Very doable and very expensive.

Posted By: Mark N, Nimble Arctic, Jax FL
Date: 10/4/07 4:13a.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

In Response To: Hydralic autopilot - possibilities?? (Craig Poole, m/s Jack B. Nimble, Havre de Grace, Md.)

DPO of my Arctic installed a tillerpilot and had the same problems. He sold the TP unit but the mounts were still on the boat when I bought it so I could see what he did. Knowing this history, I spoke to the Raymarine Rep at the Annapolis Boat Show soon after buying the boat and he said that a hydraulic system would be the best technical solution. A big advantage of a hyd system is that the system gains are easily adjustable while in use. I did not get a formal quote but it was going to cost something like $1500. I decided that was too rich for me and I went back to see if I could make a new TP1000+ work. One thing that I discovered regarding the DPO's installation is that he had the mounts too far forward. The Raymarine units specify that the unit be installed 18" forward of the rudder hinge point. I could not mount my new unit at 18" because it would interfere with the hydraulic ram but I was able to mount it at 20" which was several inches aft of the DPO installation. Mounting the unit two inches further aft causes the unit to have a little less rudder authority than designed. The installation was pretty tight because of all the stuff mounted back there (stern cleat, hyd ram, mizzen mast, etc). To keep the unit level, I used a teak winch pad to raise the base pin mount and I bought a drop down tiller mount from Raymarine for the other end. It is a little hard to see, but the base mount is just forward to the hyd ram and just right of the main sheet hanging from the life line. The end of the tiller mount can be seen in the far right of the picture just to the right of the mizzen mast and just above the mizzen sheet cam cleat. The performance of my TP is adequate but not great. Under sail, it will hold course in all conditions except very light winds. I drop the rudderboard in light wind conditions to help give the rudder more bight. Under power it does ok except that variable gain would be nice. With the gain set so that the unit steers well at normal sailing speeds, the TP understeers when motoring at idle and oversteers at high throttle settings. The bottom line is that nearly all of my sailing is single handed and this system meets my needs. If I were to do it again, I would buy the TP2000+ instead of the 1000+ because the former has a quicker hard over time. For Craig, if you have the money and like great toys, go hydraulic because it will give the best performance. If you do not want to spend that much, take a hard look at your installation. If your TP is in the cockpit I suspect that it is mounted too far forward of the rudder hinges.