OK, here is the low-down on how to do it with an Aries, from someone who has:
I have asked, but the device is not supplied by the new Danish Aries maker, but he acknowledges it would be useful and is thinking about it. I do not know if Helen Franklin has any spare ones, left over from the original sets made in her Pa’s time. I will ask her.
Quite simply, to understand this, you have to recognise the top of the Aries just as the input to a powerful steering servo. It does not care what drives the input (pushes the top unit one way or another). The device consists of:
- · a socket to clamp on the taffrail adjacent to the Aries blade clamp, to hold the pin of your chosen cheap Autopilot;
- · a thin casting which clamps into the Aries clamp, with a horizontal extension, ending in a collet on a swivel, which in turn holds,
- · a bar (ca 30cm long) which screws into the end of the chosen Autopilot arm, thereby extending that arm.
The effect is that the Autopilot’s operation pushes or pulls the Aries clamp unit to and fro to achieve its aim of correcting the boat's course. The power of the Aries does the rest.
When setting it up, one must be careful to swivel the Aries head so that it is set at right angles to the travel of the autopilot push/pull, and that the “correct” (lower) side of the Aries clamp is toward the Autopilot unit – if it is the “wrong” (higher) side, then the unit works in reverse – thus not achieving the effect desired!
Geoff Pack made one up once (rather than buy a ready made unit) and wrote about it in Yachting Monthly, I recall, long ago. I may even have his article in a back copy. He got it slightly overcomplicated, but it worked nonetheless.
One could make one up by simply having an item (plywood?), to be clamped into the Aries clamp, holding the end of the Autopilot arm (how exactly, needs thinking about a bit) - providing you had established a point for fixing the Autopilot in the correct spot – taffrail usually.
I have searched my pictures for ones featuring the unit in question in use ( a picture being worth a thousand words), but have come up with only three slightly frustrating rather fuzzy ones – extracts from bigger pics - but which may help, so I include below: first (not very clearly) shows clamped casting of unit, and the end of the pilot arm, with extension bar fitted; second shows something of how the extension bar fits the collet and swivel that I speak of; last shows the siting lug for the autopilot (on the taffrail)
(Actually, he only attached two, which I have put in an album in My Profile, having not yet worked out how to embed photos!)
I can of course take some specific pictures when next on the boat – and please let me know if you/your contact in the JRA wants me to do that. I am also happy to give him/her a demo, if they’d like to visit the boat – Solent area this autumn/winter. I am surprised that this is not a better known thing, as it works really well and is truly a very simple and cheap solution to using the Aries for motoring as an autopilot.
If anyone needs more info, I'll see what I can find out. He can't be all bad - he has a cat ketch!