Ben,
I'm sure you can find those motors if anyone can, but with your technical prowess you could probably build an autopilot better than the one you have. Jan and I did hand steer, and without the wheelhouse built yet, for several thousand miles, some of it in cold/wet and broiler sunny weather. Sure does make us appreciate Iron Mike and the Wheelhouse. My Furuno AP-1 (never buy the first of anything) leaves a lot to be desired (I can easily steer better than it can), and steering to GPS input it just wanders too much. And, yes, I played with all the adjustments the first trip with it to no avail. Just bad programming I think. Having hydraulic steering already in place made installing our unit easy. I actually swapped a non-working (but expensive) UPS for a new hydraulic unit at a marine flea market years ago at St Augustine Marine. It isn't very big, it takes much longer to go hard over than the Furuno book wants, but it steers offshore satisfactorily. I just plumbed up the pump and hooked up the wires. The pump runs all the time with solenoid valves moving the rudder. I did have a 1" hole drilled in the upper rudder shaft pin thinking I would put a shaft through it someday to make a balanced trim tab for very low power steering that would also work under sail but never went forward with the project. Once we leave Fernandina we will go back in at Morehead, then three day trips to Norfolk and stay there for a few days. Perhaps we will meet again in Norfolk. We are also planning a stop in Oyster Bay on Long Island to visit Steve Weinstein before moving on to New England where we will probably go to Maine first, then back to Gloucester to haul out for the last two weeks in August and leaving for southbound right after the Schooner Races there on Labor Day weekend. We usually "do" the Chesapeake from the middle of September to the end of October. New this year is an engine room hatch that we can close having rerouted some wires and built a good vent shaft. It makes a noticeable difference in the noise level. Norm S/V Bandersnatch Lying Fernandina Beach FL 30 40.495N 081 28.254W > > We won't be there in time to see you, I'm afraid. The drive motors in > *both* our autopilots died, so we've ended up in Charleston after > steering by hand all night. _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list Liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to liveaboard-j...@liveaboardnow.org To unsubscribe send an email to liveaboard-le...@liveaboardnow.org The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
