A timely read, some pettiness of note, and in the “well sure he does” department…
The other day I saw a Trismus self-steering gear selling for $350 Euros/Dollars. It’s a windvane that is as simple as you can get. Hundreds have been built and hundreds have crossed oceans. It’s a very good design.
This item sold in a couple of hours. Meanwhile, over on Craigslist, where I’ve been watching several Monitor gears and I’ve been following for ages, remain unsold and looking ever sadder.
The fact that one can easily build the Bernard Moitessier-inspired Trismus gear for less than a couple of hundred bucks makes me wonder why anyone with a brain would consider forking out $3k on a used Monitor or reasonable facsimile.
Still…
I keep thinking that there might be a market for a Trismus-clone cottage industry, selling for a $350 price point. The materials don’t take up a lot of room and it just might be reasonable income stream for a clever VolksCruiser.
Just sayin’
So simple it must hurt some people who require more bearings, linkages, wires. ropes and chains, and something else to polish. As long as one can set it up to counter the tendancy to over-steer-correct. Anything is better than being tied to the tiller for 24-7 or relying soley on an electric tiller pilot.