Great video, have been looking at fitting autopilot to my boat for a while now. Very handy to know about its faults within the auto routing feature, ill be passing on the Raymarine as i want it to be an actual autopilot. Cheers
Good question. If I could have afforded it at the time I would have gone with Furuno throughout. Since buying the Raymarine unit, I have also heard good things about Humminbird autopilots. Don't get me wrong, the Raymarine unit holds a good course, my only gripe is the company policy that will not allow it to turn without me pressing a button. But it is a major gripe.
There is a solution for confirming Raymarine's autopilot turn to next waypoint if you want to move around your boat. Get an old iphone for cheap or use your current one and install WilhelmSK. Buy Yacht devices YDWG wireless N2K bi-directional gateway for $189. The app paired with the gateway allows you to move around the boat and make course changes, acknowledge waypoint turns, etc. You probably already have your iphone in your pocket. With a tablet you can use it as a second plotter anywhere on the boat if you like as well. While this doesn't solve your beef with having to acknowledge in the first place, it does make it a lot easier and you should probably be checking your surroundings and confirming your next turn for safety anyway. Enjoy.
Thank you for the info. I have also heard that there is a Raymarine remote you can buy to allow you to acknowledge waypoints when not at the helm. I do take their point about keeping a lookout BUT I believe it is ridiculous to only keep a lookout when turning at a waypoint which is really all they are enforcing. In a smaller boat like mine I can (and do) keep a lookout 100& of the time and conflicting traffic is far more common during the leg than at a waypoint. Next time I'll just spend the extra dollars and buy Furuno.
@@weFishAU What you are advocating is a bit like an airplane on autopilot with no pilots in the cockpit. On a boat going slow this might be fine if you are keeping an eye out because you are moving in a straight line and other vessels can judge your course. Change course and you take others by surprise. Course changes are the dangerous times, on our rescue vessel we always announce our course changes and get crew confirmation. Say you have a 90 degree turn programmed and you aren't paying attention. You could suddenly turn beam to sea and be knocked over without prior warning. Clearly Raymarine is taking a cautious approach which isn't ridiculous in my opinion. If you set long legs you won't be bothered much. The real problem is the auto-routing which creates way too many waypoints so I just don't use it. I typically setup a route at home manually using the Navionics app then sync it to the plotter. This seems easier than creating manual routes sitting at the helm, but that's just a personal preference. Furuno GP300 autopilot is also very good but at least $500 more in most markets when you factor in the pump cost. For inboards the Furuno rudder reference is about twice what Raymarine's cost as well. It also depends on your eco-system. If you have Raymarine plotters you can use the Furuno autopilot but won't be able to directly disengage the autopilot on the plotter along with a few other niceties.
Nearly all good points. I just take exception to them not allowing me, as captain, making the decision on what is safe under the conditions and what is not. As pilot in charge of an aircraft I had absolute authority while I was in charge of that aircraft. Does this mean would ignore my co-pilot? Certainly not, but the ultimate decision and responsibility is mine and mine alone. I expected that a unit advertised as doing dock-to-dock auto-routing would allow me to take the same responsibility. Many brands do, Raymarine does not. I am not alone in my opinion, more than 80% of Raymarine autopilot owners I have spoken with feel the same. I am also told that some of their auto-pilots have pre-programmed fishing and search patterns that require no turn authorisation. Something I have yet to investigate on my unit but if true, yet another argument for not requiring it in other modes of operation. I really like most features of the Raymarine MFD but if I ever equip another boat my experience with their company policy (not their equipment, which is fine) will have me looking at alternatives. Something we will have to agree to disagree on.
I've just tried commissioning my Raymarine Auto Pilot today and what you say as a draw back is why I spent hours trying to avoid having to accept the next waypoint. This is really dumb of Raymarine. It should follow the route period. I'm at the helm keeping watch, I don't want an annoying alarm going off at every way point. Thanks for your video and I agree with everything aspect of your criticism towards Raymarine. Thanks.
Only an idiot would run on autopilot without keeping a continuous lookout, not just when turning. Other brands don't do it. I like my Raymarins in all other respects but I will never install another Raymarine autopilot.
@@weFishAU it says right in the manual as you approach each waypoint, an alarm will sound to check to make sure it’s safe to turn onto new heading and, if it is safe, then select Track to turn the vessel. Raymarine sells to all customers, including idiots.
Then Furuno and others must only sell to people smart enough not to need a nanny telling them how to behave. If they want to take that much control of how I run my boat then they should spell that out in big letters on the outside of the packaging so I can decide if I want to grant that control or not. Now, I let everyone that asks know that Raymarine does this. So far it has cost Raymarine 19 sales directly, that I know of. Not much for a multi-national company but if each of those 19 tell 19 more then it adds up quickly.
I have to say that the autopilot is good at keeping a straight course, better than some I have seen. My only issue with it is that the board of directors has seen fit to cripple it, which makes it quite useless for the purpose I originally purchased it (setting up a trolling pattern offshore).
Autopilot should never autocycle to next waypoint! Operator action must be required to adjust course. I have no idea why you would trust an autopilot to change heading automatically. An alarm should sound to notify approach to a waypoint and prompt the operator to accept cycling to the next mark. Otherwise, the boat might change course and hit the mark or another vessel. Liability exposure to the operator and Raymarine would be unacceptable. USCG master's license 100 ton, 7th issue.
I fixed the problem with the Raymarine autopilot. I now have a Furuno autopilot that sounds an alarm and then alters course if I DON'T tell it not to. This is, in my opinion, the way an autopilot should work. I keep a lookout for other vessels just as I keep a lookout for other aircraft when I am flying. The responsibility for the safe operation of my aircraft and my boat is mine and mine alone, not some chair warmer sitting in a corporate boardroom.
