Cheap Reliable High Performance AutoPilots?

[Trevor B]

What’s the state of the art in reasonably priced autopilots?

Criteria:
Reasonable price.
Lowish electrical consumption.
Reliable.
Plays well with B&G 5000, but not really expected to sail well to AWA or TWA unless that can be done while fulfilling the above points.

Basically, what are all the unsponsored short-handed racers in medium size boats using for the Round Britain, Fastnet, Mini-Transat, etc?

Thanks

 

[shaggybaxter]

I thought my Raymarine Evo was pretty good until I went to NKE. Then I realised the difference between them was orders of magnitude.
No comparison, one could drive in any condition. The other was good as long as you weren’t close hauled in average seas, running deep or in any heavy seas. Ergo: good enough for flaffing about in 50-130 TWA under 20 knots in a mild sea state.
Methinks if there is a high performance reasonably priced auto helm they’d own the market.
An autopilot is only as good as the sensor data you feed it. I upspecced the Raymarine with its equivalent sensor suite , the NKE the same. Still remarkably different in performance.
My two cents.

 

[Trevor B]

The NKE setup is 4x the price….bummer.

 

[Black Jack]

Seriously can you really beat the price or simple application of two new Raymarine ST2000 (one for use and one for back up)?

They are used to cross oceans every day and are easy to replace or service. They are deployed in nearly every major ocean race among the unsponsored around the world. Simrads are similar in application.

Having two new tested ones chances of complete loss and failure is slim. The fact is one is going to carry a tiller pilot backup anyway. It also should be noted that how often many captains and crew poorly cared and stored the cheap tiller autohelm, most will blame the units themselves for failing after being tossed about harshly and drowned in saltwater due to lack of concern after a couple of years of service.

 

[dreamingwet]

As Shaggy says, B&G and the NKE are in the order of magnitudes better than anything else you can get off the shelf.
What do you want to do, motor or have the AP hold your helm for a while (Raymarine, Simrad,..etc), or you want your AP to be part of your crew when you need it most (NKE and B&G)?
I just sailed with the new NKE and man, it will give the B&G 5K a run for its money...

 

[HotSnail]

What’s the state of the art in reasonably priced autopilots?

Criteria:
Reasonable price.
Lowish electrical consumption.
Reliable.
Plays well with B&G 5000, but not really expected to sail well to AWA or TWA unless that can be done while fulfilling the above points.

Basically, what are all the unsponsored short-handed racers in medium size boats using for the Round Britain, Fastnet, Mini-Transat, etc?

Thanks

If you sail a non planing boat the answer is a wind vane

 

[Wright Way]

I trust my Pelagic in any conditions, it will safely steer my boat downwind under spinnaker. I used one on my last boat over 25knts downwind spinnaker many times.
Surfing under gennaker no problems.
It will not connect to your GPS.
It has an excellent remote control.
You can get it to steer to apparent wind.
They are quirky to adjust, but simply enough to get good enough.
You could spend 10x as much before you got something better performance wise.
No fucking way would I buy a simrad or Ray Tiller pilot for anything but motoring.

 

[Raz'r]

Why not the B&G. I’d like to recommend the Pelagic but mine had significant issues on the PacCup return, ultimately failing. Best we can figure is water intrusion, I’ve not taken it back to the manufacturer yet as I’ve had other failure issues that took precedence…

 

[dreamingwet]

No fucking way would I buy a simrad or Ray Tiller pilot for anything but motoring.

I would not buy a Simrad or Ray, period, but if I had a gun to my head I would get one of their non-tiller units.

 

[[email protected]]

I trust my Pelagic in any conditions, it will safely steer my boat downwind under spinnaker. I used one on my last boat over 25knts downwind spinnaker many times.
Surfing under gennaker no problems.
It will not connect to your GPS.
It has an excellent remote control.
You can get it to steer to apparent wind.
They are quirky to adjust, but simply enough to get good enough.
You could spend 10x as much before you got something better performance wise.
No fucking way would I buy a simrad or Ray Tiller pilot for anything but motoring.

You're right about the quirky to adjust. I haven't figured out probably 1/2 its capability. It seems to steer really well under sail, but goes all over the place under power... I find I usually use a sail-tie across the tiller when I'm day sailing.

 

[VeloceSailing]

Om my current J80 I have a Raymarine EV100. I'd say that it barely does the job but I find it very unpredictable.

On my previous boat, a sun fast 32i, I had a pelagic that loved and could rely on in all conditions. Very accurate upwind. Cheapest of all, tough and low consumption
Here's a review

 

[SSolo]

why not the B&G 5000 pilot - the ram itself can be raymarine/B&G etc as all needed is power and clutch wiring

 

[Black Jack]

I trust my Pelagic in any conditions, it will safely steer my boat downwind under spinnaker. I used one on my last boat over 25knts downwind spinnaker many times.
Surfing under gennaker no problems.
It will not connect to your GPS.
It has an excellent remote control.
You can get it to steer to apparent wind.
They are quirky to adjust, but simply enough to get good enough.
You could spend 10x as much before you got something better performance wise.
No fucking way would I buy a simrad or Ray Tiller pilot for anything but motoring.

Pelagics are great but they can fail too. So what is your back up autohelm system?

Given a choice do you want to hand steer for a week or more by yourself as a few have in trans ocean races and returns or spend 500 dollars to insure you do not have to?

 

[toolbar]

I had B&G NAC2, Ray Evo and a Garmin GHC although on different boats.

Of these I felt that Raymarine and B&G were both steering decently both up- and downwind. TWA downwind steering on the Raymarine was more reliable, but then they were paired with different boats.

The Garmin was the negative outlier that I never could get to work properly.

 

[slug zitski]

Not long ago I delivered an x-43 with recent raymaine auto and instruments

The trip was normal sea state normal wind…close reaching to broad reaching

autopilot worked great …no complaints

 

[Mid]

Cheap Reliable High Performance

do you really expect an answer combining all 3 ?

 

[Trevor B]

do you really expect an answer combining all 3 ?

No, not really, but I was hoping for the solution that the sort of funded single and double handed sailors use. So, maybe cheaper, reliable and high (enough) performance.

 

[Foolish]

It all depends on your boat, and I can tell you that a boat for the Mini Transat will have COMPLETELY different requirements than a stable cruiser used in the Round Britain. I sail an Olson 30, which is an ultralight and very twitchy boat. After extensive testing I can tell you that the Pelagic is completely unsuitable downwind in anything more than 15 knots. Even the Raymarine will only take me to 20 knots downwind in flatish water. A Mini would have worse results with either of these. However, if you sail a very stable boat, then either would do just fine in most conditions. I will give you one strong piece of advice: DO NOT MIX SYSTEMS. If you mix systems, then you will have extreme difficulty getting them to work and you will be absolutely unable to get support. Each manufacturer will blame the other system. Every manufacturer tells you that their system works with all others, but don't believe it. I am living proof, after 20 years of trying, that you can't mix systems. One final piece of advice, stay away from Actisense at all costs. I found the guys to be complete jerks who would not help me out at all.

 

[Raz'r]

It all depends on your boat, and I can tell you that a boat for the Mini Transat will have COMPLETELY different requirements than a stable cruiser used in the Round Britain. I sail an Olson 30, which is an ultralight and very twitchy boat. After extensive testing I can tell you that the Pelagic is completely unsuitable downwind in anything more than 15 knots. Even the Raymarine will only take me to 20 knots downwind in flatish water. A Mini would have worse results with either of these. However, if you sail a very stable boat, then either would do just fine in most conditions. I will give you one strong piece of advice: DO NOT MIX SYSTEMS. If you mix systems, then you will have extreme difficulty getting them to work and you will be absolutely unable to get support. Each manufacturer will blame the other system. Every manufacturer tells you that their system works with all others, but don't believe it. I am living proof, after 20 years of trying, that you can't mix systems. One final piece of advice, stay away from Actisense at all costs. I found the guys to be complete jerks who would not help me out at all.

So, my idea to toss the Pelagic control unit for the native B&G autopilot (all B&G instrumentation) is sound?

 

[BobJ]

Trevor, I have a B&G 5000 pilot (belowdecks) and Pelagic as a backup (cockpit) on my tiller-steered Alerion. We just used both in the Pacific Cup. The next time you're coming up to RYC you're welcome to go for a sail and see what you think. The only thing I'd do different is use a Raymarine linear drive with the B&G instead of their T2 hydraulic ram. The T2 uses a lot of electrons and adds too much drag to the helm. My recollection is that many Mini skippers use Ray linear rams with their NKE APs.

On my J/92 I had a Raymarine EV-200 belowdecks driving a Pelagic cockpit drive and it worked pretty well when sailing to AW. The EV-100 would have been okay too (and cheaper) - I bought the 200 for its clutch circuit but ended up not using that.