VHF. Autopilot
I finally installed VHF radio on Meritaten!
Up till now I was using handheld Icom radio but last autumn the antenna cable found its way into the mast and this season we will sail with a proper rig.
Connecting it required a bit of creativity - our current electrical panel has not enough outlets to accommodate all the stuff I want to run: VHF, circulation pump (heater), autopilot, cabin lights, navigational lights and anchor lights. Not to mention additional (planned) crash-pump for emergency and GPS plotter.
Due to these constraints I had to install separate “in-line” fuses for VHF and autopilot. They will get integrated in a new switch panel which I started to build and it will (hopefully) be installed next winter.
Most important job is autopilot. I mounted the socket close to the rudder. Pilot’s cable is long just enough to plug-in and the socket is not an eye-sore in Meritaten’s traditional cockpit.
It is hidden under the seat, in shadows, protected from rain and untrained eyes!
The biggest challenge is to make a custom mount for the pilot. Double-enders, like Meritaten, have to have it mounted well outside the boat’s freeboard, due to steering geometry. Lennart has it nicely done by Janne who carved it from stainless steel. On my boat I started to improvise using hardware I found in my workshop.
I cannibalized old antenna fittings (stainless) which happen to match old oar-lock.
Aluminum oar-lock needed just wider holes to accommodate thick screw and ebonite, threaded ball. All resourcefully connected to form a strange contraption.
It kind of worked - the pilot was held in place more or less where it should be.
Still lacking the tiller mount, of course, but that I will carve from copper.
I was not perfectly happy with stiffness of this mount so I added another clamp from another antenna. That helped to really make it solid but then it was too close to the structure.
Back to the drawing board (my workshop) and again to the boat, to test if the ball turned 90 degrees will make the trick.
Yep! It would but I need to drill another hole in it.
But back (again) in the workshop I realized that in this configuration I don’t really need that ball nor oar-lock. All that could be substituted with a straight rod (aluminum or stainless), with central hole housing the pilot.
I’ll make one during the week, when I have access to proper, heavy-duty machinery.