Few cruising skippers would argue with ocean sailing guru and founder of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) Jimmy Cornell when he says some form of self-steering is ‘essential for any boat that is going to be sailing offshore for any length of time’. Yet there is no requirement from World Cruising Club (WCC) for yachts participating in any of their ocean rallies to have any system at all installed. Either way – essential or not – anyone who has endured a long enforced watch at the wheel of a yacht will testify that while steering a course can be a pleasure, being unable to leave the helm can also be a nightmare at sea. More than 250 vessels took part in the most recent series of WCC rallies across the Atlantic – 142 entered the 2,700-mile ARC from Gran Canaria to St Lucia; 92 entered ARC Plus from to Grenada via the Cape Verdes Islands, and 30 entered ARC January, which is the same route as the November ARC. The questions we asked each of these crews focussed on self-steering and we also asked for each skipper’s three top self-sufficiency tips. We wanted to know which was the most popular self-steering method, how the equipment performed, what went wrong and what the top tips are for successful self-steering at sea. Autopilot vs windvane Of the 230 complete responses to the questionnaire (out of a total of 251 yachts that finished one of the three separate events) there were five yachts that sailed without any form of self-steering. Other than them, every yacht had an electronic autopilot fitted – no-one that we know of sailed with windvane only, although 33 yachts had windvane systems fitted as well as autopilots, and some windvanes were in fact used as the primary system. Monohulls make up the majority of yachts fitted with windvane self-steering, but there were two catamarans using them (out of 65 multihulls overall) as well. Electronic autopilots are obviously now the dominant technology in self-steering and the most modern refinements, such as the 9-axis sensor, sailing specific algorithms and the powerful remote controls, have improved usability over the last decade. The average boat in the fleet is around 15 years old, while the average electronic autopilot installation is half that age. While there’s no denying that there’s still a place for vintage kit – some were using pilots from Raytheon dating back 30 years – it’s worth mentioning that the questionnaire results do indicate that the older the boat, the lower the rating given to the self-steering gear (even though not all older boats carry old autopilots!). Even the smallest vessel in the fleet, the 9.75m long catamaran Ciel Bleu, used a tiller pilot while the smallest monohull, Canadian flagged Venturi I, relied solely on a Raymarine pilot. The next biggest yacht, 1980 Hallberg-Rassy 352 Petoya Too, had both a windvane and an autopilot fitted. Petoya Too’s German skipper Thomas Klemens recorded using his boat’s 10-year-old Raymarine ST1001 wheelpilot for … Continue reading What’s the best autopilot kit for a transatlantic?