Hebridean Wind Vane Design Features
Storage in a boat locker is possible with pendulum disconnected from a frame folded flat.
Weighing only 12 kg, the Hebridean is easy to lift off and on the socket as needed and will not put a boat out of balance, even if small (less than 10 metres in length) and of light displacement. Nor will it put stress on the transom when pounding through waves in heavy weather.
For simplicity, the vane and the pendulum are both mounted on a wooden frame that pivots as a whole in an angled socket fixed to the boat. The link between the two, for the vane to rotate the pendulum (and counter-rotate it to prevent over-steering), is a carbon fibre push-rod and lever. The frames of other wind vanes are fixed solid to the transom and for the link, they require specialised machined cogs mounted on friction-free bearings to control steering, which is one reason why they are expensive and vulnerable to salt deposits that create friction.
Damping the vane to prevent over-steering is by “feed back” from the pendulum swing and is a unique feature of a Hebridean..
See videos of it in operation, and photographs of the mechanism.
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