Tiller Pilot

[tartansailor]

Greetings All,
We're considering buying a tiller pilot whose brand begins with Sim***
and was wondering if anyone on our CD Board had any "issues"
or would offer advice had they to do it all over again?
Respectfully,
Dick

[fmueller]

Best tiller pilot you can buy is this:

https://pelagicautopilot.com/

Considering it’s much more robust performance, it’s a bargain.

All the other units (I have a TP 32) fail in real weather. Ok for motoring generally but rarely able to handle following seas force 4 and over.

Good luck.

[tartansailor]

Thanks Fred

[sgbernd]

While I agree that the Pelagic has a good reputation, I personally prefer the idea of a self contained unit like the Raymarine or Simrad for the following reasons;

1) They are self contained units and don't require additional boxes and electronics to be mounted somewhere, drilling holes, stringing wires, etc.
2) As a self contained unit, when they fail (and fail they will) you just remove the whole thing and insert the replacement. Takes 1 minute. Then fix or replace the defective unit at your leisure.
3) I find the Raymarine units last 300-500hrs which is not great but good for several years at my rate of use. This gets me 5yrs or so. Considering they cost about half as much, I find this an acceptable trade.

Where I to plan to use it crossing an ocean, I'd be more inclined towards the higher quality unit but I'd still want spares of everything except maybe the ram.

steve

[Dick Kobayashi]

I have had a Raymarine 2000 for over a decade - works fine for my inshore sails bu can get over powered over 15 kts unless reefed which one should be anyway. Should be fine for a 25 unless you are contemplating an offshore passage.