Autopilots - again

[ishmael]

Yes,  we are still happy with the CPT autopilot.  We jumped across from Carrabelle, FL to Anclote Key in Oct.  140 miles on the rhum line and 50 miles offshore crossing that section of the Gulf.  28 hours under sail and motor.  Winds about 15 - 20 knots part of the time and dead on our stern.  Waves about 4 and sometimes 6 ft and quartering on our port stern.  All in all a pretty sloppy crossing.  CPT handled it well.  It was great not to have to hand steer.

[vesper]

hi,  I found a guy on eBay that rebuilt / replaced our autopilot,  last time I tried to email him to rebuild a spare one I got no reply, but here's his address,   maybe he's still in business?  I think it was $100 for the wheel/motor assembly, and $100 for the main panel.

Dan Gerhardt
35 Michael Way
Durango, CO 81301


good luck!

Greg
"Vesper"
Baltimore

[peislander]

I put a new CPT on Dalliance last spring. Installation was simple and the unit works like a charm.
I'm doing mostly coastal sailing and a lot of it by myself, with Auto von Helm, my mechanical shipmate
at the wheel. He handles the vessel like a pro and doesn't drink any rum or give me any lip. What
more do you want from a crew. I highly recommend a CPT for a heavy boat like the 365.

[Bev & Billy on Sta-sea-dawn]

Thanks all for the help.  I am going to try and nurse the old pilot through till we get to Florida.  We can hand steer that if we absolutely have to.  Then will either get an X-5 or spring for the CPT.  The CPT is the only one I've seen that's rated for our displacement, thanks much for the heads up on that one. 

There will be a limited amount of $$ available for upgrades when we get back to the states before leaving for the Western Caribbean.  An SSB and a raft and a new dingy are also high on the list.

Cheers!
Wayne & Dana

I am going to be installing the SPX-5 P70 SAIL WHEELPILOT PACK on my boat in the next couple of weeks.......after all of the info and opinions...I am not to worried about the 16,500 lb rating...specs say our 365's are 17,700........

[ishmael]

 One last comment.  17,700 is the dry weight.  We are cruising with mostly full tanks, dinghy and outboard, and a ton of tools and stuff.  I'm sure we are at least 20,000 now.  Had to raise the water line a couple of inches last haul out.  Lots of ppl use the x-5 so hope it works out for you.   

[graemek]

the answer is in the usage
coastal x5 no problem ..have one and use it quite a lot
offshore hydraulic unit or servo pendulum
crossing oceans
i have a garmin sail pilot and a pacific wind pilot

[Bev & Billy on Sta-sea-dawn]

I am going to be coastal................

[SVJourney]

I ended up buying the X-5  from Defender for ~1200 bucks plus 200 for shipping down here to Antigua.  We're now in St Martin getting our rigging replaced and I will be installing the pilot at the same time.  Will post up about how it works as soon as we get to test drive it.

[swiftibis]

My old Cetek Benmar CP21 unit died, so I bought a new Raymarine Evolution wheelpack 100 autpilot from Defender.  I'm going to start off by using the benmar chain drive which is super strong, but possibly too slow.  The evolution thing is a bit too smart and doesn't have any training or compass swing modes.  I took the boat out saturday to test it but I ran out of fuel and had to sail back.  It seemed to oscillate in steering a huge amount, so I played with the hard over steering time (one of the few user adjustable options) and it steered better, but it still was oscillating by 10-15 degrees under sail which annoyed me.  I think it might need a rudder reference transducer.  I'm going to build my own with a 5kOhm string pot I had sourced but never installed on my other boat.

I would rather not put the wheel unit on as I was hoping to sell it on ebay.  Has anybody used an evolution autopilot or am I Raymarine's guinea pig?

Mike S.
S/V Boracay Star P367

[swiftibis]

I've used the Evo 100 by Raymarine for about a month now, including two trips of 10 hours or more.  It turns out it requires you to spin around once completely before it will behave, and this doesn't require any prompt or menu, it just does it automagically.  The Benmar chain drive unit is a bit slow, requiring 30 seconds to go from stop to stop at what I assume is full speed, however the autopilot apparently does pretty well with it.  This is certainly at least as good as a wheel drive, but it has much more power with low current draw.  The unit never seems to draw more than 3 amps or so, and is at 100 mA in standby with the screen turned all the way up.  The Benmar motor is rated at 7A which is perfect for the Evo's ACU-100.  If I dim the screen to min (you don't really need to watch the magnetic heading do you?) then current draw is 30mA which is pretty low.  I haven't been in any lumpy seas going downwind just yet, but in a mild chop on all points the unit does well.  I've had an issue at really low speed the unit doesn't know where the stops are and it will overdrive the rudder.  It has enough oomph to cause the quadrant to deform and the pinion gear to skip a tooth which is a bad thing.  I will eventually get around to installing my homebuilt rudder transducer. 

A very neat thing is that the pilot steers a bit more like I do, due to the gyros I assume.  As soon as the boat starts turning the pilot starts the correction which I can only assume is due to a control loop wrapped around the gyros in addition to the compass.  I will eventually plumb the unit into my chartplotter and GPS so I can make it do more fancy things, but I rarely sail with the chartplotter on due to the current draw.
Mike
S/V Tardis
Pearson 367 Cutter Hull 26