PV to San Francisco - Electronics

Love them when they work. Miss them when they don't.
Over the past month or so, I've had a few cases where the autopilot "lost it's brain" and left the boat to do as it wished.
Well, last night right at sunset (just like every other problem I've ever had), the entire B&G system "lost it's brain". No amount of resetting breakers, etc. would put things back together, so....it was a very long night of hand steering.
At first we all thought that this would be the price I paid for not pushing to get the binnacle and compass reinstalled in time for the trip. And...truth be told, that would be fair. Counting on electronics is never a wise idea. But, that's why we have backups, and backups to our backups.
We quickley powered up the Raymarine Plotter in near the helmstation, brought up out charts and position plus a big box displaying heading and life was pretty good.
I also fired off an email to KKMI and Ron Romaine. Thanks Ron for your response this AM. Ron suggested that this was probably a missing/loose network connection and described what I should be looking for. The only area that fit the description was the little black box with "a million" little wire connections that I had to disconnect and then reconnect when we pulled the mast last year. I opened that box up and checked the wires for anything obvious. While I didn't find the actual loose connection, something that I did brought the system back to life and things seem good for now.
We are pushing hard to get to Turtle Bay in 24 hours. If we do, we should be there in time to avoid the blow that is heading towards everything between San Diego and us. From the sounds of the weather forecasts, we may be there for a couple of days. Plenty of time to check every B&G connection in the boat.
Sounds like fun!!
-Jim
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