Autopilot for a 8m

Post by **Ron** » Thu May 26, 2011 3:55 am

Brad -

A few comments:

There's no reason why you can't mount the unit in the cockpit. The 28 has them mounted to the port seat. You just need the right angle, but it can't be that close to the forward end of the tiller. The length of the arc may be too large for the pilots motor range.

They sell extensions (pilot to tiller) in various sizes. This could help if the nominal pilot to tiller distance was too large, but won't help if the arc too big.

The unit can be remotely controlled, from anywhere on the boat, with one of the two hand-held wireless controllers. One just does the pilot, the other also displays the various instrument readings. I sometimes relax on one of the ama's and steer the boat from there. This could help if you have to mount it behind the cockpit because of the arc.

JoeWalling · Post by **JoeWalling** » Thu May 26, 2011 4:58 am

Hiya - When the winds die down a bit, I'll take and post several pictures of my Raymarine st1000's mounting ( in exchange for you posting some pictures of your boat ?) Mine is indeed mounted outside the cockpit and is neither in the way of anything not awkward to get at - I just can't visualize it at the moment.

I'd love to see more pictures of people's boats - you get so many ideas, as they are all different. Cheers

JoeWalling · Post by **JoeWalling** » Thu May 26, 2011 10:09 am

Me again. Sorry - I see that you have posted lots of pictures. Jolly good. I'll be going to the boat on Monday - re pictures of the autohelm.

JoeWalling · Post by **JoeWalling** » Tue Jun 14, 2011 6:15 am

Hi. Sorry for the delay. Here is the bracket for my raymarine St1000 autohelm. It was homemade for sure, but not by me. In the last picture - 0788 - you can just see at the the bottom, slightly to the left, the plug to connect the autohelm to the power supply.

The bracket sits outboard of the cockpit, on the starboard side. The stainless pole you can see is the inner taff rail strut. If you look at 0785,
you can see both inner and outer taff rail struts and you can also see in between them two square section tubes. These support the tray upon which my solar panel sits.

I have taken a couple of othe pictures but can only post 3 at one time so will post the others in a mo.

Cheers. Joe

JoeWalling · Post by **JoeWalling** » Tue Jun 14, 2011 6:22 am

Re last post just sent. Any more pictures or Qs - just ask.

JoeWalling · Post by **JoeWalling** » Wed Jun 15, 2011 3:18 pm

It is aluminium, unfortunately - looking a bit tired now. And I'll take a better picture with it all set up. As you have probably seen, everything is outboard of the cockpit and not in the way. The autopilot also has a bungy attached as a failsafe in case it were to jump out of its mounting. Cheers

petrel · Post by **petrel** » Thu Jun 16, 2011 10:33 am

Brad,

My boat has a temporary bracket that is hose clamped to the seat back stanchion. It has been that way for over twenty years so I guess I should no longer consider it temporary. But my point is that you could do the same to test the geometry of your specific autopilot setup. Then install something more permanent and better looking later.

Geoffrey

International Telstar Owners Association