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About CPT

Why we wanted to bring back the CPT Autopilot

The CPT has been produced over the last 50 years by three previous companies. It is a solid design with much to commend it. We have decided to service and produce CPTs in order to keep them available. Our goal is to provide good service and produce a reliable and cost effective autopilot. We build the CPT with long term reliability and repairability in mind.

In 2008 when we started production, the CPT on our own boat was ten years old, had never failed and was still using it's original belt. It had logged about 8,000 hours sailing the California coast, including three trips to Mexico, and had steered our 40' 24,000 lb ketch while sailing through gales in 15-20' seas. It has continued to serve us well and be a most reliable autopilot.

History of the CPT Autopilot

The first CPTs were manufactured in 1969 by Orinda Controls, and utilized a metal bead chain to turn the boat's wheel, an optical compass and analog circuits. In the early 1980's they were improved to be waterproof with a belt drive and were manufactured in Florida by Charlie Pucket as “The Autopilot” and “The Autopilot II”. The autopilot was commonly called a “CPT” as Charlie's company was “Charles Pucket Technologies”. Many of these CPTs are still in active service on power and sail boats. In the late 1990's Scanmar manufactured the CPT until 2003. We began producing the CPT again in 2008 as CPT Autopilot Inc, and have since upgraded the autopilot to digital circuits using a custom 9-axis heading sensor.