I hadn’t seriously considered an autopilot for Summer Dance until I discovered the affordable Raymarine ST1000+ Tiller Pilot and that they could be had for half the cost of new on eBay. When I thought of how convenient it would be for cruising with my wife who has no desire to take the helm, I concluded that it might free me up to attend to the many other responsibilities of single-handed sailing.
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Handheld GPS devices have been around for over 30 years now. If you have one but don’t use it for sailing or if you’d like to try using a GPS but don’t want to buy a more expensive, dedicated, marine GPS, then this is the article for you. I’ll share some of the tips and tricks that I use with my 20-year-old Garmin eTrex H to help me sail better. And I’ll show you free software that you can use to visualize your GPS data.
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I’ve been asked many times if I have a chartplotter on Summer Dance. Up to now, I’ve answered that I didn’t have a need for one and that my handheld GPS worked fine for my needs. But recently, I’ve challenged myself to do more fishing and I haven’t been very successful yet at filling up my electric smoker. I’m also seriously considering cruising the San Juan Islands off the Washington state coast. And there’s my failure to get my handheld GPS to play nice with my tiller autopilot that nags at me. For these reasons, I bit the bullet and installed a Garmin ECHOMAP UHD 73sv chartplotter. I’ll give you my objective evaluation in this review.
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The $tingy Sailor 