Recent content by gbgrady208

I have had the Fell Marine 1st Mate system on two boats for a couple of years and have been very happy with them. I've had no issues with pairing and with the 1st Mate system there is no drilling as the unit installs in a dry area of the helm behind all the controls. Wiring into my Yamaha...

Not sure if you made any more progress on this, but there are a lot of good youtube videos from Yamaha on the helmmaster system that are better than the manuals. Also, to engage the joystick, engines must be in neutral, otherwise the light will blink and go out. Once engaged, forward and...

I have a Marlin 300 and mounted a rack to the ceiling of the cabin (photo attached). It works well and the rods extend above the door to the head and allows me to use the table. It's down in the attached photo. Also, the rack I used is the following (and you can also buy in shorter lengths) or...

I had the same issue on one of my new 2021 300's about three months after purchase. The dealer who does my maintenance bleed some air out of the system and now have over 400 hours on the engines without the issue reappearing. Air and/or low fluid can certainly cause this.

I will check the connections at both ends - - always a chance water got into the antenna housing on the top of the boat. It also dawned on me that this mostly happens when I'm fast trolling (12 - 15 MPH) which puts the boat at an odd angle since it's not on plane. It never does it on plane. I...

The antenna is an externally mounted yamaha labeled antenna on the roof. It has happened very rarely in the past, but yesterday it was occurring off and on all day long completely disrupting our ability to fish. I didn't time it, but it probably lost the signal every 45-90 minutes through the...

By the way, this is on my 2021 Marlin 300 with Yamaha 300's.

Just curious if anyone with Helm Master has experienced the "GPS Unstable" message from the Yamaha CL7 console that causes autopilot and speed control to shutoff. There are some postings on The Hull Truth discussing this issue, but they predominately tie it to SPOT Trace that I do not have. This...

I have the Fell Marine 1st Mate system on both my 208 and my Marlin 300. A must have safety device, especially if you troll with autopilot set (which is how we fish for halibut, salmon and tuna in Northern California. Install was very simple on the 208 (completely plug and play and that part of...

I think everyone covered this quite well with the key being a safety first orientation. I take my 208 out in the open Pacific Ocean all the time, including many trips through the Golden Gate Bridge and out in the ocean 25-30 miles from the bridge. The currents and swells are nasty under the...

PS to my prior post - - my boat is a 2021 Marlin 300 with dual 300's, but helm master is helm master and the model shouldn't matter, but the year will.

If you just purchased the boat, it's possible they never programmed that helm master settings. Look up the programming instructions for your year of helm master and make sure the trim assist has settings for the various RPM ranges. If not, best to take your boat out and note the trim at various...

On my 2021 Marlin, I did not have a generator and installed a 2000 watt Victron inverter/charger and two AGM batteries to power the microwave, coffee machine and stove. It works great and has enough capacity that I didn't connect it to the engines, so I don't charge while on the water. I can...

I was out today and tried to pay more attention to what was causing the clunky noises that you are describing. Mostly when changing directions too quickly as mentioned in the most recent post - - in particular forward and reverse. As for reprogramming, your Yamaha screen should have the...

I have it on my Marlin 300 with F300's and would agree that it's a little clunky. WIth that said, once you get used to it , it effectively moves the boat where you want it to go and most of the clunky activity is when you are doing too much back and forth with the joy stick to move the boat left...