which type of autopilot ?

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glen t

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Looking to get a autohelm on a club boat. I’ve been provisionally told that a wheeldrive is about £2500 (installed) and inboard device is about £4k. Does anyone have any bad or good experience of the 2 types and any recommendation and guild prices? Obviously the inboard would be better, but is it worth an extra £1.5k !!

wheeldrive - easier to diagnose problems and fix by yourself
Cheaper

inboard - more robust.

Yaght is a Beneteau 33i. Est 8 long passages p.a

http://www.raymarine.co.uk/view/?id=581

glen
 
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We've the inboard version on our current boat (47 ft) with a hydraulic ram and had a wheeldrive on our older boat (36 ft). As I understand it the latter is more suited to smaller boats the former larger boats. Both have given us good service. The only issues we did have early on with our current boat was the computer which was not new when we bought the boat, sorry I can't remember the exact problem but a replacement was purchased. Since we replaced it and later the control head we've had few problems.

We recently added a second control head at the nav station in case of a failure of the one in the cockpit as its a bit exposed to clumsy feet. We also have an original Autohelm "remote" with a cable long enough to reach the bow, courtesy of a previous owner, which though temperamental works most of the time.
 
I'd have thought you could have got a wheelpilot installed for less than £2500. The inboard option is far preferable - they tend to be stronger, more reliable, quieter, fit & forget. I've had wheelpilots on previous boats, but never thought they were particularly well engineered. Current boat has inboard unit which is superb.
 
what Class of boat


glen t said:
Looking to get a autohelm on a club boat. I’ve been provisionally told that a wheeldrive is about £2500 (installed) and inboard device is about £4k. Does anyone have any bad or good experience of the 2 types and any recommendation and guild prices? Obviously the inboard would be better, but is it worth an extra £1.5k !!

wheeldrive - easier to diagnose problems and fix by yourself
Cheaper

inboard - more robust.

http://www.raymarine.co.uk/view/?id=581

glen
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I have a raymarine type 1 electric ram inboard drive with a type 1 autopilot computer and st 6001 control head on a 38' Benetteau. Been on for 6 years now. Lots of single handing.

At 8 tonne I am supposedly at the top end of the band for this drive. 33' is probably cliser to the sweet spot.

Never given me a minutes hassle except for when I accidentally lost the fluxgate compass calibration.

It steers better than I do, uses a reasonable amount of power and is great for single handing especially comming in to an anchorage and going forward to get the hook ready, tacking and just holding a course, particularly good in lumpy seas. Very happy with mine.
 
nimbusgb said:
I have a raymarine type 1 electric ram inboard drive with a type 1 autopilot computer and st 6001 control head on a 38' Benetteau. Been on for 6 years now. Lots of single handing.

At 8 tonne I am supposedly at the top end of the band for this drive. 33' is probably cliser to the sweet spot.

Never given me a minutes hassle except for when I accidentally lost the fluxgate compass calibration.

It steers better than I do, uses a reasonable amount of power and is great for single handing especially comming in to an anchorage and going forward to get the hook ready, tacking and just holding a course, particularly good in lumpy seas. Very happy with mine.
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Agree with most of the above, our boat is similar size & weight. Only point I would question is the top limit for type 1 drive. I would suspect rather than length or weight of boat, the rudder load would be more important. Our rudder happens to be semi-balanced so light to helm. The autopilot does 95% of the steering and copes well.

Having had a wheel pilot on a Moody 346, I wouldn't have another on a boat anywhere near that size or weight.
 
I agree with Graham - we had a wheelpilot on our cat with a relatively light helm and come a F5 it couldn't cope. We have a long keel 13 tonne yacht so it's type 3 and S3g for us which put the cost up but there is a great guy on ebay who sells warranted refurb units for 40% of new costs. I never realised how great autopilot was until my wife decided we were having one. Remember that felling when you first got a dishwasher? That's the sort of feeling it gives you ;) A few good makes and we use Raymarine in large part because they still give me free telephone tech support on a 6 year old course computer bought second hand.
 
Wheelpilot should cost less than £2500 installed, but apart from cost the inboard option is so much better, the more so the rougher the conditions. On a 35 ft AWB a Raymarine ST4000+ wheelpilot (same wheel drive as all the current ones) struggles in much of a sea under sail - the tiny motor and gears/belt just can't turn the wheel fast enough to cope. The other factor is that the wheelpilot is irritatingly (click-whirr-clunky) noisy in the cockpit, whilst most inboard installations are pretty quiet.
 
Really depends on your expectations. The boat is well within the limits of the SPX5 wheeldrive. Although the drive unit is noisy and there have been failures of gears there are many in use with satisfied customers. Will not cope with really heavy weather but will be fine in normal use. Cost around thousand pounds and easily DIY fitted in an easy day including setting up. As already said ram type more than twice as much to buy and more work to fit. Not any change out of 3000 fitted.
 
Tranona said:
Really depends on your expectations. The boat is well within the limits of the SPX5 wheeldrive. Although the drive unit is noisy and there have been failures of gears there are many in use with satisfied customers. Will not cope with really heavy weather but will be fine in normal use. Cost around thousand pounds and easily DIY fitted in an easy day including setting up. As already said ram type more than twice as much to buy and more work to fit. Not any change out of 3000 fitted.
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Fully agree. A wheel pilot is fine on a thirty-odd footer if you are looking for something that will take over for short periods while shorthanded to let you trim sails or make a cup of tea. If you want an autopilot that can handle the boat for hours in rough conditions, go for a linear drive.

A Raymarine wheelpilot kit costs about £1000 and will take any reasonably intelligent person less than a day to fit and a couple of hours to commission.
 
I have a Raymarine wheelpilot which is satisfactory in use although a little less than convincing downwind unless sail is reduced a bit early. My gripe with it is actually when not in use but when hand steering the drive band often causes friction on what is otherwise finger light steering. I regularly wash out the drive with fresh water and trhis improves it for a bit. I also cut away the stop on the clutch lever a bit to allow the belt to be loosened further. Anyone else with this problem and does it affect ram type steering?
 
LadyInBed said:
As the rest, type 1 linear drive is the only way to go.
Mine has been in for 12 years (self installed) and it has never given any problem.
Note: The mounting needs to be robust as the unit can produce a LOT of torque.
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+1
My boat 44' 13 tonnes all up, 720miles with 3 metre swell on the quarter in F8 - Fantastic, never missed a beat but yes check the mountings!

Martyn
 
johnphilip said:
I have a Raymarine wheelpilot which is satisfactory in use although a little less than convincing downwind unless sail is reduced a bit early. My gripe with it is actually when not in use but when hand steering the drive band often causes friction on what is otherwise finger light steering. I regularly wash out the drive with fresh water and trhis improves it for a bit. I also cut away the stop on the clutch lever a bit to allow the belt to be loosened further. Anyone else with this problem and does it affect ram type steering?
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I've had similar problems in the past with wheelpilots introducing drag. There's no similar problem with the electric linear drive.
 
All I can say is that when I bought my current 35ft boat it came with a simrad / robertson inboard hydraulic pilot and its the dog's danglies. The engineering quality of the hydraulic drive is superb - one set of fresh hydraulic seals, a job I could do myself, is all it has required in 16 years of use. And it has proved itself capable of controlling my boat hour after hour, going downwind in 25 knots true, goosewinged and with genny poled and main prevented. It did this with rollers coming in underneath us and the boat surfing down them. And downwind is the true test of any pilot.

If I were to buy a new boat I would unhesitatingly chose the current version of this system. Its so much better than any of my previous Raymarine and Navico wheel pilots and tiller pilots
 
Ancient Autohelm and newer Raymarine systems with separate links to the steering quadrant. Not missed a beat yet, however have bolted on a Hydrovane just in case!!!!
 
glen t said:
Looking to get a autohelm on a club boat. I’ve been provisionally told that a wheeldrive is about £2500 (installed) and inboard device is about £4k. Does anyone have any bad or good experience of the 2 types and any recommendation and guild prices? Obviously the inboard would be better, but is it worth an extra £1.5k !!

wheeldrive - easier to diagnose problems and fix by yourself
Cheaper

inboard - more robust.

Yaght is a Beneteau 33i. Est 8 long passages p.a

http://www.raymarine.co.uk/view/?id=581

glen
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I have had two Raymarine wheel pilots over the years and neither has proved reliable or quiet. I would go for the other option if I decided to have one installed now.
 
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