The sun was shining for most of the day today. What a difference that makes. It seems like it has been so long since we have seen much sun. We had a few short squalls but not the hours and hours of rain that we had been experiencing.
I didn’t mention it in yesterday’s post but we lost our autopilot about half way through our trip from Conception Island to Long Island. We were reminded how much we have come to depend on it. The autopilot failed when we were in very rough seas & 20+kt winds near the tip of Long Island. We were hit on the beam by one especially big wave and the boat rolled to port and then back to starboard. The autopilot struggled to keep up and then it just gave up, the wheels spun and the boat turned up into the wind. George regained control of the boat, turned the autopilot off and then on again but it didn’t work. We hand steered the rest of the way and we both had to resist, many times, the urge to turn the autopilot on. Today we set about trying to fix it. George first removed the cockpit floor to check the autopilot motor and the arm that attaches the motor to the rudder. Nothing looked amiss there. I found some information online written by other Hanse owners who had fixed autopilot problems by replacing a fuse between the autopilot computer and motor. The trick was to find the fuse. After much looking and rearranging of stuff (which we had to do anyway), George finally found it inside the port lazzarette. He replaced the fuse and, voila, the autopilot works! Phew. Neither one of us relished the idea of long passages home without an autopilot.
We are getting your emails and texts but you don’t seem to be getting ours. If you didn’t get either of our emails today, perhaps you can try calling us (we weren’t able to get through on your phone) or communicating here.
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