Yea! Got to drive the boat back in to the harbor by pushbutton today. That means the Pelagic Autopilot is working.

Let’s pick up the bracket build from last week. The triangle gets its center panel. Then it’s down to the boat for a trial fit.

Another couple of days for epoxy curing to bond in the brass carrier bushing and some fairing work, and today it was ready for install.

Yes, those holes in the deck near the bottom of the bracket are from the first bracket attempt. They’ve been epoxy-putty filled but can’t get repainted until the weather warms up.

Today was actually the second try using it; the process lasted just a few minutes the first time when the vertical tube bracket proved unworthy. But on that day the controls seemed really screwed up, and the problems repeated today. The machine seemed to have port and starboard reversed, despite all attempts to run the compass orientation routine. A quick phone/web search got a number and in just a few minutes I luckily caught the inventor who diagnosed the issue as reversed polarity – just switch the power wires to the drive motor. With no traffic and light wind in the Richmond Channel, I hopped to the swimsteps with screwdrivers, and five minutes later fired it back up to perfect functioning. The video clip here is flat water and only a light breeze, so the results were perhaps easy to get. It’ll be great to really go test this thing with full sails and some nasty bay chop.

For the Presidents Day holiday we pumped up the Takacat in Sausalito for some zooming around. Found F27 Papillon on her way back in from the Potato Patch, looking good. Drew had his 10yr old son and an Opti sailing friend driving the FBoat. LOVE to see the magic being passed along to the next gen. :)

A few of you have been to our house in Novato. Who knew we got lake front property? The hi volume rain storms have created this across the street…

It’s flooded Hwy37, closing it westbound for five days now. I write to you tonight listening to the traffic of a four lane highway now diverted right by our bedroom. This sucks. Maybe I should just get up and start building a boat dock by the full moon.