Autopilot for beginnners

colhel

colhel

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Im after some advice please on autopilot options to fit to our 30ft single shaft, teleflex steered Nimbus. On our old sailboat we used a tiller pilot to hold our course, it had a built in compass and just attached to the tiller and you
released it from the pin to hand steer. It didn't have a clutch or rudder sensor. I'm after something simple like this. Is there such a thing that can be fitted to a wheel steered boat? I understand it'll have to have some sort of clutch or quick release
 
colhel said:
Im after some advice please on autopilot options to fit to our 30ft single shaft, teleflex steered Nimbus. On our old sailboat we used a tiller pilot to hold our course, it had a built in compass and just attached to the tiller and you
released it from the pin to hand steer. It didn't have a clutch or rudder sensor. I'm after something simple like this. Is there such a thing that can be fitted to a wheel steered boat? I understand it'll have to have some sort of clutch or quick release
Click to expand...
I recently researched this. I could find no complete autopilot that worked directly with a teleflex cable wheel steering system. A company called Octopus makes a substitute teleflex drive unit that has a clutch and electric drive that will be out of sight behind the helm but then you need to buy a separate computer module and compass/motion sensor and a separate display unit which Octopus claim will be compatible with their drive head. After swapping several emails with Octopus i lost all confidence in them as they would not make it clear to me what a complete system should comprise and tried to sell me what I beleive was not a complete system. If you don't mind having something visible and clamped to your wheel the only offering i could find was the raymarine system that they sell for wheel steered sail boats but as the motor projects forwards i would have had to cut a large clearance hole in my bulkhead. Not ideal but may work for you. If you were willing to replace your whole cable steering system with a hydraulic system then raymarine do have an autopilot system that will fit.

www.solocoastalsailing.co.uk
 
Which is the Raymarine system you're referring too please?
I posted a while ago on the PBO forum about using a tiller pilot to steer the wheel, a bit of a clunky solution but if it works would do the basic function I require. The idea got blasted for some reason
 
colhel said:
Im after some advice please on autopilot options to fit to our 30ft single shaft, teleflex steered Nimbus. On our old sailboat we used a tiller pilot to hold our course, it had a built in compass and just attached to the tiller and you
released it from the pin to hand steer. It didn't have a clutch or rudder sensor. I'm after something simple like this. Is there such a thing that can be fitted to a wheel steered boat? I understand it'll have to have some sort of clutch or quick release
Click to expand...

I have a merry fisher 805 with a single 200hp volvo and i have fitted the raymarine wheel pilot as per the links already in other post. I can safely say that i am very pleased with it performance at low speed and up to (24knts top end of my boat). It links very well with my raymarine plotter and also works well as a stand alone unit.
 
The EV100 is the one that comes up most on Google, but even this seems a bit overkill for my needs. On our recent cross channel trip I tried sticking to a course to steer and due to the hull of the Nimbus I could just lock the wheel or apply very small movements to keep on track (hence my tiller pilot idea).
I would be happy with a linear drive, but would be worried about the pressure on the cable running back to the steering wheel, maybe I worry too much?
 
Colin, give Raymarine a call. I have found them very helpful with no obligation advice. You don’t buy direct from them, generally from dealers so there is some (small) price competition out there.
 
colhel said:
The EV100 is the one that comes up most on Google, but even this seems a bit overkill for my needs. On our recent cross channel trip I tried sticking to a course to steer and due to the hull of the Nimbus I could just lock the wheel or apply very small movements to keep on track (hence my tiller pilot idea).
I would be happy with a linear drive, but would be worried about the pressure on the cable running back to the steering wheel, maybe I worry too much?
Click to expand...

The EV100 Raymarine was the one I looked at but agree it is an overkill for what you and I appear to want. If you put a linear drive on the rudder stock it will have to work very hard to drive the cable steering system and the load on the wheel when manually steering would be substantial without a quick method of disconnecting the linear drive first.

As has already been advised, you could contact Raymarine but when i did that although they were keen to kelp, it was they that recommend I go to Octopus http://octopusdrives.com/type-r-drive-family who I was not impressed by. I have just this week fitted a very very old Raymarine 3000 autohelm I bought on ebay for £190 and it works a treat.

Www.solocoastalsailing.co.uk
 
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