rich mans auto pilot

[hvolkhart]

I have been looking for a autopilot for quite some time and I was hoping Santa would bring me one.

So now I’m looking again into this subject and I was e-bay googling the Raymarine sport pilot since it is no longer manufactured.
No luck.
So I was looking around and found the “SmartPilot X-5 Sport” from Raymarine http://www.raymarine.com/default.aspx?s ... &page=1839. I like this unit especially the drive unit what will be mounted before the steering wheel.

Does anyone have any experience with this “SmartPilot X-5 Sport”? The instruction say’s it is not for sail boats.

All other units (like the S1) are very expensive and with a price tag of ~ $ 1300 (search the net) it is not too bad for a complete unit.
I know, it is more than double of the $600 unit from Victor but it is available on the market. (Victor,any comments when your unit will be avaiable?)
Thanks

[Indulgence]

My '98 26X came with this autopilot installed. It connected to the Garmin 76 chartplotter/depthsounder
and operated just as advertised. The PO motored quite a bit and I guess it was great for what it was designed for.

When I took possession of the boat the autopilot was disconnected and removed from the steering wheel spindle.
In hindsight I kind of wish I'd put it back on for our week aboard on the Okanagan last summer. The wind was pretty
spotty and we ended up motoring more than anything. It would have been nice to let this do it's thing. Mind you I discovered
the controller was in need of repair...

Anyway, the downside with ours was when the autopilot was off you still turned the mechanism attached to the spindle
which was heavy to move. You ended up with kind of a zero feedback wheel feel. I like the wheel to be light and
be able to feel the pressure on the rudders so have no plans to re-install. Actually plan to disconnect the motor.

The PO told us, while it was great for power, he disliked the way it made the wheel hard to turn when not in use.
Autopilot was always off while sailing.

I didn't realize the spindle had been changed out for this rig. I ordered a poor man's autopilot from Kelly Hansen only find out
it won't fit over the new parts. When I looked at the total installation for this autopilot, it's a pretty big deal.
I personally would not be able to do it.

There's certainly a chance Raymarine has upgraded the mechanism to dis-engage when not in use to let the helm freewheel.

Laurie