Pros and Cons of Hydraulic Steering on a 4.85 tinny

[PinHead]

70hp on 4.85m//bit of overkill???

[Fed]

You can always tell when someone's been suckered, they spend the rest of their life trying to tell people how good it is.
I honestly can't see any Pros to it for your average fishing boat.
Hydraulic no feedback steering, Pttt!

[Tangles]

Just asking the question Fed,

[charleville]

You can always tell when someone's been suckered, they spend the rest of their life trying to tell people how good it is.
I honestly can't see any Pros to it for your average fishing boat.
Hydraulic no feedback steering, Pttt!

If you are cash challenged, then don't buy an Apple computer, don't buy a Mercedes, don't buy the Festool brand of power tools, don't buy Michelin tyres, don't drink quality bottled wine and don't get hydraulic steering in your small boat.

On the other hand, if you have enough financial nouse to be able to afford the brands and technologies that make life easy then go for it if for no other reason than that you can.





.

[oldboot]

FED obvioulsy cant afford it

[spelchek]

I don't think I got suckered, Fed. In fact, I specified it to the dealer. I spent 20yrs planning my own boat before I got it - was lucky enough to alwsya have friends/family with boats so I've done a lot of boating in a lot of different rigs. Now I'm not claiming to be an expert by any means, but I know what I like, and when it comes to steering I wouldn't have anything else but hydraulic - unless it was the difference between boat and no boat I guess Hydraulic - in my humble opinion - is just... nicer.


Oh, I don't spend my life telling how good it is, but I (we) were asked that specific question. I gave my pros and couldn't think of any cons. I'm interested, tho, to hear someone's opinions on actual cons of hydr. steering.

[krazyfisher]

only con of hyd. steering is if you get an oil leak........... i had that happen 37k's off shore

[finga]

Would I spend $1,000 or so on hydraulic steering for the boat or would I spend $1,000 on a rod and reel??
Nearly everyone spends $1,000 on a rod and reel combo don't they?

I use an Alvey and Synder combo. They're $23 for the combo from any garbage sale so I'd get the hydraulic steering for sure (and I don't need another 40 odd combo's)

As another consideration is maintenance. Hydraulic is a lot less maintenance and over 10 years may be cheaper then cable steering when you consider the cost of a new cable, or 3, and the many hours greasing the cable systems up.

Go for it Mike.

PS: always have a bit of tube, a couple, or 4, push together joiners and a litre of oil in the boat just in case something that shouldn't be rubbed up the wrong way gets rubbed up the wrong way

[Fed]

I think one major con is that the no feedback can mask a badly set up boat, no feedback is about the same as tying a rope to your steering wheel but easier.
Walk away from the wheel to do something in the aft quarter and the boat a boat will still heel over, no feedback isn't an auto pilot.

[oldboot]

If your hydraulic steering is set up and installed properly using the correct materials the chances of an oil leak is far less than problems with a cable steering.

As far as non feed back steeing being a problem....na sorry....non feed back is the single biggest advantage of hydraulic steering.

In a boat particularly low speed manoovering you have to look arround and move in the boat to see what you should be looking at.

With a non feedback steering, particularly with the motor tilted up you can not let go of the wheel for even a second for fear the motor for one reason or the other flops over or steers it self.

With any form of non feed back steering you know that the steering will stay where it is put...there are planty of entirely proper and safe low speed manoovers where you want the motor in gear at idle and you need to step away from the helm.
Such as comming along side to tie up or some of the drive on methods.
These manoovers are far far safer with some form of non feed back steering.

even without taking your hands off the wheel, nonfeedback steering makes things a whole heap easier......again when manoovering at low speed.....you can apply a steering measure and know that it will reman constant without having to hold it there.

There are nonfeedback cable steering stsyems available but they cost more.....in fact overall in boating/ shipping large and small, nonfeedback is the norm rather than the exception

If you are relying on steering feed back to know your boat is set up wrong...well sorry not paying attention.

Its a boat......we don't use spring loaded throttles and we dont rely on steering feed back.

cheers

[GLXMAN]

Hi Mike,
IMHO,
Hydraulic is the only way to go,
Installed one on the 34ft yacht I had, worked a treat,

Now have hydraulic steering on my Allision 4.95 SC, would not be without it,
Not sure what systems are the best but I have a SeaStar system on the tinny

FWIW,
I was on the water some time back when about a 4-5m tinny passed me, going quite quick, (maybe, about a 60hp),
it was just then, his steering cable broke,
Motor imediately slammed over to one side,
Skipper was thrown into the water,
Boat was screeming around in circles, luckily, skipper was not hit
A boat that was closer, caught up with the boat, hopped on board and saved the day

Few things to note here!
1. Cable steering broke, and, take note!
2. Skipper was wearing the "dead man" "kill switch" around his wrist,

Guess what?
The cord broke which enabled the motor to still run flat-out

I must admit,
You would have to be having a very bad day for all this to go wrong but bad days can happen when you least expect it

After seeing that incident happen before my eyes,
hydraulic steering was a no brain er

For those venturing way off shore,
An emergency steering set-up is also advisable, (for cable or hydraulic)

Hope this helps,
Regards,
Gary

[johncar]

Hi Mike,
For those venturing way off shore,
An emergency steering set-up is also advisable, (for cable or hydraulic)

Hope this helps,
Regards,
Gary

Other than the emergency repair kit amentioned earlier, I guess the emergency steering kit for me would be the paddle or long handle gaff lashed to the outboard and travelling nice and steady ala makeshift tiller steer.
If you have hydraulic steering or cable it may be handy to have a way of locking your engine straight ahead in case you end up getting towed to keep the boat travelling straight behind a rescue vessel.

With a combo of trim tabs and single engine or twin engines it is possible to lock the engines dead ahead and steer to a resonable degree with either the tabs or the dual engines. This would be my choice if a good way out to sea.
To lock the hydraulic system it's easy to make at home a couple of spacer blocks out of anything reasonably solid to slide over the exposed rams, fix in place with string or zip ties. A cable system would be easy to fabricate some sort of locking arm like a large cabin hook that just drops in the steering arm hole when needed.
A small boat could be steered to some degree just by shifting enough weight from side to side while traveling at an appropriate speed with engine locked straight ahead with perhaps a bit of idle speed hand manipulation back at the ramp.

Hope we never have to do it so keep up the maintenance on either, but this has reminded me to check any chaffing points on my hydraulic hoses and wrap protection around them. This being the most likely sudden failure point of the system.

Any other ideas??