Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

You're right, I was referring to AP's of

that vintage. Modern Auto pilots are better. They react faster and that's for sure. I elected to go only with an electric AP for that very reason. I have a ComNav built in Canada with all the bells and whistles. Still, I have to say that while sitting up against the cabin looking aft at the wheel I was amazed at how fast the wheel was compensating. It was spinning back and forth faster then I could have turned it by hand. And, doing it day after day. I'm not so sure I would be able to say the same thing under the same conditions these days. I just don't know. You had to be there to see the wheel. It was amazing. I can tell you that my auto pilot isn't as fast at, say, turning the wheel 1/4 turn each way going down the face of a wave. It's fast enough for anything I been in in the last 7 years but it won't turn the wheel that 1/4 turn each way anywhere as fast as the monitor did. Having said that, it was a smaller boat. It didn't obtain the speeds that a larger modern hull design will achieve. You might even say the vane was over sized for the boat but it is what it is. That vane steered great in really shitty conditions. That's all I can say. My ComNav is turning two complete and separate steering systems from the wheels to separate quadrants on the rudder posts. That's a lot of drag. Not enough to feel it while sailing or hand steering for a few hours but more then I would want if I had to hand steer for several days. If that happened I would disconnect the pilot house steeling cables to lighten it up a bit. That was a factor in deciding not to install a vane which made the decision to install davits easier as well.

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