Everybody has a name for their self steering mechanism. What is your's called?

Kolibri

Kolibri

Member
408
473
SF Bay / Haleiwa, HI
My daughter and most enthusiastic sailing buddy was diagnosed as dyslexic at ~6 years old. She struggled so much learning how to ready that she wouldn't even attempt to read street signs when I asked her to do so. After working with a tutor for a few weeks I started reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to her. We would do one chapter each night before bedtime. After a few chapters I realized that she already knew what was happening in the next chapter. ~18 years later during the prep work for our double handed trip from San Francisco to Hawaii she decided that our Monitor Windvane should be named Dobby after a house elf in the Harry Potter books. It stuck and I had a few custom bumper stickers made. We take off in early June of 2022.

What did you name your windvane, tiller pilot, auto helm, etc? Pics are good if you have them.

dobby_cr.jpg

 
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BobJ

Super Anarchist
1,204
150
Related to this...

In the 2006 Singlehanded Transpac, when each skipper came ashore in Hanalei Bay and we attended our first "Tree Time," we were asked to mimic the sound(s) our autopilots made.  Wind vanes were fairly quiet but some of the electric and even hydraulic drives made quite a racket, especially when the skipper was trying to sleep.  One pilot was described as sounding like it was speaking Chinese, etc.

At the awards dinner all the skippers stood up and we formed an autopilot choir, each making the sounds of our autopilots.  Most had given their autopilots names as well, but I only remember the cacophony at the awards dinner.

 
Snowden

Snowden

Super Anarchist
1,007
506
UK
Met a chap in the Scilly Isles who referred to his Monitor vane as the vicar - "it doesn't smoke or drink and it keeps us on the True Way".

 
toddster

toddster

Super Anarchist
4,053
892
The Gorge
I had the opposite experience.  I picked a tentative new boat name and my nieces told me "You can't use that! It's a (something) in Harry Potter!"

Somewhat convoluted reasoning: The boat is "Arcturus," or "Archy" for short.  Therefore, the wind vane is Veronica.  The electric tiller pilot of course, is "Jughead."  

 
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JL92S

Super Anarchist
1,778
424
UK
4 years ago I nicknamed our H5000 pilot Max Verstappen. Expensive, complicated to operate, moments of sheer brilliance, does some questionable manoeuvres 

 
badia420

badia420

Member
107
43
Barcelona
On my father's baot is always called Morgan

On the Archambault 40 i used to race it was Natasha

i do not have a name yet for the one i jsut put in my boat...

 
gcutter

gcutter

Member
269
25
Nofolk, VA
Diablo's EV-100 autopilot is named Charon, the ferryman of Hades who guides the boat and its souls across the river Acheron (or Styx) from the living world to the dead one. Kind of creepy, but he's always delivered us when needed across various unfriendly and friendly waters, and we haven't had to have a coin in our mouths to pay for his services!

Cheers, Greg

 
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accnick

Super Anarchist
2,618
1,807
The Monitor on our last Calypso was Brave Ulysses.

The autopilot didn't have a name, as I recall.

The autopilot on our current Calypso has no name, either.

Somehow, the windvane seemed to have personality, since it took some fiddling to get it working properly, and seemed to do better when you talked to it.

The autopilot, on the other hand, just asks you to press a couple of buttons, and goes to work with no fuss or bother. It just goes where you tell it to go until you tell it to go somewhere else.

 
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Plumbean

Member
282
32
When I re-installed my Monitor to play around with during Covid I texted the wife to tell her that the windvane was fantastic, but spellcheck corrected it to say that the Wind Babe was fantastic.  So that is what she is called. 

 
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