Patent ID: 8156882

Claim:
A marine vessel steering apparatus comprising: a rudder unit arranged to be mounted pivotally on a hull; an actuator arranged to turn the rudder unit; a rudder angle sensor arranged to detect a rudder angle of the rudder unit; a steering wheel arranged to be operated by an operator to steer the rudder unit; a wheel angle detecting unit arranged to detect an amount of change in a rotation angle of the steering wheel; and a control unit arranged to perform a steering control operation by which the control unit controls the actuator based on values detected by the rudder angle sensor and the wheel angle detecting unit; wherein the control unit is arranged to set the rudder angle of the rudder unit detected by the rudder angle sensor at a start of the steering control operation corresponding to the steering wheel as an initial target rudder angle and compute a target rudder angle based on the initial target rudder angle and the change in the rotation angle of the steering wheel, and to control the actuator to change the rudder angle of the rudder unit in accordance with the target rudder angle; and the start of the steering control operation includes a time period when the marine vessel steering apparatus is powered on and when the control unit is stopped temporarily and then restarted.