Re: autopilot question

Tom,
Have you tried eBay or Craig's list to unload your shed-full of boat-
parts past?
This trip back to the states was to sell the glen in Brentwood and
move to the
desert - - and to get rid of tons of "valuable" stuff shipped home
from the boat
over the years.

What a joke. It would have been mentally easier, and much cheaper, to
throw
the stuff away in different ports around the world, rather than ship
it home to
dispose of decades later. Why do boat things seem to have a value
greater
than common sense dictates?

Concerning the autopilot, yes, we continue to use the Alpha drive
unit, hooked
to now, two-year old, Robertson control system. The flaw in this
hookup, is that
the Alpha drive communicates it's ram location to the control box
through an
Alpha-specific internal reference relay. The Robertson will not read
this output. And,
the Alpha ram is disconnected manually, with a cable - or with the
now-available
electric disconnect. So, if we mistakenly disconnect the drive unit
without
first disconnecting the control unit, the system will "hard over" the
ram and burn out
the motor.

I know this can be overcome, but just have not worked out the
mechanics of the
hookup between the drive and the Robertson Rudder Feedback Unit.
The Alpha drive is bulletproof, being in service for 20 years, and,
having power to spare in all conditions. In addition, the
installation by Ta Shing,
is, in the words of mathmatics-nerds, an elegant solution.

As you are a book-writing-nerd of the first order, my greatest hope
now, is that
you will put your Coast Guard/cruising knowledge to work and provide the
technical drawings to complete this elusive job.

Congratulations on the new books.

Ciao,
Bill



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Received on Mon Apr 10 09:32:28 2006