Let's just get that out of the way from the start.
I used to think I was fairly bright. Recent evidence to the contrary makes it fairly hard to cling to that belief.
Case in point.... I thought it would be fun to provide my autopilot with navigation info. Makana has a perfectly functioning GPS/chartplotter at the helm. She also has a perfectly functioning wheelpilot at the helm. Both have NMEA-0183 capabilities. So I thought... why not get them talking to each other...