Autohelm 4000 Wheel Pilot

[Jabberwock]

I have one of these on my Moody Eclipse 33 together with an ST 4000 control and fluxgate unit. Despite tweaking the settings I still find it loses the plot regularly under sail. The drive unit in its entiriety was replaced 18 months ago due to wear and tear.
I was wondering if fitting an S1G course computer with gyro and a rudder reference unit together with an updated control unit would improve performance. Presumably if not, it would be possible to go a second stage and fit a linear drive unit to the rudder quadrant. Any thoughts on the effectiveness of the first stage?

 

[alan17]

I updated to a 4000+ control head but had to add the rudder ref unit. Without the ref unit the auto was all over the place. The ref unit made an incredible improvement.

 

[Searush]

I find my Navico 3000 struggles if the sails are not balanced or if there are tidal eddies to deal with.

 

[FullCircle]

The rudder ref unit is very good, also tells you how much weather helm it is fighting to keep you in a straightish line, thus making you balance the sail plan a bit better.

Not that you would sail with an unbalanced sail plan of course......

 

[davel]

Agreed. I also found a vast improvement in performance after fitting the rudder ref unit.