Hawkesbury and tiller pilot

[IanS]

Hi folks,

Looks like you can go anywhere within your LGA in Sydney now, so my daughter and I put the boat in at Brooklyn on the Hawkesbury on Friday. Not much wind but perfect weather. Took the chance to try out my new ebay find - a $100 tiller pilot.

I had some fittings in bronze and stainless made up at a local machine shop which added to the cost...

Cheers,
Ian

[Peter T]

Wow. That's a bargain mate

[IanS]

It's pretty ancient - Navico TP5000. Works fine with the motor. We had a brief spell of gusty wind just after I took the jib down so it was an unfair test with a very unbalanced sail plan but it seems to work reasonably well. Great for single handing! Not too much current draw.

[Peter T]

Yes excellent. I am looking at getting an ST1000 and want to set it up to work off the plotter in the fish finder if I can. I think to do that I will need to get a converter to make it talk in NMEA. Having problems getting reliable info on that though. If anyone has done this I would appreciate any info anyone has on the subject. Cheers

[Andrew]

The tiller pilot looks good Ian, what kind of push rod extension did you fit?

Bought a Raymarine ST1000+ tiller pilot and going through the instruction manual, online forums and utube etc, beginning set-up. Looks like it's a coaming mount for me

Did the measurements required in the manual and my I563 coaming mount with an ST1000+ needs an 8" pushrod extension. (also confirmed by Ian ex1563Yara, here is a pic from a forum but can't find the URL again, he used two 4" extensions screwed together) The tiller pin should be 18" from the pintles line, then the coaming mount bush is setup at right angles to the tiller pin. My initial setup will be a simple "Stand alone" which only requires 2 power wires to be connected to the back of the multipin socket (good diagram in manual).



But the seat mounted/ under tiller bracket like Emrys setup also looks interesting too.

For Peter and those that want to connect to charplotter GPS (for waypoint nav) and windvane (for apparent wind self-steering). It's in the instruction manual. couple of other pins on back of multipin-socket for those wires, theres a good wiring diagram and text in there too

[IanS]

Hi Andrew,

The tiller pilot came with ~90mm Alu extension fitting. I cut it in half and tapped asn M6 hole in each piece. I worked out the extension length to put it on the coaming and then cut a piece of M6 stainless threaded rod.

Seems to work fine even though this setup is not suggested in the manual. I found the manual online to get the other measurements.

I actually fell on the tiller pilot in a swell and bent the threaded rod. I straightened it out over my knee and it’s still works fine.

This version of the TP5000 doesn’t have inputs for wind angle, although there was a version that did. I still haven’t permanently mounted the DC socket so I’d be interested to see where people have put these. I thought about inside the locker.

[IanS]

Also , the tiller end pin I had made extra long so the push rod is horizontal as specified in the manual.

[Andrew]

That's a great solution Ian, it must make a huge improvement overall when going out on water.

I'm making up a "tempoary" ram extension from bits and pieces in workshop, cost negligible. Hope it holds up.

(The story - phoned all 3 marine chandlers here and not one keeps the official parts in stock, must order in. The price for 8" of extension would be over $110 too. Then phoned a local engineer who could take a look at it maybe do it for less, finally decided to McGyver it at home.)

Amazing that 19mm poly irrigation pipe fits the join tightly, 20mm pvc conduit pipe fits into that, and 16mm dowel fits perfectly into the conduit. add 3 ss screws and 2 poly pipe clamps..drill pin hole at 8" , fingers crossed..

[IanS]

Sounds like it’ll work Andrew. Good luck.

[Geoff]

Andrew and Ian,

Simply for reference and additional info...

The ST1000 on Timeless (Yara) has a 150 mm extension, plus what I assume is the original pin end, totaling nearly 220 mm beyond the stainless shaft.

$110 for that little extn piece is pretty rude.

The photo shows where Ian B fitted his DC socket, relative to the mounting bush in the top of the coaming. Its the square bit on the outside of the coaming. Sorry about the shade. The wires drop nearly straight down to the battery, power fused. Position is good, I tie an overhand knot in the cable around the near stanchion before I plug it in in case it goes over the side.

Beaut bit of gear, most obliging crew ever.