Sailing things right

This was a good sea-trial.
The plan was to reach Corsica tomorrow, but I'm too inexperienced to predict what the real sea conditions are.
I checked out everything I could and it was looking like an easy trip.
But the reality was unforgiving.
Tiny waves almost to the bow 0.5m high every 5 seconds made things extremely uncomfortable. The boat was banging and losing speed with each next one. Also waves have their own speed, so they're pushing the boat too.
In 3 hours after departure I said "fuck it" and sailed to another anchorage.

The good:
Autopilot works charmingly. My precious was handling the boat so still, that if there were no these stupid waves, I'd feel like I'm riding the railroad.
Both modes — straight autopilot and windvane mode work perfectly.

Yesterday I've been sitting in front of my laptop, filling another stupid recruiting form, when I heard some voices close enough to catch my attention.
Found out that I got another boat right at my starboard, with some standard scary-fancy letters across their starboard.
So my boat got some attention from the local officials. But everything went smooth, they took my docs, asked just a couple questions, got satisfied with my answers, returned everything and left me alone.
Even later in evening, when they were passing by, going home, they waved to me so me too likewise.
Everything was really nice and gentle.

Ok. I drew another dickpick on the map, calibrating autopilot in various configurations.

Turned out that since this computer never had a gyro-module installed it may not have the code to use it (firmware update required which I can't perform because of absence of the Raymarine chartplotter) hence disconnecting it returned the computer to the sane state and now autopilot successfully calibrated and somewhat doing it job.

Tho tacking function works a little funky: it starts tacking as intended, but starts recovering the rudder too early and can't finish the maneuver falling into the course error.

But, at least, I see it keeping course, does not skipping sectors at the compass, and follows the + and - buttons.

Already a huge success. Yay!.

Today my friend called me while I was running circles around the boat trying to find the solution to the goddamn Raymarine autopilot failure and that gave me time to sit and think.
He tried to help me throwing ideas (to be honest I've already got a thousand from several sailors chats) but he asked me one question which lead to another in my head which was googled out and landed me at the page where some random guy had the same problem and he wrote that this problem was an officially acknowledged manufacturing failure by Raymarine. But since raymarine does not service S-series anymore, they don't even advise to fix the issue that way.
The trick is to re-solder one tiny capacitor on the autopilot computer literally upside-down.

https://www.millican.info/www/articles_view.php?editid1=22

I did it. And you know what? My compass now works like a charm!

Shame on you, Raymarine. Not every your customer is rich enough to spend over €7k momentarily on your fancy-shmancy EV-200 system.
You should share service manuals and knowledge base since you're not doing service of these devices anymore

Now I know by experience wtf is "crossed seas". There were some SW swell about 1m and another from NW about meter and a half. Once a minute they combined, amplifying reach other, creating over 3m high peak or two.
It wasn't "rolly" — it was a damn rollercoaster which I wish I never experience.
The boat was heeling so badly, that I had to roll up the mainsail and continue with genoa only because the boom was flying despite 17kn of 120° wind.

But, at least, I have reached Corsica. Mostly, just to find that anchorages here are very inconvenient — the shore slope is extremely steep and one shall choose the spot to drop the hook very carefully.

Ok. I drew another dickpick on the map, calibrating autopilot in various configurations.

Turned out that since this computer never had a gyro-module installed it may not have the code to use it (firmware update required which I can't perform because of absence of the Raymarine chartplotter) hence disconnecting it returned the computer to the sane state and now autopilot successfully calibrated and somewhat doing it job.

Tho tacking function works a little funky: it starts tacking as intended, but starts recovering the rudder too early and can't finish the maneuver falling into the course error.

But, at least, I see it keeping course, does not skipping sectors at the compass, and follows the + and - buttons.

Already a huge success. Yay!.

Now I know by experience wtf is "crossed seas". There were some SW swell about 1m and another from NW about meter and a half. Once a minute they combined, amplifying reach other, creating over 3m high peak or two.
It wasn't "rolly" — it was a damn rollercoaster which I wish I never experience.
The boat was heeling so badly, that I had to roll up the mainsail and continue with genoa only because the boom was flying despite 17kn of 120° wind.

But, at least, I have reached Corsica. Mostly, just to find that anchorages here are very inconvenient — the shore slope is extremely steep and one shall choose the spot to drop the hook very carefully.

This was a good sea-trial.
The plan was to reach Corsica tomorrow, but I'm too inexperienced to predict what the real sea conditions are.
I checked out everything I could and it was looking like an easy trip.
But the reality was unforgiving.
Tiny waves almost to the bow 0.5m high every 5 seconds made things extremely uncomfortable. The boat was banging and losing speed with each next one. Also waves have their own speed, so they're pushing the boat too.
In 3 hours after departure I said "fuck it" and sailed to another anchorage.

The good:
Autopilot works charmingly. My precious was handling the boat so still, that if there were no these stupid waves, I'd feel like I'm riding the railroad.
Both modes — straight autopilot and windvane mode work perfectly.

Yesterday I've been sitting in front of my laptop, filling another stupid recruiting form, when I heard some voices close enough to catch my attention.
Found out that I got another boat right at my starboard, with some standard scary-fancy letters across their starboard.
So my boat got some attention from the local officials. But everything went smooth, they took my docs, asked just a couple questions, got satisfied with my answers, returned everything and left me alone.
Even later in evening, when they were passing by, going home, they waved to me so me too likewise.
Everything was really nice and gentle.

Today my friend called me while I was running circles around the boat trying to find the solution to the goddamn Raymarine autopilot failure and that gave me time to sit and think.
He tried to help me throwing ideas (to be honest I've already got a thousand from several sailors chats) but he asked me one question which lead to another in my head which was googled out and landed me at the page where some random guy had the same problem and he wrote that this problem was an officially acknowledged manufacturing failure by Raymarine. But since raymarine does not service S-series anymore, they don't even advise to fix the issue that way.
The trick is to re-solder one tiny capacitor on the autopilot computer literally upside-down.

https://www.millican.info/www/articles_view.php?editid1=22

I did it. And you know what? My compass now works like a charm!

Shame on you, Raymarine. Not every your customer is rich enough to spend over €7k momentarily on your fancy-shmancy EV-200 system.
You should share service manuals and knowledge base since you're not doing service of these devices anymore

Now I know by experience wtf is "crossed seas". There were some SW swell about 1m and another from NW about meter and a half. Once a minute they combined, amplifying reach other, creating over 3m high peak or two.
It wasn't "rolly" — it was a damn rollercoaster which I wish I never experience.
The boat was heeling so badly, that I had to roll up the mainsail and continue with genoa only because the boom was flying despite 17kn of 120° wind.

But, at least, I have reached Corsica. Mostly, just to find that anchorages here are very inconvenient — the shore slope is extremely steep and one shall choose the spot to drop the hook very carefully.

This was a good sea-trial.
The plan was to reach Corsica tomorrow, but I'm too inexperienced to predict what the real sea conditions are.
I checked out everything I could and it was looking like an easy trip.
But the reality was unforgiving.
Tiny waves almost to the bow 0.5m high every 5 seconds made things extremely uncomfortable. The boat was banging and losing speed with each next one. Also waves have their own speed, so they're pushing the boat too.
In 3 hours after departure I said "fuck it" and sailed to another anchorage.

The good:
Autopilot works charmingly. My precious was handling the boat so still, that if there were no these stupid waves, I'd feel like I'm riding the railroad.
Both modes — straight autopilot and windvane mode work perfectly.

Yesterday I've been sitting in front of my laptop, filling another stupid recruiting form, when I heard some voices close enough to catch my attention.
Found out that I got another boat right at my starboard, with some standard scary-fancy letters across their starboard.
So my boat got some attention from the local officials. But everything went smooth, they took my docs, asked just a couple questions, got satisfied with my answers, returned everything and left me alone.
Even later in evening, when they were passing by, going home, they waved to me so me too likewise.
Everything was really nice and gentle.

Ok. I drew another dickpick on the map, calibrating autopilot in various configurations.

Turned out that since this computer never had a gyro-module installed it may not have the code to use it (firmware update required which I can't perform because of absence of the Raymarine chartplotter) hence disconnecting it returned the computer to the sane state and now autopilot successfully calibrated and somewhat doing it job.

Tho tacking function works a little funky: it starts tacking as intended, but starts recovering the rudder too early and can't finish the maneuver falling into the course error.

But, at least, I see it keeping course, does not skipping sectors at the compass, and follows the + and - buttons.

Already a huge success. Yay!.

Today my friend called me while I was running circles around the boat trying to find the solution to the goddamn Raymarine autopilot failure and that gave me time to sit and think.
He tried to help me throwing ideas (to be honest I've already got a thousand from several sailors chats) but he asked me one question which lead to another in my head which was googled out and landed me at the page where some random guy had the same problem and he wrote that this problem was an officially acknowledged manufacturing failure by Raymarine. But since raymarine does not service S-series anymore, they don't even advise to fix the issue that way.
The trick is to re-solder one tiny capacitor on the autopilot computer literally upside-down.

https://www.millican.info/www/articles_view.php?editid1=22

I did it. And you know what? My compass now works like a charm!

Shame on you, Raymarine. Not every your customer is rich enough to spend over €7k momentarily on your fancy-shmancy EV-200 system.
You should share service manuals and knowledge base since you're not doing service of these devices anymore