Deltaville - Dodger up, autopilot not working

 A Great Blue Heron visited us this evening

The autopilot stopped working last spring (went hard over) and we hand steered northward the entire way. I normally store the boat in Deltaville and I knew there was a Zimmerman Marine there so I made arrangements for the autopilot to be fixed with them. They found a $200 rudder sensor to be defective and replaced it. However, the labor charge came to $1300 which included a sea trial to be sure it was fixed. Well, okay, owning a boat can be expensive but at least it's fixed. 

I had other work done too such as replacing prop shaft seals and even the prop shaft itself which required the rudder to be dropped (to get the shaft out), more dollars. Upon launching Fleetwing after reattaching the rudder, I found that the autopilot no longer worked. Since the autopilot worked fine with the new rudder sensor, I believe that the person damaged the autopilot during either the removal or reattachment of the rudder. The autopilot is located in the same cramped quarters as access to the rudder assembly. Needless to say, Zimmerman disagrees - the autopilot is old and decided to quit just at the time of relaunch, even though it operated fine days before per the sea trial conducted by Zimmerman. 

Sarah prepared dinner tonight as Hoolie hopes for a few scraps

It would be so nice to go into a marine yard and just have everything taken care of without any disputes. Oh well. Meanwhile, we put up the bimini which seems to become more difficult every year. The zippers are aging and the fabric seems to shrink more each year. But then, the weather is warm and not too hot with highs in the upper 70s. We're due for a sea trial of the new prop shaft and seals Monday morning and then it's the start of our southern journey on Tuesday with the first stop being Norfolk.