Grew – Geoff
Forecast: Southeast 10 knots, rising to 15 knots this afternoon. Sea slight. Cloudy.
Forecast was good so decided to take Halo out to test the new ST2000+ AutoPilot. Left marina 1130 hrs. First did the calibration for the internal compass by motoring round slowly in circles then off we went. Started out conservatively with just the Main with one Reef and then as I got confident with driving the Autopilot I shook out the reef and hauled up the No. 3 working jib.
Sailed out toward Ward Island and did first tack after passing the Rear Lead with about 15 kts of wind and tacked a few times into the southerly as far as Steeple Rock light.
Good news is the AutoPilot worked really well. In the Wind Mode, which takes wind speed and direction data from the Navman anemometer, I was able to do single-handed automatic tacking no problems at all. Just a matter of concentrating on managing the headsail sheets once I got the hang of it.
Very relaxing feeling, sailing single-handed without having to hold on to the tiller all the time!
Returned to Chaffers Marina 1530 hrs. Max speed over ground 6.28 kts. Total distance 13 nautical miles.
PD. December 2021
After 5 years of not-intensive use the ST-2000 finally died. It had been unreliable for about a year. I opened the unit to find a mess of broken and worn gears. I have now replaced it with the Simrad TP22. So far it appears to be a big improvement over the old Raymarine.
Halo Log Book 