I would go hydraulic if you haven't already bought the equipment. Do check and make sure the max current the core can supply is enough for whatever drive you pick. This is another area not to go right to the limit on. Take the "max pounds" thing though as a guess. A *lot* depends on how hard the boat is to steer. A supertanker can probably be steered with two fingers and my boat takes both hands and all your strength surfing down a wave. If the boat is hard for YOU to steer, it is hard for Otto as well. I actually did have a case where a SeaRay 65 (or 55 maybe??) owner got a big Robertson autopilot intended for ships and tugboats. A tanker might never react to a little twitch, but the SeaRay on plane was all over the place at speed. The damping in the autopilot was all wrong for a high speed powerboat. Joe Della Barba Coquina
From: CnC-List [mailto:cnc-list-boun...@cnc-list.com] On Behalf Of LKL Architects Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2013 11:59 AM To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com Subject: Re: Stus-List Autopilots All these posts are really good timing for me and Finesse, 85 Landfall 39 (19,500 displacement). Until now...was pretty much sold on Raymarine P70, X-10 Type 1 mechanical linear drive which is rated up to 24,000 lbs. Plan to cruise Florida and onto Eastern Caribbean. Joe.... based on your comments....would appreciated your thoughts if this is cutting it too close when loaded and with my destination should I abandon the mechanical drive for the hydraulic....appreciate your thoughts and all others....and thank you in advance. Lloyd Lippe Rockport, Texas ----- Original Message ----- From: Della Barba, Joe<mailto:joe.della.ba...@ssa.gov> To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com<mailto:cnc-list@cnc-list.com> Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2013 8:11 AM Subject: Re: Stus-List Autopilots I have an AH 400 unit from about 1988, so it has been working for 25 years now. Kind of like George Washington's ax, the drive and the computer have all been repaired more than once. This is no thanks to Autohelm/Raytheon/RayMarine, who told me to NEVER send it in again for repairs again after fixing it around 1994 or so. These are light duty autopilots that cannot handle heavy air going downwind. Going to windward they do pretty well. I used to be in the business of selling and installing autopilots in the mid-90s and what we learned then was you want the BIGGEST drive you can fit and afford, not the smallest drive you think might work. We used Octopus brand (division of Teleflex) hydraulic drives for all our installs. They worked fine with Raytheon and other autopilot brands. We never did like the electric linear drives and tried to stay away from them. You really need to know what you are doing or hire a pro to install the drive. The forces it can produce are enough to do real damage to a boat if you set it up wrong. BTW, for long distance sailing I read about adapting a tiller pilot to the bottom half of a windvane steering system. This used almost no power and the tiller pilots are cheap enough to carry spares. Joe Della Barba Coquina C&C 35 MK I ________________________________ _______________________________________________ This List is provided by the C&C Photo Album http://www.cncphotoalbum.com CnC-List@cnc-list.com<mailto:CnC-List@cnc-list.com>
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