b393capt wrote:
With my a-spinnaker up in 6 knots of breeze I have no problem with my
autopilot, but when I went out yesterday in 15 knots, my autopilot was
not assertive enough to control the boat.

When I set it to keep the 120 degrees off the wind, it completly failed
to do that. Tending to head down, even after the chute collapsed, it
wouldn't return to 120 degrees. If I had not taken control it would
have jibbed.

When instead I set a specific course, it headed up (slowly at first),
not using enough rudder to prevent the boat from heading up and not
reacting at all to puffs that rounded the boat up faster. I repeated
going to standby, turning my boat until about 115 degrees off the wind,
and pressing AUTO again. Each time I repeated this, I experienced
1. The moment I press auto, she instantly reduces the amount of rudder
I was giving by just a little bit, but enough to cause the boat to
start heading up.
2. The autopilot eventually give more rudder, but reacts too slowly to
prevent us from rounding into the wind.

I have a ST-7001, S1G core pack + added gyro, and auto learn feature.
Since the boat handles so differently under sail, then under motor, I
wonder if the "autolearn" feature has taught itself to not be aggresive
enough.

What's the solution ?


As I understand you use your autopilot with a wind-vane and I am not
even sure that, in this configuration, the signal from the gyro is used
at all. If it is so, you should be aware that the wind-vane is sensitive
to the direction and intensity solely of the "apparent wind"; it is a
well known issue that wind steering has problems when going downwind due
by the "funny" behavior of the vector composition of the real-wind plus
the velocity-wind. Not to mention the wind disturbance at the vane
produced by rolling and yawing which may be quite important in some
situations.
Beside this, as an old timer wind-sailor, I would never rely on an
autopilot under spinnaker especially on a wind higher than, say, 10-12
knots.
So I am afraid that the solution is: under spinnaker, switch off the
autopilot and use a good helmsman... :-)

Regards
Daniel

Daniele Fua wrote:
b393capt wrote:
With my a-spinnaker up in 6 knots of breeze I have no problem with
my autopilot, but when I went out yesterday in 15 knots, my
autopilot was not assertive enough to control the boat.

When I set it to keep the 120 degrees off the wind, it completly
failed to do that. Tending to head down, even after the chute
collapsed, it wouldn't return to 120 degrees. If I had not taken
control it would have jibbed.

When instead I set a specific course, it headed up (slowly at first),
not using enough rudder to prevent the boat from heading up and not
reacting at all to puffs that rounded the boat up faster. I repeated
going to standby, turning my boat until about 115 degrees off the
wind, and pressing AUTO again. Each time I repeated this, I
experienced
1. The moment I press auto, she instantly reduces the amount of
rudder I was giving by just a little bit, but enough to cause the
boat to start heading up.
2. The autopilot eventually give more rudder, but reacts too slowly
to prevent us from rounding into the wind.

I have a ST-7001, S1G core pack + added gyro, and auto learn feature.
Since the boat handles so differently under sail, then under motor, I
wonder if the "autolearn" feature has taught itself to not be
aggresive enough.

What's the solution ?


As I understand you use your autopilot with a wind-vane and I am not
even sure that, in this configuration, the signal from the gyro is
used at all. If it is so, you should be aware that the wind-vane is
sensitive to the direction and intensity solely of the "apparent
wind"; it is a well known issue that wind steering has problems when
going downwind due by the "funny" behavior of the vector composition
of the real-wind plus the velocity-wind. Not to mention the wind
disturbance at the vane produced by rolling and yawing which may be
quite important in some situations.
Beside this, as an old timer wind-sailor, I would never rely on an
autopilot under spinnaker especially on a wind higher than, say, 10-12
knots.
So I am afraid that the solution is: under spinnaker, switch off the
autopilot and use a good helmsman... :-)

Regards
Daniel

I've already told him this but he has flatly rejected my contention that
computers can't anticipate, which is what a good helmsman can do! You are
wasting your time on this one.

Dennis,

This was insulting.

Dan

Dennis Pogson wrote:
I've already told him this but he has flatly rejected my contention that
computers can't anticipate, which is what a good helmsman can do! You are
wasting your time on this one.

Dennis,

Make that ... very insulting. Where do you get off telling people they
are wasting their time assisting other people in the group ?

Dan

b393capt wrote:
Dennis,

This was insulting.

Dan

Dennis Pogson wrote:
I've already told him this but he has flatly rejected my contention that
computers can't anticipate, which is what a good helmsman can do! You are
wasting your time on this one.

Although I did try the wind-vane mode first, which dosn't work to bad
unless the boat is being knocked around, the focus of my question is
using it just in the normal AUTO mode (e.g. point the boat, and click
AUTO).

Downwind without my spinnaker I get very very good results ever since I
added the rate gyro to my S1G course computer. My wife claims it
anticipates better than than I do when going down wind with following
seas. I doubt it anticipates anything, just responds quickly, but maybe
Raymarine got some artificial intelligence stuff going on I don't know
about.

By the way, it work's pretty good with my spinnaker also in light air.
It's the first time I put the spinnaker up in 10 knots+ of wind, that
was the focus of my question.

What I got back from this group is that I should increase Rudder Gain
(it was set to 2) and Response Time. While I have not had the
opportunity to do this with my spinnaker, I did increase Rudder Gain
from 2 to 5 on Saturday while sailing with my normal sails. I found the
autopilot very assertive (rather than slow) when responding to course
changes, and believe it very well might be the answer.

What I got back from Raymarine last week, was that I need to send them
my autopilot for a software update that fixes a problem they are aware
of. I guess I should still do that, if they know of a problem.

Dan


Daniele Fua wrote:
As I understand you use your autopilot with a wind-vane and I am not
even sure that, in this configuration, the signal from the gyro is used
at all. If it is so, you should be aware that the wind-vane is sensitive
to the direction and intensity solely of the "apparent wind"; it is a
well known issue that wind steering has problems when going downwind due
by the "funny" behavior of the vector composition of the real-wind plus
the velocity-wind. Not to mention the wind disturbance at the vane
produced by rolling and yawing which may be quite important in some
situations.
Beside this, as an old timer wind-sailor, I would never rely on an
autopilot under spinnaker especially on a wind higher than, say, 10-12
knots.
So I am afraid that the solution is: under spinnaker, switch off the
autopilot and use a good helmsman... :-)

Regards
Daniel

I am curious as to why you added the gyro, and what benefits you have
noticed from it in that the S1G has the same auto gyro built into it. Does
a second gyro help or confuse matters?
Da2ny
"b393capt" wrote in message
oups.com...

Although I did try the wind-vane mode first, which dosn't work to bad
unless the boat is being knocked around, the focus of my question is
using it just in the normal AUTO mode (e.g. point the boat, and click
AUTO).

Downwind without my spinnaker I get very very good results ever since I
added the rate gyro to my S1G course computer. My wife claims it
anticipates better than than I do when going down wind with following
seas. I doubt it anticipates anything, just responds quickly, but maybe
Raymarine got some artificial intelligence stuff going on I don't know
about.

By the way, it work's pretty good with my spinnaker also in light air.
It's the first time I put the spinnaker up in 10 knots+ of wind, that
was the focus of my question.

What I got back from this group is that I should increase Rudder Gain
(it was set to 2) and Response Time. While I have not had the
opportunity to do this with my spinnaker, I did increase Rudder Gain
from 2 to 5 on Saturday while sailing with my normal sails. I found the
autopilot very assertive (rather than slow) when responding to course
changes, and believe it very well might be the answer.

What I got back from Raymarine last week, was that I need to send them
my autopilot for a software update that fixes a problem they are aware
of. I guess I should still do that, if they know of a problem.

Dan


Daniele Fua wrote:
As I understand you use your autopilot with a wind-vane and I am not
even sure that, in this configuration, the signal from the gyro is used
at all. If it is so, you should be aware that the wind-vane is sensitive
to the direction and intensity solely of the "apparent wind"; it is a
well known issue that wind steering has problems when going downwind due
by the "funny" behavior of the vector composition of the real-wind plus
the velocity-wind. Not to mention the wind disturbance at the vane
produced by rolling and yawing which may be quite important in some
situations.
Beside this, as an old timer wind-sailor, I would never rely on an
autopilot under spinnaker especially on a wind higher than, say, 10-12
knots.
So I am afraid that the solution is: under spinnaker, switch off the
autopilot and use a good helmsman... :-)

Regards
Daniel