Hand steering – all the time is no fun.
Six weeks without the autohelm, the electric arm that can steer the boat, has been getting me down. Most of the time I
Evening racing in Cork Harbour
can balance the sails and lash the tiller but this only works if there is a fair breeze and a smooth sea. Even then I can only afford a couple of minutes away from the helm.
This has some advantages, I don’t get distracted from the primary task of keeping a sharp look out, useful when there are 20,000 lobster pot lines on the southern Irish coast.
When motor sailing or in a swell the helm needs constant attention. In these conditions I have felt trapped because if something else needs attention I have to hold the helm and fiddle with whatever needs doing. If it’s the foresail sheets, the lines that pull the sail in, then I can just about reach. All other tasks I have to stop the boat, let her drift, see to the matter quickly, then restart sailing. Navigational checks are the obvious distraction but also putting on mooring lines and fenders is a trial. Fenders are the cylindrical plastic lozenge-shaped bumpers that protect the hull sides when coming along side.
As I have been cruising along I have been contacting folks trying to get advice on what’s wrong with the autohelm. Corporate support and distributor network didn’t solve the problem. I even did what Doctors hate us doing, I searched the internet with my symptoms and came up with a diagnosis of a cracked solder joint on the printed circuit board in the head unit.
Local network of contacts finds expert
George gets his head examined
Arriving in Cork I resolved to solve the problem. Some calling to chandlers and even manufacturers didn’t solicit any answers but the Irish approach to a problem is different to the English. The Irish will always try to leave you with something, even if they don’t have the answer themselves, they suggest someone who might. It’s a bit like a treasure hunt but just 4 calls later I was speaking to Colum who was a marine electronics service engineer. He apologised that he could only come later that afternoon as he had some things to do in the workshop. This was the most promising response I had received in two months, I was overjoyed!
At 4pm Colum came on board and we discussed the problem as he checked the settings of the autohelm and checked for the obvious problems. He tried his spare head in place of mine and yes it worked fine. More fiddling and the printed circuit board was replaced and I have a functioning autohelm again. It will make so much easier for me. So, in the final analysis, corporate support nil, local service engineer, well known in the community and willing to have a go wins the business. Thank Colum.
