Hello everyone... Ok this is a funny story (well right now it's not... but I can see how one day it will be funny) that I just had to post. As perhaps some of you might remember I have been having difficulties with the old Raymarine 4000ST autopilot aboard my Hunter 340. I have the older model wheelpilot with the black ring and recently the belt inside the wheelpilot began to wear out and the autopilot has not been functioning properly as a result. So I decide to begin looking into either how to replace the worn out belt or upgrade my whole autopilot system. Long story short I discover that Raymarine no longer produces the belt I need to repair the wheelpilot drive ring and that I might have to replace the whole unit because I can't get a .50 cent belt that has worn out (which when Raymarine was producing them cost $50 of course). Anyway this caused me to ask around on this board if anyone knew where I could find the now discontinued belt and basically a long search lead me to distributer in England who still had these belts in stock. I buy the belt from him and he sends it to me. Ok advance forward about three weeks from when I paid for the belt and it still hasn't arrived from England. Several E-mails to this gentleman assures me that the belt is on his way but that he sent it via "standard airmail" which apparently is English slang for "The slow boat from China". Meanwhile I'm still trying to use my autopilot as is whenever I'm out as the worn out belt is only mostly worn out and it will still kinda keep a course if there isn't any weather helm and it doesn't have to turn more than 1-2 degrees at any one time (read: basically it works when I'm motoring into completely calm seas). I keep waiting for this belt to arrive so I can fix the autopilot ring and it just doesn't seem to get here. So last weekend I'm out again and I'm backing into my slip with a awful 20knot quartering wind which keeps threatening to push my boat into the one docked next to me or into the dock itself as I’m backing into my slip. me into the boat next to me and while attempting to make this difficult maneuver my wheel suddenly locks up on me. I don't have time to look to see what is wrong and have to force the wheel over and while I'm doing this I hear something snap below. I manage to get the boat docked but when I look down at the wheel pilot several of the gears are hanging out of the big black ring and there are pieces of plastic on the deck where they have broken through. Further evaluation reveals that the old belt had finally broken in two (why it broke in two when the autopilot wasn’t engaged I’ll never know) and had jammed in the ring (causing the wheel to lock up) and then had broken the entire ring when I forced it over. I sigh when I look at it and realize that there is now absolutely no way to repair the ring even with the new belt and I will have to shell out nearly $1200 for a newer SP1 system. ...to add to the irony the belt I was waiting for from England arrives the next day. ...A day late and a dollar short... I'm sure this will all be very funny one day. -Levin
