Tiller Pilot Installation

[Jimske]

My boat: Brown Searunner 31

I have a never been used Navico TP 5500. Unfortunately I have no accesories with it, just the TP 5500. The manual not very helpful for my installation. My tiller is curved upwards and does not facilitate connection to the pilot plus I really don't want unit in the cockpit.

I am wondering if I connect the pilot to the bolt underneath the tiller post (inside the cabin) will it a: have enough thrust to move the rudder and b: will I be able to adjust the gain effectively (has 9 settings of gain).

Jim in Connecticut

[Alan Wheeler]

Difficult to answer, but most likely no. You need to have the pilot controll at a point where it moves rudder from one side to the other with it's full length of travel. No more and no less. Otherwise it will have to major dificlties. It won't have enough power to move the weight of the rudder and it won't have the correct speed of travel, resulting in overly correcting the tiller.
You need the correct attacment to the tiller arm to compensate for the sweep.

[Jimske]

Thanks for responding so quickly.
"You need to have the pilot controll at a point where it moves rudder from one side to the other with it's full length of travel." That is what I thought. Thanks for clarifying that for me. This it does. So now I am up against gain adjustment and power. I assume it can be adjusted. The only way to figure the thrust is to hook it up I guess.