As I said yesterday, it is always something. On my watch last night I tried to motor sail but, even with the motor running, the wind angle wouldn't allow me to stay on course. So, when George came up on deck at midnight we dropped the mainsail. While he was at the mast tucking the sail into the sail bag he noticed the boom vang was loose at the base. He discovered it when he grabbed the vang for a handhold. He went back with a small line and tied it up to keep it from sitting on the deck. When George came up on deck at 8:30 am this morning we decided to try sailing again. I turned the autopilot off, turned the engine on and pointed into the wind. Once the sail was up I turned back on course and turned the autopilot on again. An alarm sounded and an error message came on "No rudder response". After turning the nav system off and on several times it still didn't work. This was not good. It is quite hard and tiring to hand steer the boat through the wind and waves. Not at all like a day sail on the Choptank River. We are already tired and I wasn't sure how we were going to make it through 24 more hours while hand steering. Of course, my first question/suggestion was "is there a fuse involved in the connection between the autopilot and rudder?" George checked the autopilot documents but didn't find any answers there. We both thought the autopilot was trying to engage. George thought if that was the case a blown fuse wouldn't be the cause of the problem. George removed floor panel to see if the arm connecting the rudder to the autopilot was still attached. It looked okay. Finally, he checked the fuse we replaced once another time the autopilot quit. Good news! It was burned out! Once he replaced it the autopilot was working again and a crisis was averted. Phew!
I took a selfie using the timer on my iPad to show us sitting toasty warm in the cockpit with shorts and short sleeves.
Comments
Post a Comment