A Bit of Wind and Autopilot Woes

I had some nice moderate wind for a little while yesterday, 15-20 knots. I didn't fully realize that the conditions would be like this down here. Ever since I have been in the south Atlantic it's been either tons of wind or no wind. If it was earlier in the season I could go further south where the wind is more consistant but, though frustrating, it is safer up here.

Today there hasn't been much wind and I was moving earlier but right now I have 2 knots and I am just drifting. I had a bit of a scare earlier today. I have had trouble with my auto pilot pretty much from the beginning of my trip and it hasn't gotten better with time. There seems to always be some new problem. As most of you know I am down to one auto pilot with spare parts for repairs but it hadn't been working all that great. It really seems like he had just gone insane - not correcting when I was off course, steering all over the place when I was on course and occasionally steering the wrong way. There is nothing like auto pilot alarms and accidental gybes at four in the morning to start off the day.

Well, this morning my auto pilot was acting normal - normal being pretty abnormal. I was fiddling around with it trying a few different tricks that usually help it to behave a little better but this time when I disengaged the auto pilot and put it back into pilot mode it didn't work at all! I could hear the engine trying to turn the rudder, but the tiller was completely loose. I could steer with my hand while the auto pilot was engaged. Long story short I talked to my team, tried a few things but it still it didn't work.

The whole time I was thinking about hand steering across the rest of the Atlantic Ocean... not a very nice thought. The great thing about auto pilots is that you can go round the clock, you don't have to stop the boat to sleep or eat, you just keep going. If I was going to hand steer I would have to stop at night to sleep which would make my progress much, much slower than it has already been.

Also, hand steering on a warm sunny day is great, but not so great in the pouring rain with no sun and weather that seems to always be extreme - either no wind or a storm. I can safely say I was unhappy about the whole thing, of course I did appreciate that it had decided to act up during day light. That doesn't often happen. In fact, the last time I had serious trouble with it was about 10 at night, I wasn't able to get it going again till about 6 or 7 the next morning, and the conditions weren't nearly as nice and calm through that long night.

What I ended up doing is wiring the main auto pilot hydraulic ram and engine in the back to the back up auto pilot brain box. And its working!! The new problem is that the transmission fluid reservoir for that ram has a bad leak. So now I'm working on getting the leak stopped.

I am also trying to wash off the notes of which wires go where off of my arm. I didn't want to forget while I was in the back as it is the kind of place that you want to limit your trips in and out of, not the most comfortable thing climbing in and out. While I was looking at the wiring diagrams, I couldn't find any paper, and the only thing I could find to write with at the moment happened to be a Sharpie. I'm a little sore, and a little covered in sharpie, but, extremely happy to be down in the warm cabin tonight instead of out in the pouring rain!