Hanse 400 & simrad autohelm

[C-Nymph]

Hi, we have a Hanse 400E & have found the autohelm to be "scary" in confused seas. The factory settings for the simrad autohelm response are all set on 4, with a range of 1-9.
I have altered the lo response to 6 according to the manual suggestion with regard to "s"ing.
This definitely improved things but it could be better.
Does anyone else have a Hanse & simrad set up & what settings work efficiently?
Thanks

[barnakiel]

Changing from 4 to 6 improved things and you have the scale of 1-9. Have you tried 7?

Is the drive sized adequately for the boat? Sometimes this is the issue rather than the electronics.

Do you have any issues steering the boat manually in the same conditions?

b.

[C-Nymph]

No prob manual steering

Have not yet tried 7, gear all part if boat pkg.
6 a definite improvement over 4

[donradcliffe]

Do you have a simrad or an autohelm autopilot??

If its a simrad, you need to go through the dockside and on-the water menus again to let the autopilot re-learn the boat, then set the response to 'auto', which is the factory setting.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by C-Nymph

Hi, we have a Hanse 400E & have found the autohelm to be "scary" in confused seas. The factory settings for the simrad autohelm response are all set on 4, with a range of 1-9.
I have altered the lo response to 6 according to the manual suggestion with regard to "s"ing.
This definitely improved things but it could be better.
Does anyone else have a Hanse & simrad set up & what settings work efficiently?
Thanks

Not withstanding correctly setting it up , you may find its not that capable in very confused seas.

Dave

[C-Nymph]

Ok thanks for advice,

Tiz a Jeffa steering system controlled by simrad instruments. All the instruments are simrad & all are linked.

[barnakiel]

If you set the AP brain to max responsiveness (going thru the available lower levels) and she is still not playing along then the drive may be not up to the job. But if you can steer easily by hand in same conditions then any properly sized drive will be up to the job.

Crawl into the drive place and read its markings then look up on Jeffa's if the drive is man enough:
Autopilot drive units

For iffy conditions you want a drive that is OVERSIZE for the boat. I like the full laden condition not to be below 2/3rds of the quoted max boat size. I use displacement rather than length to judge this.

Next step check in your Simrad AP if the brain is expected to co-op with the jeffa drive you have. Check what components there are on the Sim side. A "G" (acceleration) sensor helps in many cases. (Note: I do not know how Simrad implements G sensors).

Otherwise it is in the in-port config then the sea-trial config and the AP should be able to provide decent steering in all but hell break open conditions.

b.