On a previous boat I used a tiller pilot connected to the emergency tiller on the Hydrovane self steering as a second steering alternative. This worked well as a low current draw alternative to the main autopilot in light conditions when there wasn't enough apparent wind for the Hydrovane etc. The tiller pilot was a Raymarine ST4000 which was a bit of overkill for driving the relatively small Hydrovane rudder.

I am planning to set up my current boat with a similar arrangement and was wondering if anyone had experience of using such a setup with a smallish tiller pilot as I would like to limit the current draw as much as possible without compromising performance. Would for instance a ST1000 be man enough for the job?

The boat is a 40' longish keel cruiser around 10 tonnes displacement.

Thanks
Colin Campbell

Dick, Simon,

Thanks for your input and ideas. I see the Hydrovane website has a mass of different tiller pilot setups in the picture gallery if you search on 'tiller pilot' with plenty of examples of different installations and fabrication ideas. There seems to be enough examples of ST1000 units in use on boats of a similar displacement to mine to make me think its worth going for that model and see how it goes.

Regards
Colin