Last year I bought a 27ft 3500 kg displacement sailing boat that came with a raymarine ST2000 tiller pilot. I've been doing maintenance and preparing the boat over the winter and I've had her out a few times this season already.

I'm really not convinced about the tiller pilot performance. recently when sailing downwind with the autopilot engaged the boat made some erratic course changes that led to some fairly tense moments on board. I subsequently took the tiller pilot to pieces and checked that there was nothing in the flux gate compass etc but everything inside seems clean, dry and without any debris. I've seen it said that it could be due to the compass being thrown off by metal objects on the boat but if that is the case it still seems to me functionally useless.

I'll do some more testing but this says severely shaken my confidence in the unit. Had I been single-handed it would have been even more challenging. I've been looking to see whether this is expected behaviour or whether there is anything else that I could do before looking to replace. if I was to replace I'm not sure what would be better?

Interested to hear others experiences anyway and I welcome any advice.