Electrical draw of autopilots?

[Faster]

Originally Posted by mitiempo

....He's sailing to Panama, through the South Pacific and to Australia....

Sounds like wind vane territory to me... which ever you choose you'll have plenty of time to tune it up...

[sailingdog]

Building your own windvane or using a sheet-to-tiller steering setup isn't a bad idea, and not very expensive....for a smaller sailboat it is quite feasible.

[roline]

I ended up with three Raymarine units, 800, 1000 and st2000+. Power drain would depend on the sensitivity setting on the unit and the conditions. The 1000 is more docile than the 2000+, but I prefer the 2000+ being connected to seatalk and remote controlled with a st6001 head. It also can be controlled by the chartplotter. Windvane would be the cruisers choice if at all possible with an autohelm as backup. Having to tend helm for many hours can be done, but you still need a little sleep now and then.

[GaryHLucas]

Another thought for you. Autopilots of any kind use a lot of power because they have to push as hard as you do to steer. However, if you rigged a trim tab on your rudder and used the tiller pilot to drive that you could radically reduce the power requirements. Brent Swain shows how to do this on his steel boats.

Gary H. Lucas