Question 1. The answer to your question as you stated it is "No". The wires cannot be "easily" (your word) lengthened. But they can, with a quite a bit of work, be lengthened. You have not provided a complete description of your situation: to wit, Where is your radar scanner located? On the mast? On a pole at the stern? If on a pole at the stern, you would not need to lengthen the radar cable, but shorten it...a much easier task.

Question 2 is beyond my expertise. My guess is that the ST60 wind and the Autopilot could talk to each other, but as a fall back, Why would you want them to? They can each be considered as stand-alone functions.

A note on lengthening wires: Radar cables are especially challenging as the shielding inside of other shielding relationship should be maintained at any splice point. I intentionally cut my radar cable to assist installation in my boat, and I know that there are a bazillion wires in there, some coax-like video protected by shielding, others two-wire twisted/shielded pairs for digital stuff. As long as care is taken in maintaining that shielding relationship, it is valid to splice the radar cable.

When splicing a cable, I strongly urge avoidance of crimp splices. You MUST have connection integrity, and there is only one way to assure that: solder. So you will cut the cable through, strip back all the wires, slip marine quality heat shrink tubing (NOT Home Depot household heat shrink...that does not have the adhesive that keeps out moisture) over each wire, connect the wires together to form a good mechanical bond (ie, little "hooks" around each other), and solder with 60/40 resin core solder (NOT the stuff you use on your copper plumbing at home). Like playing chess, you'll need to think many moves ahead to make sure you have the proper size heat shrink in place, so that the final "ball" or "gob" that you wind up with can be heat shrinked.

To fail to do the splice completely this way will make for a troubleshooting hell when, years later, some poor sap has to discover what you didn't do properly.

Now I have a question. So you just bought a used boat, why not use the upgrade opportunity to outfit the helm for current times? Get a new chartplotter that can display AIS, get the AIS-B that you ought to have, and bring your helm into the 21st century?

On the Autopilot question, I do not know if the 4000 was "SeaTalk" Capable. I am sure that Raymarine could answer that one.

Larry, I won't speak for Bob, but I see the advantage to having the wind instrument interfaced to the autopilot is that it will allow the boat to sail off of the wind angle instead off a magnetic course or gps track. This is helpfull in open areas in so that you do not need to adjust the sails and the boat will "follow the wind" with proper trim. It makes a huge difference when on reaching angles and greatly reduces the "hunting" that occurs with Autopilots on reaches. It also provides auto-tack features that are enhanced over the pre-programed turns in standard auto-pilots as well as providing some gybe prevention.

I use this quite a bit when short handed sailing or solo sails and it is a very helpfull addition.

Raymarine North America Telephone: 603 881 5200

They also have a Q/A section...
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