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pwhitburn · 04-07-2011, 03:00

I have a friend cruising North Queensland in a 6 month old Beneteau 43 fitted with a Raymarine autopilot. He just sent me a photo of the broken bolt locking the steering arm to the rudder shaft and I was wondering if any other similar Beneteau owners had experienced this problem.
First time I have asked a question but have followed many threads with interest
Phil

Vasco · 04-07-2011, 05:21

Who installed the autopilot? AFAIK this is not done by Beneteau but by the dealer at commissioning.

SkiprJohn · 15-07-2011, 19:34

Aloha and welcome aboard!
I hope you can get it sorted out.
kind regards,

SaltyMonkey · 15-07-2011, 19:44

Usually aftermarket install after delivery to local dealer and before final pickup by owner.

Only three recalls via www.uscgboating.org

Unrelated to this

svHyLyte · 15-07-2011, 19:50

Excuse me old son, but shouldn't the title of your post be "RAYMARINE AUTOPILOT FAILURE!?!". The make of the yacht has nothing to do with the make of the auto-pilot. (And the failure you describe is not uncommon for that product line/manufacturer.)

**noelex 77** · 16-07-2011, 09:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by svHyLyte

Excuse me old son, but shouldn't the title of your post be "RAYMARINE AUTOPILOT FAILURE!?!". The make of the yacht has nothing to do with the make of the auto-pilot. (And the failure you describe is not uncommon for that product line/manufacturer.)

It is a substantial bolt I cannot imagine it breaking. I think failure of the tiller arm, or the attachment point, would be much more common. These are usually dealer fitted so no really Beneteau fault but it doesn’t seem fair to blame Raymarine.

donradcliffe · 16-07-2011, 11:28

I'm a little confused on the problem. The autopilot ram can either drive a separate arm on the rudder shaft or be connected to the quadrant. If a separate arm was installed, it probably was not done by Beneteau. In my Beneteau, the quadrant was beefed up with SS plates and the ram is connected to the quadrant by a bolt sticking up through the plates. This bolt sheared off after 20 years of fatigue, and I had a machine shop turn down a larger bolt so I now have 12mm diameter in shear instead of 10mm. The autopilot rams can push about 500kg, so there are some serious loads on the system.

zeehag · 16-07-2011, 11:39

more i hear of raymarine/autohelm having failures the more i LOVE my simrad hdl unit.

SaltyMonkey · 16-07-2011, 11:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeehag

more i hear of raymarine/autohelm having failures the more i LOVE my simrad hdl unit.

GLOAT!

Randyonr3 · 16-07-2011, 12:38

put a raymarine worm drive in ours conected to a Edson bronze arm and all in the Beneteau.....lot of different parts from different suppliers........

pwhitburn · 16-07-2011, 13:26

Thanks for the comments on the autopilot problem. You are correct that its an aftermarket installation and has now had a stainless pin installed and we will see how it goes but I am not confident that this is the solution. Its not my boat but a friend's who is currently cruising in North Queensland. I have a Coarsemaster on my yacht and never had a problem.
Phil