Autonomous sailboat and path width on long distance course

ArduRover ArduBoat
1

I am trying to widen the “path” the boat takes to reach a waypoint). Specifically, i am trying to maximize battery by minimizing rudder usage.
Currently the boat tracks well and stays on path. This requires numerous movements by the rudder per second to stay on path.
Is it possible to widden the path or track between waypoints so that the rudder would be used less.
Example: path is set to 50’ wide so that the rudder would only be active when it hits the path border. Other then that the rudder would be in the neutral ( straight) poistion.
I realize that the example above comes with its own set of issues, but i am curious to know if it is possible to set up?
I am thinking this might be achievable by setting the distance around a waypoint to a large number so that the distance circles overlap, but thought i woukd ask here to seenif anyone had an opinion on if it is possible.

Thx

2

Have you actually measured how much power the rudder servo is consuming? If you have that data I’d love to see it as its not normally something we gather.
You would have to lower your STEER2SRV_ PID gains thus reducing the aggressiveness of the steering algorithm and increase the NAVL1_PERIOD to get less aggressive turns.

Thanks, Grant.