Wind Vane Steering System for Trailer Sailers

In this video I give an outline of the design of my modified trim tab wind vane steering system I built for my RL28 trailer sailer Neringa. I show some of the pitfalls and some of the critical design features that make the difference between the system working effectively or failing miserably. Around 90% happy with the result so far and the project will be continue to be tweaked as I continue to use it. The RL28 is a challenging boat to self steer this way as balancing the sails and rig can be challenging in changeable conditions. I am also currently playing with my head sail configuration to try make the rig more stable and easily balanced. I am absolutely happy with the system as show and would expect it to operate near perfectly on a boat that is easily balanced and is more stable in its balance in changeable conditions. The design has been modified numerous times to get to this point. The basic design could be adapted to any boat with a transom hung rudder. It is important to remember that all boats are different and any wind vane system will have to be tuned and adjusted to the characteristics of each particular boat.