English to Spanish Other Ships, Sailing, Maritime

AUTOTRIM
Under differing conditions a bias of the helm (sometimes known as standing helm, or rudder trim) to port or starboard will be required to steer a straight course. The amount of bias depends on many factors such as strength of wind, speed of boat and amount of sail set. If no account were made of this then the boat would tend to veer off to one side or the other eventually oscillating about a heading offset by a number of degrees to that required.

The internal computer continuously monitors the average course error and applies a bias to the helm to compensate until the ideal condition is reached. It applies the bias gradually so as not to upset the normal automatic pilot performance, and may take up to a minute or so to fully compensate for changing tack.