An Experience and a Lesson

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
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If you are going to run thet Auto pilot to follow a route(set of way points) then you should adjust thte amount of drift to a little as possible. My biggest beef witht the raymarine unit over others is the amount of allowable drift while in route follow mode. I dont want any drift at all and 100yards is to much for me.
 
Reference Raymarine AP:

The AP will alert you when it is time to turn onto a new heading, not making the turn until you confirm it is safe by pressing the TRACK key. The amount of drift (XTrack Error) can be controlled to a great degree by increasing the RESPONSE, making the AP work harder to keep you on a tighter course. The RESPONSE screen can be accessed by pressing the DISPLAY key until it comes up, then pressing the plus or minus keys to change value.

My one and only major gripe with the Raymarine unit is that the course line on the chartplotter is black (like all the other lines on the chart) and you can't highlight it or change its color to make it more visible. On the radar it is an extremely faint red line, equally hard to see. I much prefer Garmin's highlighted line or Furuno's "lollipop". I've complained to Raymarine to no avail, and now, with the changes there, no hope at all.
 
Great tips on the AP use here. Thanks for the excellent help. In the dense fog and at slow speed like Paul mentions it sounds like a good asset.

Harvey
SleepyC
 
Great post. We always slow down to visual range when the fog, darkness, rain etc impairs visability. I have had radar on my boats for over 30 years, and lusted for it before then when it was not affordiable to us. It is a great tool. BUT not all boats show up on radar--as mentioned--Kayaks, some glass boats, small boats, debris, dead heads etc. So radar is never a substitute for eyes. I have not yet sucumbed to an auto pilot on these small boats. Part of this is my adversion to running at a high speed on auto pilot. I think it is dangerous for many reasons. Just my opinion and I have had auto pilots on my boats since 1962. Great tool!

We have one person assigned to the radar/chart plotter. The skipper has eyes on the water; even with low visability. Even at 6 knots and 100 foot visability, the reaction time of going from an observer saying "I think I see something at 10 o'clock" to "Where?" to "There", is too long, and you might run down an object/boat. Thus we feel that the person at the helm in one of these small boats needs to be eyes on the water in very bad visability.

Take, and again, Thanks!
 
Mike , as you pointed out you can adjust the responce, and I do, but as you get to the next waypoint it will beep that you are their 200 yards from the way point. Close enough if you are in the ocean cruizing but not enough for fishing or close to land. The garmin/tr-1 is with in ten ft.

I was sure that you could change the track line color. I know that you can on the saved routes. four colors to choose from. Oh you have the ap not the c-80 so maybe you cant, but should be same programing.
 
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