And there was much rejoicing

Today at around 1230 ship’s time (1730 UTC) we passed 1,500 miles traveled. This means we are about half way to the Marquesas! It also means we have now exceeded out longest distance at sea in a single stretch and are extending that figure every day.

Total time to come this far was 7 days, 23 1/2 hourscall it eight days. I am very pleased with our progress so far, if we can keep this pace I will be thrilled.

And for the REALLY Good News

The really good news is that I managed to jury rig a fix for the autopilot, so for the time being we can stop hand steering the boat and get better sleep, catch up on our audio books and have a bit more fun.

The Embarrassing Back Story

OK, this is where I have to come clean about the other autopilot. Yup, l you read it rightthere is another autopilot. A backup that never actually worked.

That it did not work really was inexcusable, but since I was very comfortable and confident in the new installation it got sent to he back burner when I couldn’t find the resources to figure it out. There were so many other systems to deal with and projects to sort out dealing with an old, messed up cantankerous system that might never work anyway kept falling to the back of (but not off of) the work and to do lists when we had a shiny new one that I’d never planned to back up anyway.

So yes, there was another autopilot and I am now duly chastised that I should never have left port without beating the thing into submission and making it work. I do have many excuses why not though, from a lack of proper documentation on the drive unit to the inability to find a solid Raymarine technician that could sort the cranky mess out.

An autopilot system essentially has two parts, the ‘brain’ and the ‘drive’. The brain is the thing that gets course and compass information, rudder position information etc. and figures out how to make the boat go straight. The Drive is that connects to the boat steering system. The drive is essentially brainless and awaits electrical commands from the Brain about what to do with the rudder.

Evenstar came with two autopilots installed. These were older Raymarine units and had a switch to cut back and forth between them. There were two separate brains and two separate drive systems. One of the drive systems proved woefully inadequate and we actually stripped out the drive arms and destroyed them. The other drive system is an inline electrical (non-hydraulic) heavy duty unit of indeterminate make and model with no manual. Given this was all older technology using proprietary Raymarine communication and would not integrate with the new instruments I was installing we decided to replace it all with a modern system.

The original plan was to to remove both Raymarine brains and use the rotary in line drive unit from this old backup with the brain from the new one I installed in 2012. This would get me set up with a single new autopilot system for only the cost of a new Furuno brain a significant cost savings. However, none of the documentation showed how an old (1997) drive this this odd type could work properly with a new snazzy new autopilot, so after I took all the new Furuno gear out I figured it wouldn’t work. By this time I’d already removed one of the original brains (the one connected to the rotary drive) and sold it off on Ebay, I still had the brain from the destroyed linear drive system but it wasn’t programmed for the other drive.

I decided then to leave one of the original old autopilot brains in place with complete wiring and everything it needed to operate as an independent subsystem, then install the complete new system beside it with a switch to all
ow be to cut power over to the backup when I needed it. The only downside was that the wiring was slightly different, and the Linear drive brain would need to be reprogrammed with the different drive information. But the plan was to allow a complete cutover to a fully functional system in the event of a catastrophic failure of the main instruments and autopilot.

Everything worked on the electrical end of the solution I needed to put a switch in so that either autopilot could be turned on but ONLY one system at a time, lest two powerful drives decide to turn the boat in different directions and rip my steering system apart. That all worked, but the problem was the backup, when engaged, drove the boat in circles and I could not figure out how to make it go straight.

The new Furuno system I installed with the brand new powerful and way more than adequate hydraulic drive unit worked like a charm. The old system would turn on but drive in circles, but that is just a little tweaking, right? Except in the event the new, over powered system drops dead on you.

The Fix is In

After ruminating on the problem for a while I went back and took a closer look at the old and new system manuals. The old “electric inline rotary drive” system had four wires (two “motor” and two “clutch”). The old system manual listed numerous drive system options and how to install them, none of which were anything like the installed system.

I turned on the backup system to see what I could do with it. It went so far as to turn on, show it was making it’s limited connection to the boat’s instruments, getting good GPS, compass, course and rudder position data in other words it was ready to go. We turned it onzzzt. Nothing. A closer inspection showed that in the last couple of years of not using it a few wires had corroded and needed reconnection. Not a biggie, I sorted those out then we fired up the backup which promptly tried to drive us in circles.

From looking at the schematics, I discovered the new Furuno brain has the ability to deal with a four wire system, albeit it is supposed to be a “linear hydraulic drive”, not this crazy weird unnamed beast in my boat. But hey, it needs Motor+, Motor-, Clutch+ and Clutch- wires just like the old system, so maybe I can fake it out? So I disconnected the drive from the old system and plugged it into the new one. There were a few corroded connections to fix, positives and negatives to fix (the guy that put both clutch wires in with red wire should be punished), and voila – the new autopilot is now humming along driving us with the old drive unit.

We’re going to scale back the aggressive watch system but still have an extra pair of hands readily available just in case something goes wrong with this jury rigging. But for now things are going to be a little more back to normal. We are looking forward to an end to sore and tired arms!