On Good Friday, I was sailing on NE on Chickamauga Lake with winds out of the south at 18 knots, gusting to 26. Two foot whitecaps were following me. I set my Raymarine autopilot to "magnetic auto", as I often do. It started acting very erratically...turning 30 degrees when I made corrections and just generally not tracking right. I turned the power off and "rebooted" the instruments and got the same result. So I just steered manually - no big deal.
I woke up Saturday morning pondering the problem while lying in bed. Suddenly I remembered that I had brought my large cordless drill to the boat for a project and in a hurry to leave the dock had placed the toolbag in the cockpit lazarette (right next to the fluxgate compass). I got out of the berth, turned on the instruments and watched the autopilot reading as I lifted the toolbag out of the locker. Sure enough, the heading changed 35 degrees!
Problem solved.
Note to self...don't do stupid stuff.
Agaliha
I woke up Saturday morning pondering the problem while lying in bed. Suddenly I remembered that I had brought my large cordless drill to the boat for a project and in a hurry to leave the dock had placed the toolbag in the cockpit lazarette (right next to the fluxgate compass). I got out of the berth, turned on the instruments and watched the autopilot reading as I lifted the toolbag out of the locker. Sure enough, the heading changed 35 degrees!
Problem solved.
Note to self...don't do stupid stuff.
Agaliha
