Patty and I took the boat over to Cayuga Lake this past Saturday to do some more testing on the our Raymarine X-5 Sport SmartPilot with our new kicker, had about 1.5/2 foot chop, not much white water to speak of going with the wave seem to be just fine. Once we made the turn and started heading into them that’s when we had problems, even in 1.5/2 foot chop the A/P couldn’t hold its course. We purchased this unit in June of 09 and used it for about 10 hours only to have the Sport drive fail, which ended up being a recall on Raymarine part. Needless to say I wasn’t happy. Called Raymarine customer service center and was told to ship it back for a FULL refund. So now I’ll be buying a TR-1 Gold made by Garmin, little more $ but I’ve seen this unit in action. My boating neighbor “Double J†has this and even in 5/6ft seas this unit stayed on course and didn’t miss a beat.
BTW, I have NOTHING bad to say about Raymarine; from the time of my original purchase they have done everything possible to satisfy me. It’s a good feeling knowing that a company admits that they have a problem with a product and alerts the consumer. I wish more companies would follow in their footprints
Sometimes I wonder “Do We†as fishermen/boaters own our boats, or do they own US?