Not exactly sure how to spell his name, but he is the hardest working crew member, never causing a scene. Best of all never competes for my cold beverages. See Otto is so reliable you always expect him to be there, especially with a short handed crew.

Auto, can steer the boat, perfectly, either by the course or by the wind, He takes orders and does exactly as he is told, makes managing the sail trim/sail changes and dousing the sails so much easier with an extra helping hand.

Well, when we splashed, I guess we left him on shore. The Raymarine electronics kept saying “No Pilot”, heck, I was on board, and at the helm, sorta a pilot of sorts. He wasn’t really needed on the first trip to the mooring ball, but the other effect was that the gauges at the helm station were not picking up depth, or speed. This is not a show stopper but surely makes for a more stressful trip.

We have 4 positions where auto can be commanded from either port or starboard helm, and inside from the nav, or even on the foredeck while lounging with a cocktail. Luckily we found that that the inside and foredeck, controllers worked and auto was on board, just on the front of the ship. We ran the 15 foot extension cable and it almost reached the helm, so basically all systems go for the first 2 days with a cable running out to the helm. The one gauge that is in the center of the cockpit, never really came worked. On a whim, I disconnected it and we had our pilot back onboard, now since everything is daisy chained, taking that one out stopped the signals down stream, so a little creativity and cutting up a beer cap, fashioned some jumpers and all but that center multi-view gauge works, even Otto showed up at both helms along with depth and speed.

Otto has been doing a great job on this trip, seems he just had issues with the multiview gauge, and it was him or the multiview, otto won. Push button steering is in business.