MacGregorSailors.com

I had the Sport Pilot Plus on my 26X for nearly 8 years. The behavior that you are describing sounds like a faulty switch in the control stick. I'll bet that the stick got twisted and the wires are now shorted together. Yes, that stick is a bit fragile and there is a temptation to use it like a car turn-signal. The rubber seal around those two little buttons on the top of that stick were destroyed by the sun, and I eventually slid a big diameter piece of heat shrink tubing over them as a seal (I never used those two little buttons any way). If you don't intend to use the GPS link feature (where you press the stick in and twist) I'd suggest just removing the stick completely and replacing it with a multi-position rotary switch in a weather protected place (like inside the console).

Good luck

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Rich Plumb, S/V Chieftain
Tacoma, WA, Morgan 462

So far my control stick is in good shape as my pedestal is always covered if not under way and stored at home it has a double cover of the pedestal Sunbrella cover and the boathouse in the back yard. I've never has to reset anything. I wired up a four position power panel at the pedestal for separate power control of my GPS, AP, 12v outlet, and anchor light (mounted back on my custom arch). Thanks for the reset sequence, I'll write it in my manual.

The Sport Pilot Plus is fully compatible with the other Raymarine wired and wireless control panels. It has a full SeaTalk interface. You could probably isolate any damaged wires and switch to a different control head.

I also never use the course correction buttons although I do use the Nav function slaved to the GPS NMEA feed all the time. Occasionally I will create a full route to follow, but mostly I just move the GPS cursor to a point I want to steer towards and then select "Go To Cursor" The AP will drive to that point correcting for any wind and current along the way. This is far more accurate than just steering by the compass.

Personally I like the clean look and simplicity of the Sport pilot over any wheel pilot installation I have seen. It just looks like it was made for a Mac. I'll be curious to see some of the new SPX5 installations. It also looks perfect for a Mac, I just hate the look of those rings on the wheel. To bad they have a recall out on the early ones. http://www.raymarine.com/Article.aspx?S ... 9#CBM10949

The control stalk completely fell off of mine. (left it for a year with the helm uncovered and the UV killed the rubber) I removed the stalk part , disassembled the rotary switch bought a piece of PVC pipe that the rotary switch fits into sliced it in half , put the swith in, glued the 2 halfs together then glued it to the plastic main housing (with PVC cement).
I haven't gotten around to reinstalling it yet.

The rotary switch has a small ball bearing and spring in it to make it click and stop at the main switch positions. It is a pretty crappy looking design on the switch. I would suspect the switch is causing the problem. THose wires are on a ribbon and are very very tiny. The switch is complicated. THere are about 5 wires it switches . I simply kept the switch part and remounted it into te PVC pipe I bought. THe switch doesn't have the detents anymore.

Raymarine SPX5 is stoped to sell in Spain because have a lot of problems.

Factory Distributor says they start to re sell again when problems are solved.