Hi All,
Having great fun with our new "to us" Hunter 260. Tried out the autohelm/tillerpilot that came with it this weekend. In general it worked well, and I suspect there's a solution to the couple of problems I had, or maybe they're just a limitation of the tool, I don't know. In any case, I just love that it frees me up to trim sails rather than having to ask guests on board to do things they don't know how to do (although that has a certain fun to it as well!!!! ).
My two issues, both while sailing close hauled were.
1 - The pilot couldn't quite hold the line I asked it for on this POS, despite a very steady wind. It would constantly bear off a little too much and catch too much wind, heeling us over a bit more than I wanted, and then over correct and round up, not quite to the point of luffing, but enough to lose boat speed causing apparent wind to shift back onto the sail and heel us over again repeating the cycle. We were making way, but zig-zagging rolling back and forth uncomfortable. There may be a name for this phenomenon, but I don't know it. I experience the same thing when steering myself, but I can feel it about to happen and steer accordingly to "ride the edge" rather than let it zig-zag/roll. The pilot can't seem to do that. I came off the wind a few degrees and it sailed fine, but I hated to give away the pointing. Does this sound familiar to anyone, and if so any suggestions? I'm thinking maybe I could help the pilot by keeping one of sails' trim "in my hand". Didn't think of that until afterward, but will try it next time.
2 - Tacking performance was pretty poor. First time we tried it, we luffed up have way through and didn't make it around. Second time, I managed the timing of the head sail transition a little more carefully and made a successful tack, but it was slow. Main problem is the pilot doesn't have enough stroke to put the rudder hard over. I'm thinking this is probably just a limitation of the equipment I have, but if anybody has any suggestions for working the sails to optimize the autohelm tacking, I'd love to hear them!
Anyway, despite these problems, I am definitely a fan of the Autohelm. On every other point of sail it performed flawlessly. I'm not really in a hurry to try single handing, but it definitely allowed me to sail more comfortably with non-sailors for "crew".
Having great fun with our new "to us" Hunter 260. Tried out the autohelm/tillerpilot that came with it this weekend. In general it worked well, and I suspect there's a solution to the couple of problems I had, or maybe they're just a limitation of the tool, I don't know. In any case, I just love that it frees me up to trim sails rather than having to ask guests on board to do things they don't know how to do (although that has a certain fun to it as well!!!! ).
My two issues, both while sailing close hauled were.
1 - The pilot couldn't quite hold the line I asked it for on this POS, despite a very steady wind. It would constantly bear off a little too much and catch too much wind, heeling us over a bit more than I wanted, and then over correct and round up, not quite to the point of luffing, but enough to lose boat speed causing apparent wind to shift back onto the sail and heel us over again repeating the cycle. We were making way, but zig-zagging rolling back and forth uncomfortable. There may be a name for this phenomenon, but I don't know it. I experience the same thing when steering myself, but I can feel it about to happen and steer accordingly to "ride the edge" rather than let it zig-zag/roll. The pilot can't seem to do that. I came off the wind a few degrees and it sailed fine, but I hated to give away the pointing. Does this sound familiar to anyone, and if so any suggestions? I'm thinking maybe I could help the pilot by keeping one of sails' trim "in my hand". Didn't think of that until afterward, but will try it next time.
2 - Tacking performance was pretty poor. First time we tried it, we luffed up have way through and didn't make it around. Second time, I managed the timing of the head sail transition a little more carefully and made a successful tack, but it was slow. Main problem is the pilot doesn't have enough stroke to put the rudder hard over. I'm thinking this is probably just a limitation of the equipment I have, but if anybody has any suggestions for working the sails to optimize the autohelm tacking, I'd love to hear them!
Anyway, despite these problems, I am definitely a fan of the Autohelm. On every other point of sail it performed flawlessly. I'm not really in a hurry to try single handing, but it definitely allowed me to sail more comfortably with non-sailors for "crew".
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