Day 18 -Hand steering here we come!
I tried all day to get the DC motor of the autopilot working properly to no avail.
The motor works well when it is running, but it does not start every time. We though initially that the brushes were bad and I tried to clean them up, however the more I play with the brushes, the less confident I am that they are the real problem.
Ron and I tried metering the different windings but we both agree that the scale on the meter is just not accurate for what we are doing. We didn’t see any obvious shorts, but then again I am not 100% sure what I should be looking for. I’m just really glad we have gotten this far and have put a good 1000 miles on a number of field repairs and I can’t complain about that.
The wind has flipped around and is blowing from the south. This change was forecasted and should allow us to drive straight into Sitka on a beam reach. I just hope it holds until we arrive.
Our noon to noon run was at 153 miles which is pretty respectable considering we don’t have the full use of the main. We have been trying to use a little of the main which equates to about a double reef, but only to really balance the boat, we are not getting that many more miles because of it.
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