We recently had a near lighting hit which took out a few switches and thankfully nothing else. The electronics lit up and showed our position at the dock.
The boat was fully loaded with over 1000 pounds of extra stuff going back to the Bahamas, hurricane/security shutters, my old PA system for the band my kids and I have put together and other items.
Upon leaving Lake Worth Inlet I engage the Route on the AutoPilot, instead of heading 90 degrees East the boat tracks North, big time. I immediately think it's the lighnting hit affecting the system but not fully sure how to fix it. Do we keep going or turn around? My son and I decide to keep going, using the compass and charts, old school while watching the "Pink Line" on the Chartplotter. We figured out that the boat icon could follow the pink line manually steering as long as I was on the correct compass coordinates...albeit the boat icon was about 70 degrees tilted to the right. In hind sight and I should have known there was a Variance adjustment in the system. However, I did not feel as though I had to the time to diagnose and fiddle around with it in the Gulf Stream, move forward or go back then fiddle. I was on track and kept going. Today I had some time to mess with the system and there is a Magnetic Variance in both the Chartplotter and the Autopilot systems that allows you to have the electronics read the same as your manual compass. In hind sight my Chartplotter was off about 70 degrees as you can see from the pic. It was interesting running 200 miles with this odd set up. Part way we also had issues with the shaft log cooling tube popping out of the shaft log. There was no water coming out of the tube and into the shaft log, the collar got so hot that the plastic threads softened enough to release the metal nipple and hose. There was sand in the fitting where the hose terminated at the engine causing the blockage. Got this fixed and kept moving on. It was a long day but one my son and I won't forget, working through the issues together.
If you happen to be in Abaco, Bahamas, next Saturday, please stop by and join us for my 50th. My kids and I will play (using the PA delivered by our Bertram).
(PS: thanks to Bruce for being there when we needed him!) This board rocks!
