Hi Trek,

Depends on what you consider low cost. Autohelm (now Raymarine) had a unit that was fitted to your wheel and was driven by a belt that attached to a power unit that was mounted on either the steering pedistle or the side of the cockpit.

I would imagine you would get a decent second hand one online for a good price.

I can't comment on what they are like as I have never owned one but there were tens of thousands in use and I imagine most of them still are.

There are other options but I think this would be a cheap way to get what you are after.

From memory I think they were quite straight foward to fit.

Trek said...

Is there such a thing as a low cost electric auto helm that can by retrofitted to a boat with wheel steering, did any one come across one?

I was going to buy the bolt on wheel version from raymarine at the boat show kast year so they are still available. But decided to go with a ram bolted to the quadrant was about $2-3000 dearer but has a higher load rating and is also another form of emergency steering should the steering cables break.

Yeah it is you need to make sure mounting points are beefed up though.
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Had a very bad experience with the Raymarine wheel pilot and dumpted it. But their integreted compass is great - its a costlyway to get an unneeded digital compass. The ram idea is good but again not cheap. Coursemastermake a good one that is not too noisy.

I Have a CPT Wheel Pilot on my 36' yacht. Very robust and quiet compared to the Raymarine Pilot. Not as cheap but worth the money. You can often pick up cheap second hand units for under $300 on places like cruiser forum.