Remember that warning that if there is more than 24 hours in the "All Fixed" category, Neptune may save up for something special. Heeding these words we had deliberately left the forward head unfixed and hadn't installed the new regulator for the house bank alternator and instead had a pleasant afternoon of sailing while trying to recuperate from the last big repair job? it was so long ago (2 days) we can't quite remember what it was. So at 2 o'clock in the morning the following day, alarms start going off, our very valuable crewmember was not functioning and displaying an error of "Rudder Response Failure". We are referring to "Otto" a.k.a. Auto Pilot, a very valued and trusted crewmember. The prospects of making this journey without him were bad or really bad depending on your perspective. As were contemplating our dilemma we hand steer for about 2 hours trying to figure out what we would do if we couldn't get Otto back online. We only had another 2500 miles to go and steering the 54,000 pounds of MaaMa day in and day was not even a consideration.
First things First. When trouble shooting an on-board problem, you start with the obvious. You pull of the covers off of everything and start looking around, when you can't find anything then you take that next step, chase down the worms? these are electrical wires that snake through the boat's innards from the hydraulic pump to the electronic "Brain" and then to the various remote control panels. Again failing to have found anything, you then take your handy dandy voltmeter where you put its little tongue against all sorts of connections and screws. Ah ha! Suzan's did find a loose connection and then contorted her body into very confined upside down space underneath the navigation station, where she rewires the main power board. We engage Otto again and darn, 3 minutes later same error message. So Suzan resumes her yoga position that would daunt any Yogi and tries once again. Now this is all done while the boat is "hove to".
"Hove To" you ask? Well, have you ever been to the rodeo where the cow gets released and a cowboy on horseback races after, lassos the cow, grabs it by the horns, wrestles it to the ground and ties up three of his legs, all in a matter of seconds? Well this is a pretty good description about how you get MaaMa hove to and all tied up so she won't slop around and won't make headway. Yee Ha! Of course we have one up on your standard cowboy, we do it blindfolded? well not exactly, but it is completely dark out so difficult to see the sails that need to be wrestled into position (not dropped or put away). This is done in 8-12 foot seas so MaaMa continues to roll about, but not as bad if she weren't hove to. So back to our story.
We are really perplexed and decide to pull out the manual and discovered that we had indeed done everything that the troubleshooting section suggested except doing a "Brain transplant" and that wouldn't be possible this time. What to do next? Panic or go to sleep? Suzan suggested I go get some sleep and she would steer for a couple of hours, but there was no way this was going to happen. So with flashlight in hand, I dove under the aft stateroom bed to start the search once again? whereupon I discovered that Otto had a severed arm. Hallelujah! What had occurred was that the extension arm of the hydraulic ram, which attaches to the steering quadrant, had backed off its coupler. Inconceivable! This is a 1" solid stainless steel armature that when mounted to the quadrant is bolted and snubbed with a locking nut?. And had been installed just 6 month prior. Given the loads that this armature has to absorb, how it could have ever back threaded itself is a mystery. Once identified, the fix was relatively simple. Calling for a doctor and none responding we once again with wrenches in hand set about in a backwards upside down position with arms curved under various structural pieces into the 4 inch high working space, Auto's arm was miraculously reattached. By now it's 9 o'clock in the morning and time to collapse, but first we raise sail and turn Otto back on? and sail toward the west... and in the great Western tradition "To have fought the good fight and lived another day".
Until next time, Fair Winds _/) Michael and Suzan