It was a dark and stormy night... err.. scratch that... It was a cold and overcast morning when we woke from 7 hours of glorious in-interrupted sleep. I reached over and felt the lightly insulated hull near my pillow and it was cold and damp.... We haven’t felt that in 2 years. That fact... a boat that for the first time in 2 years was about 58 degrees down below, would be the key point in our delayed departure from Bahia Santa Maria.

After arriving in the bay late Monday night and getting some rest we completed a bunch of boat chores on Tuesday; transferring fuel, cleaning strainers, checking oil and engine hoses and getting out additional layers of clothes buried deep in storage. After some comfort food for dinner (chicken and shitty rice - don’t ask) we turned in for an 8am departure on Wednesday.

We rose to the aforementioned cold boat, layered up, cranked up the trusty Yanmar and weighed anchor. As we headed out of the bay Rina hit the autopilot and got an error. No problem I thought, we have been fighting the chart plotter and auto pilot on and off for months and usually found a way to keep it working. After looking at this error though, something was very different. “No Drive Found” was a new one. We stopped our departure and did a factory reset, which often cleared errors, but not this time. After resetting the autopilot It would not go through its normal commissioning routine. Something was up.

Ok, what next... we floated out of the bay at 1 knot as Rina and I discussed what to do next. We decided to go check connections in the downstairs nav station and perhaps hook up the backup autopilot that I had configured for just this kind of scenario. The problem was both autopilots use the same drive unit, and the drive can’t be found. Oops. As I sat at the navstation my history of overthinking repairs came to mind. Stop, I thought, what’s the simplest explanation... The drive was working fine the day before. Sailing maintenance guru Nigel Calders guidance came to mind... check the electrical first.

I got out the digital volt meter and started poking around. I’m a novice electrician at best, as evidenced by my putting the red and black probes on backwards before realizing my mistake. There are several DC buss bars in the navstation for all the electronics and as I checked them one by one I concluded that there was no DC voltage present where the drive connects. I reseated the connectors to no avail. Next I followed the source wires to the back of the main electrical panel and as I pressed down on the wire connector where it connects to the breaker Rina yelled that she had signs of life from the autopilot. I reseated the connector and put the autopilot through its now working commissioning routine and we were back in business.

So why did the DC connection fail? Remember how cold the boat got overnight? My hypothesis is that the lower temperature created enough resistance between the connectors to stop the flow of power. And remember the last edition of stupid boat tricks where the temp gauge started working again after I re-seated a connection? Same thing! Sailboats are exposed to a wide range of environmental conditions and we suspect that we may be in for more phantom failures if we don’t proactively go through systems and check the simple stuff like re-seating electrical connections.

We left the bay after a delay of about an hour, and as we turned the corner north were wondering what conditions awaited us. Luckily we found the sea state moderate and light winds and were able to head almost directly to our next stop at Turtle Bay. We angled slightly east to minimize the remaining speed bumps, but overall it has been a smooth ride. As seas flattened further we headed straight for Turtle Bay, enjoying 6+ knots at times. The pups were *much* more comfortable while still a little seasick enjoyed their meals for a change.

We just pulled down the latest weather and conditions should remain moderate over the coming days, so after doing a fuel burn analysis have decided to not stop at Turtle Bay and just make directly for San Diego.

STOP THE PRESSES!

Just as we were passing Turtle Bay we heard a large thunk on the hull and realized we ran over a hard plastic float marking a lobster pot. These are notorious around Turtle Bay. Luckily I stopped the prop and while it rumbled under the boat, it thankfully did not damage the prop. The line did get caught in the prop and as as I powered back up, the “shaft shark”, that is, a blade specifically designed to cut away errant lines shredded what was left and we were free. Given there was no moon we decided to put into Turtle Bay to confirm no damage and wait for first light before proceeding. The anchor was down by 2am and we set our clock for 7am for the 3rd leg of our trip home.