RE: [Cal_Boats] Cal 35 Autopilot

Welcome to the site Austin, Autohelm was bought out by Raymarine. What is it that you are looking for in an auto pilot? A Raymarine unit would take you from point A to point B and also be able to sail off the wind if it was integrated into your wind instruments. Randy Cal 2 29 Out Patient Channel Islands Ca From: "Austin Abel au… [at] gmail.com [Cal_Boats]" <Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> Date: 03/30/2018 1:23 PM (GMT-08:00) To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Subject: [Cal_Boats] Cal 35 Autopilot Hey All, First time posting to the group. I just bought a 1980 Cal 35 and I want to replace it's old Autohelm 3000. It has a wheel and cable steering, which I believe is standard. There isn't as much information on the internet as I could hope for. Are there many Cal 35 owners on here? What do yall use for your autopilot? Any and all recommendations or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Austin

Frankly, that's all I'm really looking for. I have to sail the boat 580 miles from Port Charlotte, FL to New Orleans and I want something reliable to keep me from having to hand steer the whole way. The 3000 might have enough left to get me home, but I'd rather not risk it. I've been looking at all the websites and it looks like theres tons of stuff out there for boats with tillers and hydrologic steering, but not much for the cable drive. Granted, I could just be missing something. This is my first big boat. I've had a Rhodes 22 for a few years, but that's hardly comparable. It does look like a Raymarine EV100 might do the trick, but when I read about it it's all geared towards power boats. On Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 8:48 AM Randy <sa… [at] yahoo.com> wrote: > Welcome to the site Austin, > Autohelm was bought out by Raymarine. What is it that you are looking for > in an auto pilot? A Raymarine unit would take you from point A to point B > and also be able to sail off the wind if it was integrated into your wind > instruments. > > Randy > Cal 2 29 > Out Patient > Channel Islands Ca > > > > > > > Sent from my Samsung tablet > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: "Austin Abel au… [at] gmail.com [Cal_Boats]" < > Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> > Date: 03/30/2018 1:23 PM (GMT-08:00) > To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com > Subject: [Cal_Boats] Cal 35 Autopilot > > > > Hey All, First time posting to the group. I just bought a 1980 Cal 35 and > I want to replace it's old Autohelm 3000. It has a wheel and cable > steering, which I believe is standard. There isn't as much information on > the internet as I could hope for. Are there many Cal 35 owners on here? > What do yall use for your autopilot? Any and all recommendations or > suggestions would be greatly appreciated. > > Austin > > >

I just installed the Raymarine EV-100 system in my Ericson 380. Before this I installed the same system in my previous boat, a CAL 33-2. The Cal had the older Raymarine St4000 with the old Flux gate compass and it wandered a lot. The EV-100 would stay rock steady on course. I liked how it performed on the Cal, so went with it on the Ericson. It is at the limits of its rating in the Ericson, 16,500 lb displacement. I am hoping it can handle this boat like it did the Cal. The EV-100 is fairly easy to install. I actually installed the whole system today. I pulled out the old St4000 the Ericson had and put in the EV-100. All the various pieces of the system tie together via the Raymarine Seatalk NG NMEA 2000 backbone. You feed the backbone with +12 volts and ground from a breaker. You tie each piece to the backbone via T connectors and run off the T using a short spur cable. There is a control panel in the cockpit. A motor control unit you mount say in a lazarette, as long as the wheel drive wire can get routed to the motor drive. Feed another separate +12 volt line to the motor control and it also spurs onto the NMEA backbone. The EV-1 compass gets mounted where it isn't affected by any metal interference. It just has the one spur cable off the backbone. Everything except the motor control unit gets its power from the NMEA backbone via the spur cable, so really easy since you just need to pull the backbone around the boat and tie in the spur cables using T's. The system claims that all you need is in the box. With my Cal 33 I ended up needing to buy one more long backbone cable and a extra T. With the Ericson I needed one extra Bus block. I had that left over from the Cal install because I had bought some extra stuff back then as it was the first time installing the EV-100 and I went to the boat armed for bear. Didn't want to have to leave for parts. The wheel drive unit mounted to the wheel can work with various wheel types (5, 6, 7, 8 spoke, etc). You have to drill holes to custom fit to your wheel. The instructions are very clear how to fit it to the wheel. Leslie Newman Osprey Ericson 380 On Saturday, March 31, 2018, Austin Abel au… [at] gmail.com [Cal_Boats] < Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> wrote: > > > Frankly, that's all I'm really looking for. I have to sail the boat 580 > miles from Port Charlotte, FL to New Orleans and I want something reliable > to keep me from having to hand steer the whole way. The 3000 might have > enough left to get me home, but I'd rather not risk it. I've been looking > at all the websites and it looks like theres tons of stuff out there for > boats with tillers and hydrologic steering, but not much for the cable > drive. Granted, I could just be missing something. This is my first big > boat. I've had a Rhodes 22 for a few years, but that's hardly comparable. > It does look like a Raymarine EV100 might do the trick, but when I read > about it it's all geared towards power boats. > > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 8:48 AM Randy <sa… [at] yahoo.com> wrote: > >> Welcome to the site Austin, >> Autohelm was bought out by Raymarine. What is it that you are looking for >> in an auto pilot? A Raymarine unit would take you from point A to point B >> and also be able to sail off the wind if it was integrated into your wind >> instruments. >> >> Randy >> Cal 2 29 >> Out Patient >> Channel Islands Ca >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Sent from my Samsung tablet >> >> >> -------- Original message -------- >> From: "Austin Abel au… [at] gmail.com [Cal_Boats]" < >> Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> >> Date: 03/30/2018 1:23 PM (GMT-08:00) >> To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com >> Subject: [Cal_Boats] Cal 35 Autopilot >> >> >> >> Hey All, First time posting to the group. I just bought a 1980 Cal 35 and >> I want to replace it's old Autohelm 3000. It has a wheel and cable >> steering, which I believe is standard. There isn't as much information on >> the internet as I could hope for. Are there many Cal 35 owners on here? >> What do yall use for your autopilot? Any and all recommendations or >> suggestions would be greatly appreciated. >> >> Austin >> >> >

I forgot to mention it is programmable to sail from waypoint to waypoint when integrated with a chart plotter. Randy -------- Original message --------From: "NEWMAN d2… [at] gmail.com [Cal_Boats]" <Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> Date: 3/31/18 8:20 PM (GMT-08:00) To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com, Austin Abel <au… [at] gmail.com> Cc: Randy <sa… [at] yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats] Cal 35 Autopilot I just installed the Raymarine EV-100 system in my Ericson 380. Before this I installed the same system in my previous boat, a CAL 33-2. The Cal had the older Raymarine St4000 with the old Flux gate compass and it wandered a lot. The EV-100 would stay rock steady on course. I liked how it performed on the Cal, so went with it on the Ericson. It is at the limits of its rating in the Ericson, 16,500 lb displacement. I am hoping it can handle this boat like it did the Cal. The EV-100 is fairly easy to install. I actually installed the whole system today. I pulled out the old St4000 the Ericson had and put in the EV-100. All the various pieces of the system tie together via the Raymarine Seatalk NG NMEA 2000 backbone. You feed the backbone with +12 volts and ground from a breaker. You tie each piece to the backbone via T connectors and run off the T using a short spur cable. There is a control panel in the cockpit. A motor control unit you mount say in a lazarette, as long as the wheel drive wire can get routed to the motor drive. Feed another separate +12 volt line to the motor control and it also spurs onto the NMEA backbone. The EV-1 compass gets mounted where it isn't affected by any metal interference. It just has the one spur cable off the backbone. Everything except the motor control unit gets its power from the NMEA backbone via the spur cable, so really easy since you just need to pull the backbone around the boat and tie in the spur cables using T's. The system claims that all you need is in the box. With my Cal 33 I ended up needing to buy one more long backbone cable and a extra T. With the Ericson I needed one extra Bus block. I had that left over from the Cal install because I had bought some extra stuff back then as it was the first time installing the EV-100 and I went to the boat armed for bear. Didn't want to have to leave for parts. The wheel drive unit mounted to the wheel can work with various wheel types (5, 6, 7, 8 spoke, etc). You have to drill holes to custom fit to your wheel. The instructions are very clear how to fit it to the wheel. Leslie Newman Osprey Ericson 380 On Saturday, March 31, 2018, Austin Abel au… [at] gmail.com [Cal_Boats] <Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> wrote: Frankly, that's all I'm really looking for. I have to sail the boat 580 miles from Port Charlotte, FL to New Orleans and I want something reliable to keep me from having to hand steer the whole way. The 3000 might have enough left to get me home, but I'd rather not risk it. I've been looking at all the websites and it looks like theres tons of stuff out there for boats with tillers and hydrologic steering, but not much for the cable drive. Granted, I could just be missing something. This is my first big boat. I've had a Rhodes 22 for a few years, but that's hardly comparable. It does look like a Raymarine EV100 might do the trick, but when I read about it it's all geared towards power boats. On Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 8:48 AM Randy <sa… [at] yahoo.com> wrote: Welcome to the site Austin,Autohelm was bought out by Raymarine. What is it that you are looking for in an auto pilot? A Raymarine unit would take you from point A to point B and also be able to sail off the wind if it was integrated into your wind instruments. RandyCal 2 29Out Patient Channel Islands Ca From: "Austin Abel au… [at] gmail.com [Cal_Boats]" <Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> Date: 03/30/2018 1:23 PM (GMT-08:00) To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Subject: [Cal_Boats] Cal 35 Autopilot Hey All, First time posting to the group. I just bought a 1980 Cal 35 and I want to replace it's old Autohelm 3000. It has a wheel and cable steering, which I believe is standard. There isn't as much information on the internet as I could hope for. Are there many Cal 35 owners on here? What do yall use for your autopilot? Any and all recommendations or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Austin