Inverness, Scotland
Gins.pt
Fri 13 Jul 2012 21:08
Igor:
The northern wind blew with under 10kts today, so the whole route was done using the autopilot and the motor.
The approach to Inverness is rather tricky, due to strong tidal currents and a shallow bay.
We also took this opportunity to benchmark the autopilot. The autopilot receives the heading information from the chart plotter, and in our case we had to navigate a rather complex set of waypoints without much room for deviation. We figured, that increasing the autopilot sensitivity beyond the normal level 5 has nearly no impact on precision. Furthermore, the chart plotter will not correct slight course deviations immediately, but instead smooth out the corrections until the coming waypoint. In summary, the autopilot is good enough in normal circumstances, but when precision is required the steering should be performed manually.
Inverness marks the end of the current leg. We will be spending the next three days driving around the highlands.