. For my use around here, the swim ladder would be of more use than the wind vane. A wind vane works on all points of sail, but can become eratic off the wind if not done extremely well. Rigging sheet to tiller to the jibsheet works as well if not better off the wind than a wind vane does. One thing that I missed the first time when I tried the sheet to tiller is to set the elastic to pull the tiller no farther to leeward than amidships. So when I tried it, the elastic pulled the tiller over too far and she wandered all over the place. Tod has proven that it will work and work well for these small tiller steered boats. Relatively cheap and easy to do. Howard On 3/27/06 10:01 AM, "Rick Langer" <farreach@optonline.net> wrote: I couldn't help but notice,
after several viewings, that the boat seemed to be ghosting along with no one aboard, self steering, like when the skipper fell overboard, very eerie on Erie, very Blair Witch like. I guess self steering should include harnessing in.
I look forward to seeing your rig and you first hand on one of the east coast cruises. Are you planning to attend any?
Thanks for sharing,
Rick Langer M15 #337 Bluebird (equipped with Doug's remote steering system)