{"id":3424,"date":"2025-09-19T05:46:48","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T05:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/?p=3424"},"modified":"2025-09-19T05:46:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T05:46:48","slug":"hawkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/hawkins\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawkins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.acast.com\/6766f4022dc5d9b993aeca62\/68cce977203f72ea57c978cc\" width=\"100%\" height=\"80px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Aries never had a name.<\/p>\n<p>I did try to call my windvane self-steering \u201cArnold\u201d for a while, but somehow that didn\u2019t stick. Instead, I called the rat that joined me in Santa Marta \u201cArnold\u201d. It seemed entirely appropriate. Mind you, he never answered to it, and then I electrocuted him anyway &#8211; which made me wonder why I bothered to give him a name in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>But names for self-steering gears are traditional. After all, anything that relieves you of the tedium of sitting at the helm staring at the compass for hours on end is bound to acquire a personality &#8211; if only out of gratitude.<\/p>\n<p>The Raymarine Evolution tillerpilot, which brought us home from the Grand Banks to the Isle of Man (and finally packed up four hours out of Falmouth), was a good friend and shipmate whom I called \u201cEric\u201d. I imagined him standing at the rail with his arms folded, staring out to sea, a sour expression on his face because I was late in reefing.<\/p>\n<p>But the Aries remained \u201cthe Aries\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>And then it broke.<\/p>\n<p>Actually, I broke it, we have now established, backing out of the slipway at Varadero in Aruba. It\u2019s just that it kept on working until the servo-paddle hit something (ice?) 300 miles southeast of Newfoundland.<\/p>\n<p>I intended to get it fixed. I sent it to Lean Nelis, who manufactures and repairs Aries vane gears in Amsterdam. But DHL didn\u2019t tell me I needed to describe it as a \u201ctemporal import\u201d, so the Dutch customs demanded duty and when it wasn\u2019t paid, they sent it back.<\/p>\n<p>To the Isle of Man.<\/p>\n<p>I was in Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t ask. It was a nightmare &#8211; partly because Lean went off sailing for six weeks (why shouldn\u2019t he?)<\/p>\n<p>Long story short, I cut my losses and bought a Hydrovane.<\/p>\n<p>What a revelation! So much easier to use. So much less clutter in the cockpit &#8211; and you can have a Watt&amp;Sea hydrogenator because there\u2019s no servo-paddle to clobber it (or get knocked off by any passing debris).<\/p>\n<p>I was looking at this latest addition, all brand new and impossibly tall, and the name came to me like a flash of inspiration: \u201cHawkins\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Hawkins the Hydrovane.<\/p>\n<p>This is Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island. Only now he\u2019s grown up &#8211; 17 or 18 at least. He\u2019s done his RYA competent crew, a big strong lad with curly brown hair blowing in the wind, standing up there in a T-shirt in all weathers, volunteering to stand my watch if I want to get my head down (or finish When Harry Met Sally on the iPad).<\/p>\n<p>A bit of me feels bad for having abandoned the Aries fraternity &#8211; I had one on Largo in the 1980s. It\u2019s a bit like changing religion &#8211; or worse, moving to a new anchor.<\/p>\n<p>Getting rid of the remaining bits of the Aries hasn\u2019t been so easy. I did give three vanes, a bag of spares, and some other bits to a Dutchman in Guernsey, but his version wasn\u2019t the Lift-Up. Somebody in Queensland is having the con-rod assembly for \u00a350, which he described as \u201cvery generous\u201d. I just want to get shot of it all, yet it seems like sacrilege to throw it in the marina skip.<\/p>\n<p>So, if you\u2019re looking for a base plate and the transom fastenings, or the tiller clamp &#8211; even half a metre of stainless steel chain, let me know\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3425\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3425\" style=\"width: 215px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3425\" src=\"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_6038-225x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_6038-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_6038-scaled-600x800.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_6038-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_6038-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_6038-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_6038-scaled.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3425\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hawkins, the Hydrovane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3427\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3427\" style=\"width: 290px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3427\" src=\"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/C496F0CF-682F-4C44-B8D6-0F588ED03623_1_105_c-300x225.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/C496F0CF-682F-4C44-B8D6-0F588ED03623_1_105_c-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/C496F0CF-682F-4C44-B8D6-0F588ED03623_1_105_c-600x450.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/C496F0CF-682F-4C44-B8D6-0F588ED03623_1_105_c-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/C496F0CF-682F-4C44-B8D6-0F588ED03623_1_105_c.jpeg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3427\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Aries: (just &#8220;The Aries&#8221;)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Aries never had a name. I did try to call my windvane self-steering \u201cArnold\u201d for a while, but somehow that didn\u2019t stick. Instead, I called the rat that joined me in Santa Marta \u201cArnold\u201d. It seemed entirely appropriate. Mind you, he never answered to it, and then I electrocuted him anyway &#8211; which made &#8230; <a title=\"Hawkins\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/hawkins\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Hawkins\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3428,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3424\/revisions\/3428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}