St2000 with gyro ?

[Javelin]

I was wondering how to help "George" our st2000 to anticipate rather than relying on reacting.

On our boat he struggles above a F3, especially on a reach to broad reach if there is anything of a sea running.

I wondered if an integrated gyro would help him and if it was possible.

 

[wooslehunter]

Talk to Raymarine. They will obviously have a vested interest as they'd like to sell you some more kit. I was talking with one of their guys in the sailing club a while back & he said that their test boat was solid under auto-pilot. OK, it's fitted with everything & perhaps "solid" is a relative term. From what I heard, A gyro is certainly a big help but you can do other things too.

My boat too has an ST2000 & is only 26' in length. I could probably have got away with the 1000, but the 2000 responds far faster & so should hold the course better. I can get quite a bit of improvement by tweaking the various gain & dead-band parameters in the menu. The biggest influence though is balance. I the boat's balanced, then the pilot has less work to do & is not struggling to keep a straight course all the time. Balancing though often means reefing earlier. The boat is then under-powered in the lulls & not over-powered in the gusts. Broad reaching or running is difficult though & that's more to do with rolling in the sea than rolling due to gusts. Big sea = big rolls & the pilot has to compensate hugely to hold course. I may not be that easy since the speed of response may be too slow. i.e how ling it takes to go from end - end, Not how long it takes to decide if it needs to move.

 

[simonfraser]

i had the same thoughts, broad reaching even on the flat is tricky for the 2000.
i have removed the compass, extended the leads, and fitted it down below in the centre of the boat, dont think that made much of a difference

 

[Tranona]

Suspect the answer will be that the 2000 is just not powerful enough for your boat. Perhaps throttling it back by reducing sail and getting a better balance will make its life easier.

 

[seumask]

We have a tillerpilot , the next one up I belive, which has a gyro and brain seperatly all down below and I'm very pleased with the ability of the system to sail the boat in more boisterous conditions, despite not being linked to any other instruments in the boat, it can mimick the normal helmsmans input resutling from the wave pattern well and has been able to cope reasonably well with quartering sea's up to F5. Can't commnet on the effect the gyro will have on yours but ours is much better that than the simple compass one it replaced.

 

[onesea]

I was wondering how to help "George" our st2000 to anticipate rather than relying on reacting.

On our boat he struggles above a F3, especially on a reach to broad reach if there is anything of a sea running.

I wondered if an integrated gyro would help him and if it was possible.

We have similar boats and a similar set up, I have similar issues the ST2000 is a little small for the boat. The compass being rubbish far from helps, if you do not have huge battery capacity a slight drop in voltage only makes it worse.

My solution was to connect it to the wind gear and use that, often leaving it on when motoring. If that fails its down to hand steering for me, then by the time its blowing a 4 with anything of a sea we are playing the waves and having fun looking for a fastest speed....

 

[Javelin]

Thx all, I feared that there was not much I could do.
I often sail on my own so George is pretty important to me, so I guess I'll just have to save up for an Evo system.

I delivered an Oyster 435 some time ago which had a SPX wheel system and that was simply superb even in 40+ knots up my chuff crossing Biscay and right up the channel.

So I suppose its true you get what you pay for but I though it was worth an ask especially as the Evo system is about a grand.