Tiller pilots - which one?

[tspeer]

What are people's experiences with Autohelm vs Simrad tiller pilots? Which one is the more reliable?

[Landlubber]

Firstly, what are you using it for, if the vessel is a cruising boat, say over 30 feet, you will need a serious autopilot. If it is simply just for mucking about in, I have used them both, and they are really quite excellent if you spend the time to balance the boat before engaging the autopilot (as you should do anyhow, no matter what size).

Autohelm would most likely be a bit more reliable, they have made a lot of the little suckers, so have had a long time to sort out initial problems, I would expect at least 100 to one of the Simrads.

You can actually use a tiller autopilot on a wind powered autopiloy trim tab, it works great for a cheap way of doing it, and still follow a compass direction instead of the wind direction.

[tspeer]

The vessel is a 34' coastal-cruising trimaran (not for blue-water cruising). There's a tiller in the cockpit, with cables leading under the aft cabin floor to a quadrant on the kick-up rudder's head, which lies outside the transom.

The tradeoffs are first of all cost. Perhaps $3,000 for the tiller pilot, at least $5,000 for a built-in system.

A built-in autopilot would have to go near the diesel tank - not my favorite place for one of the highest electrical loads on the boat.

Engaging and disengaging the autopilot would have to be easily done on a frequent basis, as the boat is sailed short-handed and all of the halyards and reefing lines are handled at the mast - only sheets are led to the cockpit - so being able to go forward at the drop of a hat to assist the crew would be valuable.

The cockpit is not large, so a tiller pilot could be a non-trivial obstruction.