If "you sit at the helm for hours on end, daily" then your not cruising,
your driving your boat.

Isn't the OP a power boater? If so, so much for windvanes.

As far as autopilot goes, that may be fine
offshore but in coastal cruising or inland waters there is usually enough
traffic that one has to keep a constant lookout, anyway.

One of my personal gripes is encountering a give way vessel that is reluctant
to make a course or speed adjustment in a timely manner because some damn
computer is actually running the boat. The computer doesn't know the rules of
the road, and the GPS doesn't even know any other vessels exist. :-)

On 24 Mar 2004 18:13:07 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:

If "you sit at the helm for hours on end, daily" then your not cruising,
your driving your boat.

Isn't the OP a power boater? If so, so much for windvanes.

I don't see that in the original post. If he is, don't they usually
come with little padded bar stools?

As far as autopilot goes, that may be fine
offshore but in coastal cruising or inland waters there is usually enough
traffic that one has to keep a constant lookout, anyway.

Well, I meant while I go forward, keeping an eye out. For that matter,
sometimes I just go head to wind under power at dead slow...the
autopilot is handy then.

One of my personal gripes is encountering a give way vessel that is reluctant
to make a course or speed adjustment in a timely manner because some damn
computer is actually running the boat. The computer doesn't know the rules of
the road, and the GPS doesn't even know any other vessels exist. :-)

Mine is a far more "hands on" set-up, and the Autohelm I use is a
model not much more complex than a steel stick and a toy motor. But I
know the type and carry an air horn for just such an occasion. Shame
about the naval whites, old bean....G

R.