Auto Pilot

[GLF]

I am hoping to add an auto pilot to my boat for next season. The boat is a 27' Sea Ray Amberjack with twin v-6's.

Any recommendation for an auto pilot?

[Ginwithtonic]

Your wife?

ROFLMAO

[J J Mac]

I have the Raymarine ST6001 S1G Hydraulic Inboard Pack on my Tiara 2700 (twin inboards, hydraulic steering) and have been real happy with it. I have run it for two years with absolutely no problem. I have had two other autopilots before and this is by far the best.

I also have the same unit only for outboards on a Pursuit 2670 with twin F200 Yamaha outboards (hydraulic steering) and it has been OK too. This was the first year for this auto pilot. We did have a problem with the Gyro Compass on the Pursuit this fall but it is being sent in to Raymarine and I'm sure they will replace it.

I would go with Raymarine again. I put the auto pilot on the Tiara and my son put it on the Pursuit. Takes some time!

[HitMan]

We have the Raymarine ST8002 on the 31' Tiara, Hit Man. We just got it installed last summer, when it was released. This is the largest autopilot available from Raymarine, as we opted to get the larger one for an extra couple hundred dollars.

I have used many different autopilots and I have to say this is the best one yet. It worked perfectly everyday all summer long. It held perfect in 4-6' waves and sometimes bigger. Overall, I would never reccommend another autopilot other than Raymarine.

[spoonfed]

JJ Mac, i have a 26' Pursuit with a single i/o. I have a Raymarine that mounts on the steering wheel, I cant remember the number, but every so often it will just quit and turn to the right. Would that be the gyro?

[caznik]

Your wife?

ROFLMAO

Find a hot chick:lol:

[J J Mac]

Spoonfed -I think Raymarine has discontinued this model. You can still get technical help by calling 1-800-539-5539.

[Jason Adam]

JJ Mac, i have a 26' Pursuit with a single i/o. I have a Raymarine that mounts on the steering wheel, I cant remember the number, but every so often it will just quit and turn to the right. Would that be the gyro?

You probably have a SportPilot or SportPilot Plus. Neither were particulary great for larger boats or for trolling. They are really touchy. It seems once you get them setup right, they work alright, but the ones I used and friends were always breaking down. See if there is something near the fluxgate compass(what you are refering to as the gyro) that would be causing some sort of EMI (electromagnetic interference) when the boat makes its sudden turns. Anything electrical in close proxcimity to that compass will throw it off. Bilge pumps are notorious for it.

For the record I use, and have installed 4 more, Simrad AP14. In my opinion, the best AP on the market in its price range.

[GLF]

One of my engines has a power steering pump, and the other does not. Will the auto pilot work correctly with either engine?

[Dv8oR]

I'm just thinking out loud here and have more car knowledge then boats but.....

If in fact the motor with the p/s pump isn't running, you don't have p/s anyway, So.... I would think since the autopilot actually controls the wheel at the helm doesn't matter p/s or not!

Someone help us here......!!!

T

[muskybob]

Find a hot chick:lol:

All I can find are discontinued models.

[Dv8oR]

All I can find are discontinued models.

ROFLMFAO

[marijo]

Hello

The Raymarine 6001 does'nt control the steering, it just disengage the steering an give oil pressure directly to your cylinder controling your I/O.

If you had this type of P/S, you need to transfer to an Hydraulic steering like an Seastar.

Go a this address and follow your boat set up, you will understand pretty easy the way to do it.

http://ww2.seastarsteering.com/

My set up is :

Raymarine 6001

seastar teleflex steering pump

seastar cylinder

Raymarine S100 remote control

and an stainless rod for controlling my kicker,

and I am not really satisfied of it. Not because the autopilot does'nt work, it's just because when you get used to it, you want to add gadget, as I did.

And as I add an Raymarine S100 remote control, I was surprised to see that all the feature of the S100 were not supported by the 6001.

As it is an pretty expensive expense, I need to stay with it, and if I was better concelled I had probably buyed a couple hundred more expensive item to get all those fishing feature.

Be sure to get advise from an authorised distributor of Raymarine to get all the infos before buying as you will get stuck for a long period with it.

Remember to tell him that it is for a fishing boat, to get all the fishing patern included in some pilot, but not on the 6001.

my 2c

Marijo

[Dot Net]

I have a TR-1 Gladiator on my Baha 277GLE it is hooked to the 8.1 I/O and my 20 horse kicker is tied to the outdrive with an ez steer and the gladiator trolls perfect, keeps us within 1 degree.

[Rayman96]

The Gladiator is a division of Garmin. Here is the link below.

http://www.nautamatic.com/

Hope this helps in your quest.

[wallyandre]

You absolutly need a hydraulic steering to run those AP. There is some models that can be run with a power steering and they are: Raymarine Sport Pilot (not very good and discontinued) and the Simrad AP 11 R or the AP 14R; but they are actually out of production and Simrad are suppose to come with something in a near future.

[A-Fishy-Anado]

I have a 2300 sea swirl striper with a 200hp johnson ocean pro and am looking for an affordable/reliable auto pilot....any suggestions would be appreciated?

[Hardwork]

You probably have a SportPilot or SportPilot Plus. Neither were particulary great for larger boats or for trolling. They are really touchy. It seems once you get them setup right, they work alright, but the ones I used and friends were always breaking down. See if there is something near the fluxgate compass(what you are refering to as the gyro) that would be causing some sort of EMI (electromagnetic interference) when the boat makes its sudden turns. Anything electrical in close proxcimity to that compass will throw it off. Bilge pumps are notorious for it.

For the record I use, and have installed 4 more, Simrad AP14. In my opinion, the best AP on the market in its price range.

I installed the Simrad on my boat and another charter boat in our marina this year all i can say is i wish i had found it sooner . All the people that i know with the sportpilot or sportpilot plus have had trouble with them . But Ray marine did come up with a new unit this year i would wait till it's been tested on a few other boats JMO

[anthonyyost]

The 87 Amberjack hardtop that I bought this summer came with a

Cetec Benmar, CS21SK unit installed. The company has a website, and although they no longer make this paticular unit, they still service it and have new models.

This unit connects directly to the back of the steering column and as such the drive unit protrudes into the bathroom a little bit, but not a big deal.

I had trouble with the unit at first, so I called the company and they told me how to clean the contact points (apparently it doesn't take much dust to screw it up!) and recalibrate the compass. After that it worked like a charm.

The only thing is that the boat is big enough that in bigger wave and higher wind conditions it is not possible to expect the boat to stay on track with the autopilot at trolling speed. Even running two engines it is tough. Farther ahead to just drive manually in these conditions. However, once you get enough power and speed (going back in at the end of the day) it seems to work well.

[1mainiac]

Well as for the new Raymarine SP5X system I paid for one in Mar when I bought my boat. However Raymarine spent the whole summer again talking about it and never actually delivered it. I was actually told by one of their company reps who was at Mariners Center this spring that Raymarine considers us fishermen a small portion of their business so even though they had advance orders for hundreds of them they would not deliver em. So after 3 years of promising a replacement for the Sport Pilot they would not deliver it. I had not heard about the Simrad rotary unit being discontinued but there are several dealers who have them in stock but I don't have enough clearance behind the helm to install one so it don't matter.In late Aug I gave up for the season and got my money back and vowed I would never invest in anything Raymarine builds as they made it clear they could care less about my business I will return the favor and not care about theirs. If your boat is cable steered you have very few options so I am converting mine to Hyd steering this winter. Once you have Hyd steering your options are wide open and only your wallet will limit you. I am assumeing since you have twin Mercruisers with power steering it is cable operated power asist steering which is the most common form of I/O steering on the Great Lakes. Here is a link to the Sea Star page that will give you the base componets you need to convert to Hyd Steering. http://ww2.seastarsteering.com/STERNDRIVE/stern.htm I am only short the Cyl as I found a complete sys used cheap but it has the wrong cyl but if anyone needs a Mercruiser non power steering cyl I have one. Another advantage to Hyd steering is you can add as many helms as you want and the wheel cannot be turned by the drive or any other part of the system. This means when you let go of the wheel it stays put even when the autopilot or other station changes the course.

Tight Lines

Jim

[1mainiac]

Hi Mike dropped my boat off at storage today talked to Brett really nice setup. Took a quick look at your boat you have a mercruiser cable operated power steering system. As such you have 2 options for autopilot one wait till Raymarine finally releases their new system the one I waited all year for and is now schedualed for release in late Nov according to Mariners Center as of today. The second option would be to find one of the Sim Rad AP12 or14 R systems. There is some talk that Sim Rad is going to stop making them so they might be a risk. So as of today you have to choices take a chance on the Sim Rad or wait in line for the Raymarine unit to be released. The only other choice would be to do what I am and that is to convert to Hyd steering then the options increase I spent a couple of hours at Mariner Center today and decided on a Garmin system fo my boat now just gotta save the money to pay for it. I chose the Garmin setup because once we compared cost and features it won hands down and Garmin is not gonna go away anytime soon. The Shadow drive feature was the most deciding feature as you can change course without shutting the pilot down so you you can grab the wheel and make changes without haveing to put the pilot in standby first. And manual course changes will be maintained when you let go of the wheel so if you want to change course you can just grab the wheel rather than trying to reprogram on the fly. Mariner Center will have all the info on this system in a week or so but they can price it out and order them now takes about a week for shipment to arrive. One other thing for you to consider is it is the only system out there that will maintian course in reverse so you can backtroll with it if you want with a little practice and some programing it will back you out of the slip and drive you to your favorite fishing spot and all you would need to do is shift and change speeds. One of the last items I want to do on my boat is to add rear controls then with the remote for the autopilot I will be able to drive the boat from the fishing station. Well good luck.

Tight Lines

Jim