I don’t think I’d ever be able to express enough how critical and life saving a working autopilot is on a sailboat. I have my boys and we can of course to manual steering for extended time with well timed and shared watches. But they are moving off the boat soon and I’ll be single handing. A working autopilot is literally a matter of life and death at times.

When we got the boat the autopilot didn’t work. And after our first inspection we noticed that the red and green wires from the motor to the control head were reversed. Easy fix.. But it still didn’t work. So when at anchor in Provincetown Mass we looked deeper and discovered that the “rudder sensor” which is the sensor that tells the autopilot which way the rudder is pointing was, since it has three screws, 30% off. Just one slight switch and it was good. The joke of course is that we needed to go to Provincetown to discover our autopilot wasn’t strait.

And from then the autopilot worked like a champ for many many months. Until is started to behave oddly from time to time. We never did figure out why we’d just turn it off take the helm for a few hours and then turn it back on.

On the way down south this year though we had several issues that were quite dangerous. The first was from Newport RI to Atlantic Highlands NJ, running overnight along the entire Long Island we had the motor that turns the wheel die. I manually steered all that night. The next day we noticed that the wires had been torn out. So I worked up a solution that worked for another 8 hours and then when I went in to fix it again gears fell out into my hand.

We replaced the wheel unit and $700 later I realize that was a mistake. I should have replaced and upgraded the whole thing.

A few months later we were traveling from Charleston SC to Cumberland Island GA and the autopilot died again.. this time it had it’s old trick of locking on a compass reading and not letting go. And the same thing happened when going from Cumberland Island to St. Augustine FL.

Turns out, thanks to a raymarine tech who was at the same marina as us, after 30+ years the bearings in the Fluxgate compass can start to wear out and eventually the gimbaled compass gets stuck. We ordered a used replacement off eBay and honestly we’re now close to the cost of just buying a modern unit.

Coming north again from St. Augustine to Cumberland Island it worked like a champ built moving from Cumberland Island GA to Carolina Beach NC there were a few errors. And I’m thinking that at the first chance I get (money wise) I’m going to upgrade the whole thing to the modern version and this time I’m going to give our lovely boat the hydraulic arm so she’s stronger and quieter.

The autopilot is such a critical piece of equipment and I’d argue one of the most important if not the most important piece you have on board if you’re doing any overnight or any sails over 12 hours. You need that extra hand.