Raymarine EV 100 wheelpilot review

[sharkwatcher]

OK, I'm gonna do a product review, something I rarely if ever do. I recently installed a Raymarine EV 100 wheelpilot on my 31' Hunter. Last winter I upgraded my chartplotter to a Garmin 741, and I wanted a wheelpilot that would work with it. after quite a bit of research I decided on that EV 100, but I had reservations/concerns. Garmin uses NMEA 2000 and the older NMEA 0183 to communicate and Raymarine uses SeaTalkng for it's communications. To top things off I have a wireless TackTick wind instrument on the masthead which I wanted to integrate into the system.
Solutions: I ordered a NMEA 2000 to Seatalkng communications cable from Defender to connect between the Garmin and Raymarine, Problem 1 solved. Then after talking with a Raymarine tech I ordered a TackTick T122 interface to turn wireless info from the wind instrument to NMEA 0183 to communicate with the Garmin. Three wires to hook up and $400 later, I'm getting wind info to both the Garmin Chartplotter and the Raymarine autopilot, Yea!
After going thru the setup info I took advantage of the beautiful weather on Charlotte Harbor to do a "shakedown/sea trails" day sail. All I can say is WOW!!!! Not only does it steer a beautiful compass course but when given a waypoint on the chartplotter to steer to, or a preprogrammed route it steers very well, making precise turns from one waypoint to the next in the route. The "steer by wind" feature is remarkable. Not only does it hold a relative wind angle to windward, but also downwind , even on a spinnaker run with little, or no additional sail trim necessary. The auto-tack steer by wind is very precise and responsive. We sail very close to the wind going to windward (38- 40 degree). When you activate the "autotack" it takes you to precisely the angle on the alternate tack.
It wasn't a cheap setup, but It is worth every penny when it's all talking and working together.