[C320-list] Folding Wheel

[John Van Vessem]

Thank you Allan,
   
  It is a great concept, and you confirmed my suspicion that there might be problems.
   
  Thanks again.
   
  John (Sojouorn645)

Allan Field <Allan.Field at comcast.net> wrote:
  John - The luckiest girl on O-dock, my Best Mate, received a 40-inch Lewmar
folding wheel for X-Mas this year. I have only sailed once this year so my
actual experience with the wheel under sail is still small.

As for installation, I had a fit getting the ST4000 autopilot installed on
the wheel. Finally, after buying several sets of spoke clamps from
Raymarine and talking with Raymarine direct, I was able to cobble together
something that worked. Basically, I used 2 clamps from the ST4000 series
and one clamp from an upgraded version, MKII I believe. One of the clamps
is on with only one screw. The problem is that the ST4000 clamp holes do
not line up with the spokes on the Lewmar. And the spokes are not in the
same alignment as the Edson wheel.

The second problem that I had was in trying to order from Catalina in order
to get the "Catalina-blue" colored leather wrap. I talked to 2 different
folks at Catalina, both who told me that they could not sell me the wheel.
But 2 other folks - my local dealer and the Lewmar dealer - both told me
that this was available through Catalina. After several phone calls back
and forth with Catalina (of which some were never returned by Catalina), I
surrendered and ordered the brown-wrapped wheel from PYacht. I sent an
e-mail to Gerry Douglas after all this was over and got one back telling me
to contact the same guy who had already told me twice that he could not sell
the thing to me!

The wheel is on the boat now. The one thing I noticed when sailing last
week is that the leather does not cover the 4 joints where the wheel
collapses (and I would not expect it to). However, it will take a little
getting used to moving my hand from a nice, warm leather wrap onto hard
metal with a palpable joint on the backside.

Finally, I am not sure that the wheel is fully on the Edson spoke. This may
be a need to grind down the autohelm spoke mounted to the binnacle (I don't
know what else to call this thing). So there is a little bit of play in the
wheel that I will need to address later if it continues to bother me.

Several weeks after purchasing, I noted that Edson had come out with a wheel
of their own. I wish I had waited until I had at least seen the Edson
offering. The problem again with the Lewmar is that the spokes are aligned
totally different from the Edson.

I left the wheel in the collapsed position all winter while the boat was on
the hard. Walking past the wheel back and forth all winter definitely made
a difference in ease of passage. The folding wheel is a great concept but
again, the Lewmar is not quite ready for our configuration. For the money,
the thing should be a perfect fit for any configuration and it was not.

Yours truly,

Disappointed in Columbia, MD (grin!)
Allan S. Field
Sea Shadow - #808

-----Original Message-----
From: C320-List-bounces at catalina320.com
[mailto:C320-List-bounces at catalina320.com] On Behalf Of John Van Vessem
Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2006 8:30 AM
To: C320-List
Subject: [C320-list] Folding Wheel

Has anyone replaced their wheel with either the Edison "Access Wheel" or the
Lewmar Folding Wheel. If so I'd like to here your opinion as well as
whether they can work with an Autohelm.

John (Sojourn645)





John Van Vessem
Sojourn 645
Vallejo Yacht Club
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John Van Vessem
Sojourn 645
Vallejo Yacht Club