Yesterday, we were dropped into the water just before noon,
with little trouble and little fanfare.
This weblog is mostly a technical report of our little
trials in getting our systems running.
Our first chore when getting on the boat in the yard was to
top up the batteries: Six Trojan 100
amp-hour 12 V batteries; and to set up the solar panels and controllers to
equalize them. However, we have noticed
that, as the batteries get older, the batteries bubble at lower and lower
voltages. This year, they seem to be
bubbling at 13 V, and do not seem to get much higher in voltage than that.
While the batteries bubbled, we cleaned the deck, and put
the mainsail back on. A full battened
sail takes a few hours to get it reconnected, re-lace the reefing system and
get her back in the lazy jacks and sailbag.
Other chores followed in the coming days: Renovate and grease the toilet (RM 69), re-assemble
the engine belts and seawater pumps, re-assemble the folding propellers and
anodes, put the jib on, re-assemble the watermaker, test the electronics, test
the air-cooled fridge unit, re-assemble dinghy and motor, wash and wax, and
carry out various work that needs to be done on the hard.
Most things worked out o.k., just the usual time, hot work,
and minor blood-letting. However, some
things were not adding up - the ham radio was cutting out, the frig would
shudder but not start, the stereo sounded funny. I was most suspicious of my batteries,
thinking that they no longer had enough "depth" in their
storage. It was not until yesterday,
after we anchored, that I started working on all aspects I could think of for
the refrigerator. I was tracing the
negative lines through switches and fuses when I found a major negative battery
switch that I had missed turning on. Now
most things are working, especially the refrigerator.
After getting the fridge to work, it was time to travel to
Customs to get a new cruising permit. We
dropped the dinghy, with the motor that had successfully started on the hard,
and no, it would not start at all. I
spent about 40 minutes trying spark plugs and pulling the cord with no
luck. We tried our best to row upwind to
Customs, and just as my arms were going to fall off, another boater gave us a
tow. Customs was uneventful, and, as the
wind blew us back towards the boat, I continued to work on the engine. Well, the "varnish" that was likely
causing the trouble in the carburetor must have started to dissolve, because it
started a few hundred feet before we were home.
The other big thing that had to be done was to track down
the sources of the leaks in each hull.
The watermaker inlet screen continues to leak, and will be attacked over
the weekend. The toilet seems to be the
other source, and by tightening all the screws a little, I managed to strip the
plastic threads in one spot and crack the plastic in another. I've reassembled it with a lot of calking and
used a pipe clamp to maintain the seal on another spot. The toilet, an RM 69, is a Dutch product, and
the spares are only available in the French chandleries. I am searching down suppliers who might send
some parts to us. The other outstanding
issue that comes to mind is the radar that has started blowing fuses for some
reason.
I should report that while we were in the boatyard, we got
together with John and Alex of Free Spirit for two great nights of food and
drink before they headed north. It was
good to see them, but sad in that we may not catch them again before they sail
back to the UK.
Today we walked about an hour to a mall, and hauled some
major groceries back by bus. We hope to
leave the work alone for a few hours and de-stress. The weblog is courtesy of a
free signal from the boatyard that surprisingly we can get from the boat.
