Albany to Tasmania - Day 15 ‘Aries Wind Vane - A Ships Best Crew’
- morganflower
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Friday, May 15th 2026.
The last 100 nautical miles has been very consistent with a force five to six blowing from the North East. As we approached Bass Strait, the depth rose from over 500m to just 80m.
Despite the low swells, this made short seas stand up making for a relatively uncomfortable motion.
Neither Kevin nor I felt particularly great.
In these conditions on this tiny 33ft sailboat, the most comfortable place to be is in your bunk.
Lucky for us, our third crew member loves to take the helm, particularly when it’s windy and rough.
This crew member of course is my Mk.II Aries Wind Vane that is affixed to Emigre’s transom. It uses wind power to control the helm, keeping the yacht on the same angle relative to the wind direction.
The ‘wind vane’ part of the unit is made from a sheet of 6mm marine plywood approximately 1000x200mm, that is mounted to a pendulum weighted with a counterweight. The pendulum is mounted to a rotating ring actuated by a ratchet mechanism. This allows the wind vane and pendulum to be angled into the wind resulting in the plywood vane standing upright.
The pendulum is attached via a connecting rod to the main gear set that adjusts the angle of attack of the servo rudder, trailing in the water underneath the wind vane.
As the pitch of the servo rudder is adjusted by the wind vane, it pivots from side to side using the force of the water. The water moving past the servo rudder has the same effect as the wind on your hand when holding it out of a car window whilst driving at speed. The great force of the servo rudder is applied to control lines that connect to Emigre’s tiller, steering the rudder.
With the boat on course and the sails trimmed properly as to reduce weather helm, the wind vane is adjusted using the ratchet mechanism so that it is standing upright with the counterweight facing the wind.
The two control lines from the servo rudder are then attached to the tiller and made fast. The Aries Wind Vane now has control of the ship, adjusting the helm to keep the wind vane blade upright.
The Aries Wind Vane steers in all conditions above 8kn of wind, irrespective of the wind angle. It steers so accurately that it can be set to sail straight down-wind with a foresail poled out to windward and a preventer set on the mainsail.
Its best features is that it uses zero electricity, zero computers and makes zero noise!
Wind vane users must pay attention to their compass course as a change in wind direction will also result in a change of compass heading.
Below about eight knots of wind speed or under motor, the loads on the helm are low enough, and battery power is plentiful enough to run the Simrad TP22 electric ‘tiller pilot’. This device uses an internal flux gate electromagnetic compass that provides heading data to a computer. The computer controls a screw type linear actuator attached directly to the tiller. The tiller pilot will accurately hold a compass course which makes navigating in narrow channels and in variable wind conditions safer.
When connected to a NMEA 2000 networked anemometer (wind speed /direction sensor), the tiller pilot can be configured to steer to a particular wind angle to operate similar to a wind vane self steering device.
This may be beneficial when sailing to windward as if the wind vane or autopilot is set correctly, the yacht will always sail the best possible course to windward.
The Aries Wind Vane does ninety percent of the steering on board Emigre with no fuss, no noise, and most importantly no electricity. The units can be purchased brand new from Aries in the Netherlands for approximately $7500AUD or found in Australia on Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree for as little as $1000AUD. They can be fitted to a range of boats from traditional or canoe stern types to modern production boats or catamarans. I have even fitted one to cruising yacht with a transom hung rudder!
They fasten to the transom with eight bolts and a simple ball and socket mechanism which attaches to the unit with aluminium tubes. The unit can be removed for storage by removing four aircraft pins or the wind vane can be removed and the servo rudder lifted clear of the water. (MKII)
Commonly written off by modern cruisers and ‘old fashioned technology’, the humble Aries Wind Vane has well and truely earnt its spot on Emigre’s permanent crew list. Significant testing has proven it eats less and complains less than any other crew member I’ve ever had aboard!
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