Autotiller

[Ted]

Don't know if this is gear, diy, or what... so I am posting here in the lounge.

My current boat came with an autotiller that didn't work 

I took it apart and lo and behold - there were two little belts in there and one was stripped. I trolled the interwebs for a few weeks before finding Zak at http://shop.polybelt.com/, and they fixed me up!  Incredible customer service and if you need belts you will not find a better vendor. He sent me the wrong one, refunded my purchase, and then sent the correct one to me free of charge for the inconvenience. Incredible!

So the past week I have been out about three times using the autotiller. WOW! It makes single handing a dream. This is an old Raytheon brand autotiller with a built in compass. I have never even seen one used before, but it was easy. When you are going the direction you want to go, you press "Auto" and off you go (so long as the wind continues to cooperate - the tiller can only move so far, after all). The one I have will also take a GPS using NMEA but I haven't figured that out yet.

It's nice when you have a couple of landlubbers aboard and you want to set the direction, go forward to tend to something, and return later.

It's not the kind of equipment I would typically put on a small boat but it's sure nice to have! 

[crazycarl]

Ted,

I also have an old auto tiller that came with a prior boat.

It's an "Autohelm 800", and came with a wired remote.

I've connected it to a battery, punched the set button and turned the unit.  The rod moves in and out appropriately, so I'm guessing it works.

I never installed it because I thought it was overkill on such a small boat, maybe I should give it try!

carl

[Shawn]

Serenity has a Raymarine TillerPilot ST2000+ and it is wonderful! I think the Raymarine is basically what the Raytheon became. Makes single handing much much easier. Using the engine point the boat into the wind and hit auto and raising/lowering sails is a piece of cake. Also very handy for swapping out the headsail, putting the main sail cover on while heading into port, giving me a break to have a sandwich...etc...etc...etc. See if your model has a tack feature in it, that is great for single handing as well. Hit two buttons and it tacks the boat through 100 degrees which frees me up to handle the headsail.

I really enjoy having the tillerpilot on and then just sight seeing all around with the binoculars.

" The one I have will also take a GPS using NMEA but I haven't figured that out yet."

If your GPS outputs the proper NMEA sentences that the autopilot accepts it will keep your boat on a course for you and may also handle turns. If the GPS calculates crosstrack error (XTE) and the autopilot will use that it will also compensate for cross track to keep you on your plotted course. On a longer trip that is important as XTE could have you over rocks that your original plotted track would have avoided. If your GPS outputs NMEA it is only two wires from the GPS to the autopilot to add that data. I have this wired on my ST2000+. When on a GPS course the LCD on the autopilot will display some info from the GPS as well such as ETA and so on. I don't use the GPS functionality very often but it would be very handy at night or in fog.

The ST2000+ can also use NMEA data to steer based on wind angle. In other words it could keep the heading always 50 degrees of the wind. My wind instrument does not output the proper NMEA sentence for that to work though. I need to write a little software to convert from what my wind instrument outputs to what the ST2000+ will accept.

Shawn

[philb Junkie19]

I finally got around to installing a Navco TP10 tiller pilot made by Simrad on the 16 last summer. This also was from a previous boat.  It does has autotack which brings you on a new heading by 100 deg. and seastate adujstment that keeps the tiller from adjusting too quickly to wave caused motion of the boat.  I use it for short periods and more often for motoring than sailing. It does keep me from scrambling back to the tiller when the boat goes off course or tacks on it own while I am making sail adjustments.  My previous "tiller pilot" was  pretty basic, just a tight piece of rope from cleat to cleat with two wraps around the tiller. I know there are better arrangements than that.