Day 10 - Click image for larger view
Moving along well to the east towards Bermuda about 300 miles out into the Atlantic. Many thoughts run through my mind as another errant wave smacks the hull dumping more water into the cockpit. This was what I signed up for, it's of my own making. It surely was a test of my mettle!
Southern Light had wheel steering. I had four methods, hand, below deck electro/hydraulic autopilot, self steering vane and a tillerpilot (portable mechanical autopilot) that I'd attach to the self steering vane mount. The main below deck autopilot was a complicated mixture of items. The physical power unit attached from the side of the hull to a quadrant on the rudder post. This had an electric motor powering a hydraulic pump all made into a compact arm with wires connecting to a power control box nearby. The power control box receives it's information from a NEMA 2000 and 0183 bus which includes many other pieces of electronics. Heading, gyro, GPS, wind speed and direction, paddlewheel hull speed, emergency shutdown switch and the control head itself. Any one of these pieces can be a point of failure. At this point one of these failures appeared as the boat veered of course. This of course required immediate attention by hitting the emergency power off and taking control of the wheel to get back on course. At this point I could not leave the wheel for more than a few seconds, even with the wheel lock on, or Southern Light would be out of control and could damage herself, quite the adrenaline rush. I hand steer while jumping from place to place trying to reset anything associated. 15 mins later I realize that more time is needed so I rush down inside to retrieve a self steering vane "sail", actually a rigid piece of plywood or larger plastic piece for lighter wind conditions. Meanwhile the boat veers wildly off course. After half an hour of craziness we're finally sailing in the intended direction again and can now focus on the initial problem.
Meanwhile, waves smacking the hull side have dumped much more water into the cockpit.
During the autopilot calamity the hardtop mounted Iridium GPS antenna was ripped off by mainboom reefing lines as it swung wildly from side to side out of control. I quickly switched the GPS source to the internal antenna and luckily gathered the pieces before flying overboard. The main antenna housing was held on by its coax cable. I cut the coax wire flush both inside and out then proceed to repair the damaged GPS/satellite antenna. I didn't want to ever have this happen again so I resoldered the damaged wire inside a metal RF shield and stuck it inside the radio cabinet. It worked fine reading through both the fiberglass deck and plywood shelf above. Sorry, guess I'll live to tell the rest of the voyage story.
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Moving along well to the east towards Bermuda about 300 miles out into the Atlantic. Many thoughts run through my mind as another errant wave smacks the hull dumping more water into the cockpit. This was what I signed up for, it's of my own making. It surely was a test of my mettle!
Southern Light had wheel steering. I had four methods, hand, below deck electro/hydraulic autopilot, self steering vane and a tillerpilot (portable mechanical autopilot) that I'd attach to the self steering vane mount. The main below deck autopilot was a complicated mixture of items. The physical power unit attached from the side of the hull to a quadrant on the rudder post. This had an electric motor powering a hydraulic pump all made into a compact arm with wires connecting to a power control box nearby. The power control box receives it's information from a NEMA 2000 and 0183 bus which includes many other pieces of electronics. Heading, gyro, GPS, wind speed and direction, paddlewheel hull speed, emergency shutdown switch and the control head itself. Any one of these pieces can be a point of failure. At this point one of these failures appeared as the boat veered of course. This of course required immediate attention by hitting the emergency power off and taking control of the wheel to get back on course. At this point I could not leave the wheel for more than a few seconds, even with the wheel lock on, or Southern Light would be out of control and could damage herself, quite the adrenaline rush. I hand steer while jumping from place to place trying to reset anything associated. 15 mins later I realize that more time is needed so I rush down inside to retrieve a self steering vane "sail", actually a rigid piece of plywood or larger plastic piece for lighter wind conditions. Meanwhile the boat veers wildly off course. After half an hour of craziness we're finally sailing in the intended direction again and can now focus on the initial problem.
Meanwhile, waves smacking the hull side have dumped much more water into the cockpit.
During the autopilot calamity the hardtop mounted Iridium GPS antenna was ripped off by mainboom reefing lines as it swung wildly from side to side out of control. I quickly switched the GPS source to the internal antenna and luckily gathered the pieces before flying overboard. The main antenna housing was held on by its coax cable. I cut the coax wire flush both inside and out then proceed to repair the damaged GPS/satellite antenna. I didn't want to ever have this happen again so I resoldered the damaged wire inside a metal RF shield and stuck it inside the radio cabinet. It worked fine reading through both the fiberglass deck and plywood shelf above. Sorry, guess I'll live to tell the rest of the voyage story.
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