autopilot disengaging problem

lmonson · #1 (**permalink**) 11-15-2005

I chartered a boat yesterday with a few people and we used the autopolot. When we went to turn it off however it would not disengage. It was a Raytheon but I cant remember the model name or number. It simply had a lever. In the manual it said to press the standby button and lift the lever. Thats all, how could we mess that up? Did we just completely miss something obvious?

ariel182 · #2 (**permalink**) 11-15-2005

Either the lever itself or the cam that engages the belt is stripped.

Jeff_H · #3 (**permalink**) 11-16-2005

I have encountered that with my autopilot as well. I have a Raymarine (Raytheon) 4000 plus. The unit worked great during the summer but as soon as the weather became cold, the belt seemed to want to bind even after the lever was released. I have been meaning to drop a note to Raymarine to discuss this.

Jeff

lmonson · #4 (**permalink**) 11-16-2005

our problem is we were chartering the boat and could not find any tools aboard so unfortunately we had to manually override the autopilot and I hate to think of how much more damage it did to the machine.