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Denis Gorman by letter

"Dear Paul,

It was good to talk to you again and to give you all the positive feedback from your Sea Feather steering gear. As I am sure you are aware, getting to the Azores and back single handed and in a small boat is a big task and requires the very best of equipment to do the job. Your steering gear was 100% reliable and did everything that was asked of it.

Indeed, if I where to list the most important equipment I had on board I would say the Sea Feather and my GPS. If I was forced to leave one behind then I would prefer to make do with a Sextant!

Once again Paul, many thanks.

Kind Regards

Dear Paul,

Despite my purchasing a Sea Feather from you over a year ago, I finally got to use it properly last week.

I took my yacht ‘Trintella’ for a brisk sail around the Isle of Wight (not as part of the race I might add) and ‘George’ had the helm for 90% of the time. This covered all points of sailing and it performed faultlessly. The only point of sailing where I chickened out was a dead run for about 45 minutes while I cleared the anchorage off Benbridge; I didn’t have the sea room to sail on two broad reaches as you had suggested. Sailing past Hurst Castle on a close reach, I felt the Sea Feather was making a meal of it; I disengaged the unit only to make a bigger meal of it steering by hand; suffice to say the experiment didn’t last long and I left well alone.

I hope to be able to get some more miles under my belt in the next few years, I will keep you posted as to how we get on; your Sea Feather has delivered exactly what I wished for; my sailing will never be the same again.

Sincerely

Iain D Arthur.

Geoff Hilditch by Email

"Hi Paul,

Just back from a week’s holiday during which I tested out my new Sea Feather – in a word “superb” !

The weather was pretty lousy with 5’s and 6’s most days so had to stay around the coast of Anglesey but it gave me the chance to get the vane set up and used to using it ( now christened “Sophie” ) – the first photo shows the vane steering on a broad reach off the North Coast of Anglesey with 15 knots of wind and sailing under just the genoa and the second shows the vane steering on a close reach a few days later near the Skerries ( approaching Holyhead) in about 20 knots with a double reefed main and well reefed genoa. I can see that the Sea Feather is going to make longer single handed passages much easier and less tiring for me and, as it is so easy to use, I reckon it will be used a lot on short coastal hops as well.

As I said in one of my earlier messages, a superb piece of precision engineering ! Please feel free to use my testimony and/or photos in your advertising and, if anyone based in the North Wales area wants to look at one, ask them to give me a call.

Best regards

Geoff Hilditch "

Dennis Gorman "

Dear Paul,

I wanted to drop you a quick line to let you know that I successfully completed the "2010 Jester Challenge" and arrived in Newport Rhode Island USA on 9th July. The crossing from Plymouth took 47 days 23 hours and 35 minutes. This included an emergency stop of 70 hours in the Azores whereupon I repaired a torn headsail and re wired some faulty electrical connections.

I am sure you will be pleased to know that my Sea Feather Wind Vane performed admirably and brought me all the way across without a fault. The passage and weather was by no means easy with frequent gales and the gulf stream pushing hard against us.

I am wondering if I am the first to have taken a Sea Feather single handedly across the Atlantic? I am sure that I wont be the last.

All the best

Denis Gorman

Lizzie-G

2010 Jester Challenge

Hi Paul

You may recall that in early 2009 you fitted a Sea Feather wind vane to our sailing boat "Fine Gold", a Vancouver 27. At the time we passed-through Dartmouth to meet with you for the installation.

Since then we have sailed the boat to Sydney, Australia, which is home for us now. We crossed the Atlantic, Caribbean, Panama Canal and South Pacific.

The Sea Feather performed extremely well with no breakages. We guess that it was responsible for steering around 95% of the time / distance, the longest leg being 3,100nm from Galapagos to Marquesas in the Pacific (22 days of non-stop steering!). In total, we estimate that the trip UK-Aus was around 19,000nm. We wouldn't want to have done that trip without the Sea Feather!

Thanks for a good product and good luck for 2011 - on and off the water!

Regards
Greg & Leisha Scott
sv Fine Gold