Our autopilot is now fully functional. 15 months after purchasing the boat we now have a fully functional autopilot.

The lesson to be learned here is that when you test drive the boat before purchase and have a survey, you should assume that anything that is not functional is completely broken. I remember the surveyor saying “it could be something as simple as a fuse”. Yes that is true, but it could also be that the autopilot computer was completely destroyed from salt water exposure, and that the hydraulic pump for the autopilot steering was completely dead, and that without these two things that all of the other autopilot components were not worth anything without the computer. If anything is not 100% functional during your boat survey, assume that it is going to need to be completely replaced. If it is “an easy fix” let the person selling the boat to you have some one repair it.

Back to the autopilot. With the Simrad NSS equipment that we installed late last summer, the Autpilot computer install during the winter with the rudder feedback equipment, and the Simrad NSS 9 on the flybridge we thought we had it all working, but after our first test drive we discovered that the hydraulic unit also needed to be replaced. So B.O.A.T. it is.

The old and the new hydraulic pumps are shown above. It took a bit of work get the old hydraulic hoses free, but thanks to Alex and George it did not take too long. On our test drive we hardly touched the steering wheel and let autopilot do the job once we were in open water.

Here is our test pattern for a short autopilot cruise as plotted on the Simrad NSS16.

Related links:

• Simrad NSS equipment
• Autpilot computer install
• Simrad NSS 9 on the flybridge