kyleview
Well-Known Member
Came out of Port Bannatyne this morning and noticed the boat was moving sideways on the E120 - bow pointing exactly 90 degrees to direction of travel! Then tried putting on Auto, also to a Waypoint with no success, also would not hold the course - not unexpected as the Autohelm must have been pretty confused. Switched everything off / on , but to no avail - exact same problem. Should mention that the compass bearing at the Autohelm was also 90 degrees out - was showing 60 when we were going 150.
Suspected the fluxgate or the Autohelm computer had lost it's relevant position so decided to swing the compass / autohelm per the instructions. (Have done before on a previous boat satisfactory - so not unknown to me). After going round in circles slowly many times - four - it still did not lock and provide a deviation. However as the circles progresses the fluxgate and GPS directions converged until almost the same - 1/2 degrees apart. I had not noticed at the start what the difference was - but was in the region of 90 degrees, same as the offset I was seeing on the E120.
Eventually gave up going round in circles after the fluxgate and GPS consistently showed the same readings for direction and returned the Autohelm back to Standby to investigated / resolve another day. By now the boat on E120 was heading in the right direction, Auto worked just fine, and I was able to go to my next Waypoint. Has been ok for the rest of today, just like it had up to using this morning.
Good news is that everything is working again (3 year old fully integrated Raymarine system which has done 4000+ miles without a hitch). Bad news as an engineer is that I don't know why the problem has disappeared, also why it's even working when it failed to complete swing / deviation set-up.
Can anyone throw any light what caused the problem in the first instance, also should I be worried that it "fixed" itself without me getting though the full set-up procedure. (and there were no metal things near the fluxgate)
Thanks
Suspected the fluxgate or the Autohelm computer had lost it's relevant position so decided to swing the compass / autohelm per the instructions. (Have done before on a previous boat satisfactory - so not unknown to me). After going round in circles slowly many times - four - it still did not lock and provide a deviation. However as the circles progresses the fluxgate and GPS directions converged until almost the same - 1/2 degrees apart. I had not noticed at the start what the difference was - but was in the region of 90 degrees, same as the offset I was seeing on the E120.
Eventually gave up going round in circles after the fluxgate and GPS consistently showed the same readings for direction and returned the Autohelm back to Standby to investigated / resolve another day. By now the boat on E120 was heading in the right direction, Auto worked just fine, and I was able to go to my next Waypoint. Has been ok for the rest of today, just like it had up to using this morning.
Good news is that everything is working again (3 year old fully integrated Raymarine system which has done 4000+ miles without a hitch). Bad news as an engineer is that I don't know why the problem has disappeared, also why it's even working when it failed to complete swing / deviation set-up.
Can anyone throw any light what caused the problem in the first instance, also should I be worried that it "fixed" itself without me getting though the full set-up procedure. (and there were no metal things near the fluxgate)
Thanks