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Pelagic Autopilots, anyone had any experience with them


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Basic units. Worm drive, motor is exterior. Motor and drive is the weak point. IMO the drive unit looks OK, and is cheap enough. Easy to hook up to a raymarine or B&G pilot to have a full function pilot though - that's what I'd do. No need for actisense for nmea 2k interface, electronics below deck, good features with a Triton pilot - jybe prevention, great wind angle steering, pitch roll and yaw correction etc.

However, there are a few reports of drive failures after passages of only a couple of thousand miles. Most of the references on their sites are new or newish installs. Little proven yet.

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Solo circumnavigator Webb Chiles has one and reports on his blog that it's much more reliable than his Raymarine units (of which he carries several because they're so unreliable). The downside he mentions is that the Pelagic is a lot noisier and so as long as the conditions aren't too challenging he tends to use the Raymarines when he needs to sleep.

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For me it looks like a good solid basic system thats is not reliant on the instruments which i like and can still sail to awa.

 

Only issue is he seems like a hard person to get in contact with.

 

I was looking at raymarine as well but that seems to have multiple negative reviews against it

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I have a Pelagic I am installing shortly on my Mull 31.

Brian Boschma, the designer and developer is a really good communicator.

I have emailed questions on 3 occasions and received replies within 24 hours.

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I have a Pelagic I am installing shortly on my Mull 31.

Brian Boschma, the designer and developer is a really good communicator.

I have emailed questions on 3 occasions and received replies within 24 hours.

Do you have his email? i got bounce back this morning so maybe the email i have is not correct?

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IMO the drive unit looks OK, and is cheap enough. Easy to hook up to a raymarine or B&G pilot to have a full function pilot though - that's what I'd do. No need for actisense for nmea 2k interface, electronics below deck, good features with a Triton pilot - jybe prevention, great wind angle steering, pitch roll and yaw correction etc.

 

This interests me, because id like to try the triton pilot but on a tiller steer boat there are not many options. Sd10 but thats about $1000 too much. So maybe the b&g pilot and a cheaper drive like this? Plus a rfu and precision9 compass?

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I have a Pelagic I am installing shortly on my Mull 31.

Brian Boschma, the designer and developer is a really good communicator.

I have emailed questions on 3 occasions and received replies within 24 hours.

Hi Battgirl

 

How did the pelagic ap install go? Also how is it going for you?

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Hi Meister work got in the way of boat stuff big time.I will be doing the install finally in the next couple of weeks as I have some work free time. I will let you know how it goes. Cheers

Thanks, am very interested to see how it works out before ordering one

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Strong looking unit. Wouldn’t mind on myself I knotice my autohelm over Xmas was very hot some days , so I layed a damp rag over it to cool it Weather didn’t help but never missed a beat. But these look great ,

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Youtube has a number of vids of different size yachts using them. Webb Chiles on his Moore 24 Gannet is the best known user of the Pelagic. The lead time for them has gone from 3 weeks to 6 weeks in the last 12 months. What does that tell you?

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There is a reason NONE of the vendee globe boats used Raymarine. The leaders all used B&G systems, including APs.

The pelagic is fine if all you want is to hold a heading.

If you want an AP to steer to wind, navigate, compensate for tides and currents etc, then give me a call or a pm and we can discuss what’s suits your sailing best.

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