dreamingwet
Member
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there are quite a few C40's with Raymarine's linear drive, either as a backup or as main, BUT I had 3 of them fail so I am not sure about their reliability.
Cheap Reliable High Performance AutoPilots?
- Thread starter Trevor B
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JackChadowitz
New member
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Xiph
New member
On my J35 I mounted a Raymarine Type 2 linear drive (not major, major surgery, but a big job...good time to replace your rudder bearing), and then coupled it to a B&G 5000, in prep for doublehanded Pac Cup (which we couldn't make for other reasons). I've done enough sailing with it to be skeptical that it would sail the boat to Hawaii. It's fine if the boat doesn't want to round up, but I can't seem to find any sweet spot for it to sail in difficult conditions without constantly over-correcting and then sort of spiraling into out-of-controlness. BobJ, did you have to spend a lot of time learning to tweak yours to use in the Pac Cup?
Permit me to chime in please…
I’ve had, and used, many types of pilots.. ranging from 30 footers to mega yacht.
Here’s what I agree with…
The NKE hydraulic drive is more robust than the raymarine linear drive. The raymarine uses plastic gears in a cyclocyclic planetary drive.
But, it’s a fraction of the NKE cost.
Raymarine also makes a hydraulic unit, but it’s not as robust, it responsive as the NKE.
I favour the raymarine EV corepack and displays . I have found that their new evolution steers like the boat is on tracks, and the interface is excellent.
But, I haven’t steered in wind mode in huge ocean swells.
I know that in North America, your best service option is raymarine & B&G.
For a wheel steered boat, your best option is a Lewmar Mamba (Whitlock) motor attached directly to the steering gearing. Very robust. Jeffa makes this as well, but Lewmar’s market is much bigger.
I have a top end Raymarine system, and it’s less than 1/2 the cost of NKE.
And, the huge problem is mixing gear.
I guarantee you (based on years of frustration), that you get sun-optimal results when using multiple vendors on a system. They all tweek their gear to use with their own periphials.
B&G support in Canada is lacking, so I’ll be staying with RM for the expected future
I’ve had, and used, many types of pilots.. ranging from 30 footers to mega yacht.
Here’s what I agree with…
The NKE hydraulic drive is more robust than the raymarine linear drive. The raymarine uses plastic gears in a cyclocyclic planetary drive.
But, it’s a fraction of the NKE cost.
Raymarine also makes a hydraulic unit, but it’s not as robust, it responsive as the NKE.
I favour the raymarine EV corepack and displays . I have found that their new evolution steers like the boat is on tracks, and the interface is excellent.
But, I haven’t steered in wind mode in huge ocean swells.
I know that in North America, your best service option is raymarine & B&G.
For a wheel steered boat, your best option is a Lewmar Mamba (Whitlock) motor attached directly to the steering gearing. Very robust. Jeffa makes this as well, but Lewmar’s market is much bigger.
I have a top end Raymarine system, and it’s less than 1/2 the cost of NKE.
And, the huge problem is mixing gear.
I guarantee you (based on years of frustration), that you get sun-optimal results when using multiple vendors on a system. They all tweek their gear to use with their own periphials.
B&G support in Canada is lacking, so I’ll be staying with RM for the expected future
Gunny
Member
I had a laugh at the title and wonder if the same qualifications would apply when hiring a skipper.
"BobJ, did you have to spend a lot of time learning to tweak yours to use in the Pac Cup?"
Yes, and that's a trade-off when using these higher-end pilots for non-pro racing, where you're not able to keep tweaking them. There are times when I miss the plug-and-play simplicity of the Raymarine gear I had on the J/92.
I had the B&G pilot dialed in pretty well for local racing but it couldn't keep up with the sea state in the second half of the PacCup. TS Darby (racing over) and then TS Frank (coming back) complicated the wave patterns and made it tough to rely on the autopilot. The Pelagic steered more reliably than the B&G pilot when the sea state was bad.
Yes, and that's a trade-off when using these higher-end pilots for non-pro racing, where you're not able to keep tweaking them. There are times when I miss the plug-and-play simplicity of the Raymarine gear I had on the J/92.
I had the B&G pilot dialed in pretty well for local racing but it couldn't keep up with the sea state in the second half of the PacCup. TS Darby (racing over) and then TS Frank (coming back) complicated the wave patterns and made it tough to rely on the autopilot. The Pelagic steered more reliably than the B&G pilot when the sea state was bad.
Those were really challenging conditions those last couple days with that south swell, but interesting that the pelagic was correcting better.
willsailforfood
Anarchist
This thread reminds me of the old, 'quality, price, or schedule, pick two,' adage.
I can say that getting corrected wind solution downwind makes a huge difference, as does rock solid heading data. The wind solution means getting inputs for yaw, pitch, roll into the equation, especially at higher heeling angles, when calculating the wind inputs to the pilot.
Having been on boats with identical pilot setups where the inputs to the pilot were properly corrected for this, and the other didn't, the difference was night and day.
Good 10Hz heading with pitch, roll, yaw + ROT, a vertical wind sensor, and a co-processor or pilot brain to run all the calculations is going to add up, however you choose to slice it.
I can say that getting corrected wind solution downwind makes a huge difference, as does rock solid heading data. The wind solution means getting inputs for yaw, pitch, roll into the equation, especially at higher heeling angles, when calculating the wind inputs to the pilot.
Having been on boats with identical pilot setups where the inputs to the pilot were properly corrected for this, and the other didn't, the difference was night and day.
Good 10Hz heading with pitch, roll, yaw + ROT, a vertical wind sensor, and a co-processor or pilot brain to run all the calculations is going to add up, however you choose to slice it.
willsailforfood
Anarchist
NKE does not make the ram for their pilots, just the brain, and wind sensor. They use L&S hydraulics, which I feel are some of the best rams you can get. Bonus for those of us in North America; PYI is the dealer for L&S, and their service is second to none.
If I were buying a complete new setup, including a RAM, I'd buy B&G and L&S for the hydraulics.
As it turns out, we bought B&G and already have a solid B&G Type 2 RAM, so we didn't have to go there, but I added the Triton Edge processor (hopefully arriving in November) so we could get all the aforementioned wind solution calculations into the mix without upgrading to a full H5000 setup.
I will say that every NKE equipped boat I've sailed on with good sensors performed astonishingly well, and I am super impressed with their pilots, but wasn't prepared to jettison everything N2K to go back to NMEA 0183 and Topline.
Second vote for the Pelagic.
Simple. Great for motoring or dead down wind light sailing when there isn't enough breeze to drive my Monitor.
Monitor then sheet to tiller bungee are my backups for it.
I went for the extra beefy actuator as my boat is pretty heavy.
lbrindze
New member
First off, I would not take Foolish's advise lightly, this guy literally wrote the book on single handing (and its a very good book if you have not had the the pleasure of reading it).
That being said, I use a Pelagic on my Hobie 33 (which is a very similar boat to the Olson 30) and I can report I had reliably good performance on it both upwind and downwind in last year's Bermuda 1-2. No, it can't keep a uldb at speed by steering around waves when going into it, but short of that, I found the performance to be very good. This included surfing the boat at 17-18knts (boat speed) in 30+ sustained wind at the very forward edge of TS that was crossing the course to the south. It requires some practice to tune the gain for the conditions, as well as keeping the boat balanced but I assume this is going to be true of any of the higher end systems like NKE and B&G.
The pelagic really shined the most in feather light winds in apparent wind mode, and with a boat like the Hobie I was able to start whispering along before any of the other boats could even think about putting up their sails again. in general I could outdrive the pelagic, but in light wind it had me beat and could consistently keep the boat moving even when I couldn't.
I was planning on using this for next summer's SHTP but after reading your account, I may reconsider. I bought my unit last year, so perhaps they have upgraded the software or the sensors so it performs better now than when you last used it? or maybe its really not suitable for a 2 week sled ride to Hawaii, either way I would be curious what you recommend instead.
Drakenkade
New member
Unless you compare it to the b&g... no base station required, small, light, you can pre program your auto tack in degrees to the wind angle. And, it's Half the price...
willsailforfood
Anarchist
The Navico/B&G remote is $169
slug zitski
Super Anarchist
Yes indeed
also consider that even the best auto system can’t drive a poorly designed boat
those oceanic speedsters blasting along at 20 knots under auto are specifically designEd to track well at sea under full power
I've installed 4 of these - very un-impressed with performance
