Friday, November 6, 2015

October 26, 2015 RayMarine Autopilot, Brunswick, GA

Monday Oct 26
Today we took the boat out for a sea trial for the autopilot.  We corrected the miles vs kilometers issue.  But we still had an autopilot issue.  A boat icon shows up on the Raymarine chart plotter screen that represents our boat.  For quite some time, it has been showing our boat moving at about a 30 degree angle rather than straight ahead.  And when we first set the autopilot, it moves the boat way off course and brings it back.  Dave calls it a “crazy Ivan”.  That came from the movie Red October.  It was a quick turn of a Soviet submarine to see if the Americans were following it. 

Dave ended up calling the technicians at Raymarine 5 times while we had the boat out on the water over about 2 hours.  Each technician had their advice to check or a maneuver to try.  The fifth one recommended Dave go down to the gyroscope to see if there was any magnetic interference.  

So after we were back, he took his hand held compass to the gyroscope and found that the generator had an effect on it.  He didn’t think it would because there was a bulk head wall between them.  Now he had to move the gyroscope away from the generator.  After digging into the boat and deciding where to move it, he had to order a longer cord to make it happen.  These things don’t correct themselves in one day. 

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