In the meantime I sailed from Menorca to Mallorca and are here since a couple of days. The transfer was with light winds and therefore I had to use the engine almost all the 45 nm. More than 8 hrs motoring is annoying. The trip was in particular annoying as I had to steer manually with a malfunctionung autopilot.
The autopilot is one of the most essential supporting devices on a boat. You can sail without it which is fun for some time but definitely not for longer cruises. For single handed sailors - as I am currently - in fact it indispensable. It's not only essential to get some rest from steering, to go down to the loo, or to prepare some food but also when you need an extra hand on deck such as holding the boat in the right angle to the wind while working at the mast and reefing the main.
We have a very very old Autopilot on T-Fish which was already there when we bought the boat and likely has been onboard since the early days of T-Fish. It always was very reliable, but recently - on fact already last year when we were on the Maddalena Islands - I realized a strange behavior from time to time. This was getting worse when crossing from Sardinia to Menorca but luckily it was manageable with occasional manual interventions. However, it became obvious that this needs a repair or a renewal. Modern devices are expensive. Just the sensors (fluxgate compass and rudder position sensor) plus the steering computer bring you back some 2500,- Euros. The drive (electronic motor driving the steering) is another 1000 but I am pretty sure that this is not the faulty part and could be even used with new sensors and steering computer. Before ordering new parts I decided to give a inspection a try in particular as friends told me that the malfunction often is related to corroded cables or contacts (which BTW is the single most reason for electronic malfunctioning on a boat). Thus, I checked all wires, used contact spray, made some new crimping joints, but nothing really solved the issue.
At this point I was close biting the bullet and investing in a new system but decided to check the fluxgate compass as a last possible error source. Maybe a broken connection inside? But how to open this damn thing......
This took me a while to figure out. The point was that the screws were sealed with plastic caps and looked like being part of the whole plastic housing. I could push through the caps with a needle, bend them and then they became loose. Woww - what an engineering masterpiece and in fact, not mentioned in the manual at all.
When opening the housing the reasoning for the malfunctioning became obviously clear. In order to leave sufficient space for the coil gimbal to swing, the cables inside were guided with a plastic plate on the bottom to the outside wall of the housing. This plastic plate became loose and the cable's blocked the coil from swingling freely. That easy....
Indeed, an easy repair which saved me 2500,- (at least for now :)
And here a link to my impression from Menorca:
ADDENDUM:
Two days after the repair I had a shaky ride and the Autopilot problem reoccurred. My first thought was that the fixation of the cables was getting loos again but after opening it, all looked fine. After some check it turned out that also one of the soldering pads connecting the coils with the cable was broken and had only loose contacts. The fluxgate compass must have been exposed to an extreme shock breaking the bottom plastic ground and a soldering pad. After re-soldering the cable (I connected it now directly to the pin with the cable) the Autopilot works fine again.
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