Raymarine Wheel Pilot Video

Some remarks on the Ev-100 Wheel Pilot, which I happen to think is a good piece of gear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzXkixctc74

raymarine ev101

Thanks Christen,

I have yet to use my Raymarine autopilot because the plastic gears have snapped off and are floating around, another winter project.

It is nice to see how things are supposed to work.

MJS

Great video. On the SPX5, I've found that a setting of 1 was best on a long passage, at least while motoring over flat water. I never detected much difference between a 3 and 4, or a 7 and 8, however. Do you find the 3 response levels limiting?

Nope. However, the difference in hysteria does relate to the hard-over-time setting--it gets amplified if rudder turn is set to rapid.

To my mind, the higher settings--8-10 on the SPX, equivalent to "performance" on the EV-100--cause the motor anxiety.

A little weaving is better than a setting in need of therapy.

Our boat came with an older ST4000+. I have not been very impressed with the performance. Sailing or motoring once you set a course it quickly starts to weave, swinging back and fourth in an increasingly large manner until it stabilizes in probably 3 degree port and stbd sweeps (6 degrees total). I have no doubt we would get to our heading this way, but we would travel quite a bit more distance. In case people are wondering this happens even when the boat was balanced enough that just locking the wheel to the motor with the autopilot in standby (the electronic version of tying a line to the wheel) kept us almost dead on course (small corrections every 5 min or so).

Meant to add I enjoyed watching the video. Our autopilot doesn’t have sensitivity in the normal menu system but I think it might in the setup menus. I’ll have to take a look at what it is set at

Hagar2sail said:

Our boat came with an older ST4000+. I have not been very impressed with the performance. Sailing or motoring once you set a course it quickly starts to weave, swinging back and fourth in an increasingly large manner until it stabilizes in probably 3 degree port and stbd sweeps (6 degrees total). I have no doubt we would get to our heading this way, but we would travel quite a bit more distance. In case people are wondering this happens even when the boat was balanced enough that just locking the wheel to the motor with the autopilot in standby (the electronic version of tying a line to the wheel) kept us almost dead on course (small corrections every 5 min or so).

Click to expand...

On my previous boat with wheel steering I had an ST4000+ and didn't care much for it, either. But one thing I found that helped the performance quite a bit was to set the Drive Type to 2, which is for "hydraulic steering." Even though my boat did not have hydraulic steering this improved the course keeping considerably.

Alan-

Thanks for the info. I will try that when I can. Sadly 2 weeks into the season someone hit our boat so we are on the hard (hopefully we will be able to salvage some of the short season we have).

We too had an ST-4000 on Rag Doll. Under sail it just never seemed to work that well, though I may of course have been guilty of having the sails poorly trimmed. But used while under power, especially when connected to a GPS way point it worked perfectly.

Hard over

On my wheel pilot, I hit the 1 and 10 degree buttons simultaneously and it goes 90 degrees to come about. No need to hit the 10 degrees 9 times. Yours doesn’t?

BTW, I love your YouTube channel. I’m a subscriber.

Yes, if you manage to press those two buttons at once, The Raymarine wheel pilot will do exactly what a computer programmer in an acoustic tiled ceiling office told it to, which is make a 90-degree turn.

But--why would anybody want to do what a computer programmer told him to?

You may notice that the 90-degree turn that worked so well in the programmers office is not very useful on a cruising boat. Unless absolutely close hauled to begin witht, you wont get through the turn. A 90-degree --is that what we do when we jibe? Me, at least, I look where I want to go, and jibe to head thataway. Maybe it;s me, but the angles seems to be different every time.

Seriously....

It is just as easy--in fact, easier, because you dont have to look at the control head--to merely push the +10 or -10 button for the turn you want. I compute that that equals one push per 10 degrees, or 10 pushes for a 100 degree tack. There being no lag in the software, the effect is pretty much instantaneous.

I steer by the buttons all the time. Three pushes, 30 degrees eight. Eight pushes, 80 degree left.

There is no reason at all, that I can see, ever to eyeball the control head, find two buttons, and push them simultaneously while trying to dodge champagne corks , paddleboarders or that carpenter's square the software engineer thought was so important.

Try it.