I have replaced the rack and pinion with a Hydraulic system from Southern Cross Marine - its the Australian made Hydrive system and it seems very good so far.

My reason for changing was as I often sail singlehanded I wanted to be able to leave the help for short periods and not have the boat go all over the place !!

Installing the system on my "2008 M" was quite straightforward but fiddly ad time consuming.

The first job is to remove the existing rack & pinion system, I took photos of the connection to the tiller arms so I knew where the new system should be connected.

First the wheel has to be removed, its on a tapered shaft with a key way and mine came off without too much trouble but if its very tight you may need some wedges or a puller - a good tip is to give it a WD40 spray to help loosen it.

Once the wheel is off remove the plastic cover to reveal the retaining bolts, the helm pinion is connected to the rack inside the binnacle and its a tight fit with all the wiring and outboard controls. Four bolts secure the pinion gear to the rack and these have to be undone to enable it to be withdrawn from the front. The rack and associated cable can then be withdrawn(as long as the cable is disconnected from the tiller mechinism) through the port side opening, but its a tight fit. In the picture you can see how big the rack is.

Fixing the helm is quite an art as the clearance between the helm pump and the Yamaha controls is small so it is essential to get it exactly in the right position, also as access to the inside of the binnacle is just through the small opening on the port side so tightening the four fixing nuts is tricky, I bought a short handled spanner and made sure I had a thin cord tied to it in case I dropped it down the binnacle. In addition to the Hydrive kit it is necessary to buy the fixing kit. On Ashanti it was necessary to cut a section off the front plate because of the position of the instruments fitted front of the binnacle. The picture shows the hole cut with a jig saw to the template supplied with the Hydrive Kit. The fitting kit allows adjustment of the amount the hydraulic helm pump extends from the binnacle its necessary to have enough space to get to the filler knob on the top. `See picture.

Once the helm is fitted the next task is to decide where to fix the hydraulic ram, it connects to the rudder mechanism by a cable jut like the one attached to the rack system and I found the best position was on the port side just by the back position of the sliding galley. The cylinder does not need to be fixed rigidly, I used a jubilee clip attached to the galley slide support. See picture

The final part of the installation, is the hydraulic pipeing - this was supplied with the kit as was the oil and filling bottle. The pipe is very stiff nylon and I found it really difficult to route and fix as its necessary to fix to the headlining of the rear bunks. I used plastic cable clips pop rivited to the head liner - see picture.

Lastly, connecting the pipes to the helm and cylinder - the helm was the most difficult as the space is so limited and the pipes have to be connected in an exact way shown in the instructions, again my stubby spanner with cord attached was invaluable. The instruction as to filling the system with oil and bleeding are very specific and it took me a long time doing it singlehanded as you need to be at both ends, however its possible to rig up the filling bottle so that you can spin the wheel as necessary. I managed to connect the pipes the wrong way round first time - even though I checked with Southern Cross !!

Anyway, with the job finally done I have removed almost all the "slop" from the steering and sea trials mean that I can now leave the helm for short periods and the rudders will remain where they are. The lack of feedback does not really seem to be a problem. Even with the outboard raised it hardly affects the pressure on the wheel although it is obviously better if it is disconnected if its going to be up for long periods.