Day 10 -The autopilot hack

So we did it, we managed to get the autopilot back together in such a manner that it worked well over the last 24 hours and we are cautiously optimistic we will be ok for the rest of the trip.

There is a small electro magnet clutch on the Raymarine / Autohelm ram that allows the linear drive / motor assembly to free wheel when the ap is not engaged. This clutch and gear assembly is what failed both times the ap has let us down.

Ron and I tore the ram apart and agreed that if we could come up with a non invasive fix (non invasive to the critical non serviceable parts) it would be worth a shot at putting the ram back in with out the clutch.

We were able to drill and mill a key way into one of the serviceable gears, then we inserted a shortened Allen key into the old roll pin hole and the new key way and held everything in place with a hose clamp.

Ron was a great help as after the time in the lazerette removing the ram and the hours below looking and talking about the root cause of the failure and potential fixes, I was feeling a bit queezy and knew I’d have to get back into the laz to rest all the ram.

Ron was able to get the key way and Allen key to fit just right and the hose clamp tightened down beautifully onto some of the existing spline gears. We were both very excited at how well the fix had gone.

I put the ram back together and dove back into the laz to reinstall the ram. After a couple minutes of swearing and cursing it was back in and ready to test out.

I yelled up to Ron to do the honours and when he engaged the autopilot it ran super smooth and quiet.

I watched the wheel and course for a while and everything seemed in order so we cleaned up and put the tools away.

The ram worked perfectly all night and we were all on the look out for strange noises or erratic behaviour, but everything worked out.

We did find out that hand steering with the ram’s linear drive and motor engaged all the time is very difficult and there is a lot of resistance in the system. This fix will work well for off shore passages where the ap is engaged fur days or weeks at a time, however we will need to physically remove the ram when manoeuvring in close quarters while anchoring or docking.

All in all I think we got it and am very happy to have the autopilot back up and running. So happy in fact that I think we will buy a spare ram and keep it on board!

P.S. Our noon to noon run was 150 miles.