On Aug 17, 8:05 am, wrote:

Skip, with the possible efforts of one individual I don' read
responses to your posts as slanging you., but rather (I admit
sometimes strongly put) words of advise. You have had steering
troubles. Do you have an emergency steering device" apparently not -
you should have.

As seen about contemporary to your posting - is that informative and/
or sufficient?

Your generator belt problems have been discussed ad nauseam.

Heh. LOL. No kidding :{))


I still can't figure out whether you have an accurate volt meter or
are depending on black boxes to tell you the state of your batteries
but I'd suggest logging onto Trojan, or other battery sites and
getting as much knowledge of how a battery actually charges - or ask
Larry. Because it is, in reality, a rather long drawn out chemical
process. Not just dumping a bunch of amps into the system for a while.

The only thing I've read where you have really made a bad decision is
when you ran aground. You went into a narrow channel. Don't do it. If
the weather is bad then get into the deepest water you can it really
is safer. I rode out the Thai tsunami in 100 ft. of water and didn;t
even know anything had happened until people started calling on
channel 16.

You'll probably run aground again - anyone who says that they haven't
is either a liar or will run aground tomorrow. You'll probably screw
up again, we all have done it. Just keep shuffling along and in a
while you'll be as competent as any of us and probably more competent
then some individuals I can name.

Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)

Hi, Bruce, and thanks for the kind comments.

I think I have reasonably good voltage reading stuff, and Larry has
been a tremendous resource, including visits to the boat as we were
sorting it all out. It's how we discovered the dead charger herein
elsewhere maligned :{)) The "black box" reads to the tenth of a volt
and amp, and my multimeter goes to hundredths. On my next SG reading
(only 5 of them in the last month), I'm also going to do a load test
(I have one of those in the tools inventory, too) - all prior ones
were positive; perhaps this one will show some weakness?

I expect find the bottom again, but I hope it's soft and kedgeable, or
responsive to tides, but I'd rather it not be any time soon. And,
we're still shuffling along...

Meanwhile, with the exception that I am about to, now, go out and
procure the right belt (and replacement) for our charging system,
everything else is performing as to spec. I believe new batteries are
in our future (well, aren't they always, eventually?), but that aside
it looks very much like things are in order. I'll also laser-align
the alternator in my next change, having recently brute-force eye-
measure aligned it from the 30 or so years of distortion of belt
tightening prior.

Meanwhile, don't dis Wilbur. He's very entertaining, and whether or
not it's Neal in disguise, it's plenty easy to filter if you don't
want to deal with it. However, the lengthy interchange suggests you
get as much out of it as he :{))

L8R

Skip, off to fan belts and then back on the ICW