Sport Pilot

[craiglaforce]

The sport pilot is silent when not operating.
When it turns the wheel you can hear the motor whir a little.

The wobble is definitely inside the unit. I first thought I put it on wrong so I removed and reinstalled it several times. I think there is a brass disk inside that rotates in a clearance space and it is that clearance that lets it wobble a bit. Its really not a big deal once you get used to it.

The compass should be located low in the boat near the center of mass or center of rotation. Its just a compass and it will read better if the bouncing around is kept to a minimum. I put mine on the vertical face of the front wall of the fuel locker, above the rear berth. Works fine for me. Never went throgh the calibration procedure since it seemed to work fine without it. Plus i thought people would think I was nuts slowly motoring in giant circles for no apparent reason.

Don't forget to install the ferrite clamp things that are supposed to suppress EMF noise. Even with it, I notice that when a powerful radar unit is blasting me from short range, the autopilot goes into a hard turn and stays that way.

THe connectors on the back occasionally (once or twice a year) need jiggled to maintain good contact.

I had to remove my tach to install the antirotation plate. I covered the hole with a piece of UHMW plastic I had laying around and then screwed the plate to this. I never bothered to reinstall the tach. I think the tach also echos the alarm system on the motor, so maybe I will reinstall it one of these days. or not.

[Duane Dunn, Allegro]

I would think the center of rotation in the mac would be at the centerboard, particularly if it is full down position at least in the yaw plane. While I was under power at slow speed I had the centerboard dropped just a bit like a shallow fin which basically put its end within 12" of the compass location. The under cooler spot is also dead center side to side and very low, right at the aft end of the centerboard trunk. Seems like the closest place I could find that met all the suggestins in the manual. At 6 knots with a bit of centerboard and one rudder the boat tracked down the GPS route line like it was on rails.

As said above, steering with the sport pilot when it's not engaged makes no noise, but it does add drag. You can hear the motor whir when using it.

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

The motor on the autohelm 4000 I had was louder and higher pitched (translates to more annoying) than the sportpilot plus.

Mine also does well most of the time. Although it will track a good course, sometimes I find its just moving the wheel more than it has to though.

[Sloop John B]

I had a second market cruise control on an old Honda years ago that would jerk whip with the wind if I found a hill, or the slightest sign of one. No patience in the thing at all for a change in latitude.

Does the sport pilot have any cushion in performance as it gets constantly thrown off course, or is it constantly turning the wheel like I do, back in the captains seat?

This has to be a big battery draw.

Hows sailing with this thing?

[Billy]

John, the SP probably turns the wheel as much as you but in much smaller increments. Unless you stare at the wheel, you may not even notice its corrections. However, if it ever really gets off course, you know it--like a drunken sailor.

Never has drawn my battery down, but then I have big batteries. (Other things have.)

Sailing with it is even better. I solo and have gone foward to fly my spinnaker and retreive it. Though I don't trust it 100% and I stay ready for failure, it moves you to another level of confidence.

[Duane Dunn, Allegro]

I have an amp hour meter on my boat so I was able to get a pretty good picture of the power consumption. The sport pilot load is .1 amps when on but not steering. Each time it turns the wheel the load increases by 1.1 amps for the short duration that the motor runs. I would estimate on my boat it makes a correction every 10 to 20 seconds and the correction duration is about a second.

My first trip was all motoring (we didn't even bring the mast) so consumption was no big deal but I was glad to see it is really quite low. All my nav stuff, the Sport Pilot, GPS/Sounder, and Pocket PC with 12v adapter consume just under .5 amps when all running. The steering motor bumps this up to 1.5 momentarily on the meter.