autopilot recommendations please

[wotayottie]

34ft boat with (currently) a Navico wheelpilot. The old sort where there is an external belt.

So what do I replace it with? The steering is Whitlock rod, and the boat handles fairly well. Not keen on the amount of work that would be involved in fitting an inboard pilot to the rudder shaft, but the only wheel pilot I can find is the Raymarine S1. Probably fairly competent but Raymarine price levels!

Any recommendations? Anyone using an S1?

 

[Koeketiene]

If your determined to stick with a wheel pilot, whatever you do: stay away from the Simrad WP.
Complete & utter crap - had it on the previous boat - it NEVER worked (sent back to the manufacturer twice).
Other similar horror stories regarding this particular POS crop up on here from time to time.

IMHO an inboard pilot is money well spent. It has changed our sailing.

 

[goboatingnow]

inboard is the only way

The rayamarine s2/s3 linear arm system isnt bad, our one just did 21 days solid on teh arc no problems and its 4 years old, from experience the course computer drive motor output transistors used to fail but not recently

 

[beneteau_305_553]

I've got the Simrad WP32 and had to get it working.

It is now working well having done 3000 miles without a glitch and all singlehanded but had to modify it significantly.

The reports of the Raymarine are very poor.

Seems like the expensive internal autopilots are the way to go but I am happy with mine now.

 

[Duffer]

Our ST6001 has been very good and has had good reviews in ARC surveys etc. We have S1 with gyro and works direct with Whitlock wheel steering.