OK, today we completed and did a sea trial on the new autopilot and the quick release for the wheel. The Admiral and I have been worried about the damage that OttO could do to small arms and faces by spinning the open spoke pegged wheel quickly in a crowded cockpit. Give OttO has the power to spin the wheel six turns in 20 seconds and exerts the equivalent of 380 lbs of pressure on the outer pegs of the wheel, clearly he could hurt someone. First, we took MAYAN out of the LA harbor and powered around in the glass flat sea. No testing the wave handling or sailing (no wind to speak of). Through out the time OttO performed perfectly. He ramps up the speed at which he turns the wheel, spun MAYAN to nearly the new course, and then started to back the helm off quickly and then more slowly as MAYAN reached course. I was impressed. This OttO is NOTHING like the OttO that was in S'AGPAO! MAYAN has a LOT of weight in the steering worm gear, the rudder shaft and the rudder itself; because of this the Jefa guys told me that only the Raymarine unit will gently speed up and slow down the power on their drive unit, making it easer on all the old heavy gear in MAYAN.
Second, going back to the wheel spinning around and potentially hurting someone.... First, a quick look at the display for OttO mounted on the after side of the binnacle. It's pretty much hidden from everyone except the helms person. I can put up with this much "new" tech. Now back to keeping the wheel from damaging someone. Wayne and I had discussed a pin through the wheel hub that one could pull and then the wheel would spin easily. That was two weeks ago. When we got to MAYAN today, we found a MUCH BETTER idea had been built. Typically, Wayne didn't bother talking about it, he just built it. So..... Mounted aft of the wheel, around the steering gear main shaft, is a bronze collar, see picture on the right. In the collar there are two stainless steel screws, with unthreaded ends. You can see one of them on the right side of the collar in the picture below. These pins run in two grooves shaped like an inverted "J", you can see one on the top of the shaft and there is another on the opposite side of the shaft. When the collar is "locked", as it is in the picture on the right, the pins are in the short end of the "J" and hold the collar tightly against the wheel hub.
To free the wheel, so that it won't turn when OttO turns the rudder, one grabs the collar and twist the top of it to the left in the picture (to port). There is a small click as the pins get around the curve of the "J" and then the collar can slide aft on the shaft a distance a bit bigger than the thickness of the wheel's hub. In the picture on the left, the collar has been moved aft.
Now that the collar has been freed from the wheel, the wheel is free to slide aft along the shaft. In the picture below you can see the wheel in it's "free" position. In this position the wheel sits still and the shaft is free to turn within it. The key, which normally locks the wheel to the shaft, has been attached to the shaft so that it can't fall out and it has been modified with a "V" on the aft end (facing towards the wheel) so that one can push the wheel forward on the shaft more easily to re-engage the wheel.
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