mounting autohelm 800 longitudinally?

[Daveinet]

Getting ready to mount the autopilot and I'm running into a problem. The back of my boat is so narrow, that to mount it in the correct distance from the pivot point will mean that it is fully retracted when going straight. Has anyone built an L shaped bracket at the rudder pivot point and mounted the autopilot longitudinally rather than athwartship?

 

[Joe]

Mount the unit on or outside the coaming... If you have coaming boards... build a base with a block of wood... if the angle to the tiller is too abrupt, then fabricate an s-shape flat bar bracket mounting it to the tiller to get the arm closer to horizontal.

The bracket you have in mind may or may not work... but when you change the geometry of the machine there's a chance it may not work efficiently. In all the mounting options I've seen.... the manufacturer will stress the distance of the pin on the tiller from the rudder head... and to get the device as level as possible.

On my tiller pilot... the previous owner mounted it on the coaming so the arm would be horizontal.. and used some extension rods to reach the pin.... but there are at least two other ways it could have been installed.

 

[Capt jgw]

Does the pilot have an internal compass? If so, I don't think mounting it fore and aft would work.
1. The heading display, of it has one, would be 90deg off. Don't know if this would effect is operation.
2. When the pilot is mounted as intended, it pivots only a couple of degrees as it pushes the tiller back and forth. If you mount it fore and aft, I'm visualizing it pivoting a lot as it steers. That would confuse the compass and it might not be able to hold course. If the compass is remote, none of that would matter.
Lay everything out in the boat as you intend to install it, and compare the pilots position from fully retracted to fully extended. If its orientation relative to the center line changes much, that mounting won't work.

 

[Daveinet]

There isn't any heading display. Mechanically, the arm would be setup the same distance from the pivot point, so the ratio of movement would still turn the rudder the same amount.
The biggest difference would be the compass. I don't think it should care about orientation, as it only cares where north is. The internal compass is on a dual axis pivot. In theory, it will still be self leveling. This biggest difference I see will be fore to aft boat motion compared to heeling/side to side rocking. To me it seems like the biggest question will be if that 90 degree change in motion will confuse it. Is a normal boat's motion worse side to side, compared to for and aft, and if so, is there any kind of built in compensation for that motion other than mechanical?