June 24 2021
So much for plans. I woke up on June 23 and received a wonderful birthday present, no steering pump. I had a similar problem earlier where I was getting the same alerts. Ugg. I started googling and calling anyone and everyone that looked like they worked on marine autopilots. I talked to only one actual person. I’m still waiting for one company to get back to me that I called at least twice, left a voice message, left a callback number and sent an email to.
Warning, Warning, the following is an editorial rant! For those people in the marine industry, one of these days you won’t be in heavy demand and those of us that put up with your crappy customer service will have the final laugh! Ha, ha, ha.
Ok, got that out of my system. Where was I? Oh yeah, I actually talked to one real live person and he said that it could also be a lack of hydraulic fluid or air in the line. Well, that got me thinking so I took a closer look at the steering system and something caught my eye. One valve on the steering manifold was closed and a second valve was all but closed. Ding! I have a power electric line coiler. The electric line had jammed and it had come out of the rollers. When that happened the line had probably wrapped around or hit the steering valves and closed them. I opened the two valves and voila, the steering worked as normal. By this time I was frazzled so I stayed an extra day in Yorktown and treated myself to a large waffle cone at Ben and Jerry’s for my birthday.
On Thursday it was off to Mobjack Bay. I talked to some folks that recommended the East River that feeds into Mobjack Bay as a nice spot to anchor. They weren’t kidding. It is a beautiful place to sit on the hook.
Where did Mobjack Bay get its name? The bay appears in early documents as “Mockjack Bay”; it was said that echoes on the bay would mock “Jack”, a term for a sailor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobjack_Bay
