I know this has veered a bit off the original thread asking about fitment issues, so I figured I might as well chime in now that we're sufficiently off course... ;)
My 35-2 came with an old ComNav autopilot which drives a RayMarine wheel pilot drive, not sure which vintage. The ComNav seems pretty robust (they make mainly commercial units), but is now ~20 years old. It has a rudder feedback arm mounted off the quadrant, and is capable of driving a hydraulic drive up to 20A. Lately the unit will give an error indicating a rudder feedback error, but I think it may just be complaining about the belt slippage which occurs whenever I am motoring over 5.5kts or there is any sea state beyond a light chop, so we rarely use it except for dropping the main on occasion now. The main weakness seems to be the wheel drive, as the housing has stress cracks at the sections where the two halves are joined, and when it skips a tooth, I can see the housing split apart slightly. Maybe a new housing would fix this, but the noise it makes while under sail is too annoying for me to use it much anyway. Our next boat will definitely have a direct drive AP, as per Don's comment below. I've sailed a newer Dufour with a below deck chain drive AP that seems to work well and is quiet, so it doesn't necessarily need to be hydraulic. -- Shawn Wright shawngwri...@gmail.com S/V Callisto, 1974 C&C 35 https://www.facebook.com/SVCallisto On Mon, Oct 25, 2021 at 11:50 AM Don Marlin via CnC-List < cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote: > My experience is with a C&C 40. When we first got my boat it had a > functioning ST4000+ wheel pilot. It was fine motoring and sailing in light > winds. > Based on the literature, our boat is technically too heavy for the ST4000+. > > My main complaints for the ST4000+ Wheel Pilot: > 1) it was noisy...and it is not a pleasant noise as load increases. Think > nails on a chalkboard > 2) when it got overpowered the AP gave up and simply stopped controlling > 3) it was erratic but this might be due to compass placement or the fact > it always seemed behind the boat. > ... > *If it was me, anything 35' or larger would automatically be a below deck > system.* > > > >
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