Forgetful old fart and autopilot

[desodave]

"The person at the helm, in the looming crises didn't know how to turn the AP off ... "


And the looming crisis was caused by those on the bridge keeping inadequate watch and not making a course correction when they were supposed to previously. As I said before, Otto has no eyes.


The local charter company used to disable the autopilot for charters. They considered them a hazard for inexperienced boaters, both because of inattentiveness and failures to use the chartplotter to zoom in on the route looking for obstacles as Delfin suggests.

[Delfin]

A good way to illustrate the value of an autopilot is to lay out a course on a chart plotter for a day's cruise, then hand steer it. Without total concentration on course keeping, you'll wander, perhaps not by a lot but you will wander. So it boils down to whether precise course keeping without concentrating on it has virtue, since I would contend it is nearly impossible to do manually for hours at a time without a great deal of effort. The point is to use your brain to increase situational awareness 360 degrees around the boat rather than doing something a dumb piece of electronics can do a lot better than you can.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by jrd22

Two local, fairly recent incidents to consider:
1. San Juan ferry runs over sailboat. Sailor was on autopilot and went down below to use the head.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

John,

Forensic investigation of that incident (shown in the video following your post) indicates that this one had nothing to do with an autopilot and wholly due to abject stupidity on the part of the skipper of the m/y. He knew the waters, was a local, saw the ferry, knew the ferry route and times, berthed his boat nearby...
Abject, Dumb & Darwin Award candidate.

If there was a different sailboat incident, it was different than that video.

I simply don't buy the "going down below to take a leak means you're gonna get run over." I sailed on SF Bay for decades, never had an issue. The waters up here, except for a few "choke points" are comparatively empty. If you're too stupid to figure t, s & d, it ain't the ap's fault.

[jmschmidt]

All autopilots are named "George" not "Otto".

A few years back at the Moorings Belize base their Jamaican dock master, a really cool guy, disconnected the GPSs from the autopilots on all their boats. No piling into reef while sipping martinis on autopilot. But to completely inop and autopilot could be a serious safety issue in an emergency. It's recommended that all crew get adequate training on autopilot equipped boats.