T&T: TR-1 Gladiator Autopilot Update #1 -- Installation

[Scott E. Bulger]

Stephen, maybe I can help put your mind a bit at ease.  Recently I made the
decision to add a backup AP to my Nordhavn 40.  This was based on feedback I
got from the Nordhavn Owners List.  I asked Mike Maurice to join me in
installing the system so I could benefit from his experience.  Mike came to
Seattle and performed the installation over a two day period.  During this
install we experienced a lot of the kinds of issues that your discussing.
Whether calling sources to determine the presence of integral check valves
in the pump, or working with parts suppliers to purchase fittings, it became
obvious that each and every installation has it's own unique attributes and
variables.  These variables exist for lots of reasons, many of them based on
how the backup system is designed and installed.  I purposefully didn't want
to add additional valves out of a desire to minimize the number of
additional fittings.  This means I can't isolate the second pump with
valves, but I can with caps and plugs.  It may take me a bit longer to
implement a fix, but my rational was to reduce complexity while adding
redundancy.  Anyway, I'm sure that will start it's on thread of discussion.

We ran into significant issues on the Nordhavn which caused us a lot of
grief.  First was the presence of SAE fittings rather than JIC.  A
significant difference in these fitting types is the angle of the mating
surface.   In order to make the new system as globally standard as possible
(for hydraulic systems) we replaced all the SAE fittings with JIC from the
isolation valves back.  This insured we could purchase replacement parts
almost anywhere.  The second problem we experienced was a failure in a
faired copper tube.  Fortunately this was easily remedied with a replacement
flexible hose.  Each of these issues took hours to resolve and they couldn't
have been anticipated prior to the work beginning.  All this work was
performed on the ship canal in Seattle WA, where hundreds, perhaps a
thousand Alaska crab and salmon boats are moored.  We had three huge
suppliers of commercial and pleasure boat equipment suppliers to choose from
and parts were still an issue.  Given your location in Orange Beach (where I
use to have a beach house!) I can imagine parts availability was a bit more
constrained.  The manufactures specifically don't provide the plumbing parts
because they can't anticipate the boat's systems.  It's up to the installer
to deal with these issues.

In summary, any yard should do an inspection of the work to be performed
prior to giving you a quote for the job.  If variables come into play during
the install, they should be identified to you along with how that will
impact the quoted price of the job.  When possible, I'm working alongside
the installers so I can learn the systems that are being implemented.  I
even quite my job a few months early rationalizing that the money I saved on
installation would offset the income loss (well, it's a whole lot more fun
to work on boats that work for a cell phone company anyway!).  So, in
summary, be flexible, over communicate with the yard and realize a  lot of
times an installer may be seeing a boat for the first time and each of these
boats is unique in it's own right.  I'll keep my fingers crossed that the
system performs up to your expectations!  Good luck!

Scott Bulger, Alanui, N40II, Seattle WA