July 17th - How revolting!

Well, it wasn't quite an open revolt, but shocking, none the less. As
usual,
the day was pretty flat and uneventful. We motored on into the still
air,
sweating. Our watch rotations are working out pretty well, on our last
day.
As is our practice, we've got the main up, blade tight, to minimize
roll in
the swells by virtue of that great slab resisting movement by pushing
the
air as it tried to flop one side to the other. The wind, however,
while
apparently nonexistent, is actually a light breeze directly on our
rear, at
the same speed as our progress forward.

Thus, when we stopped to swim and do our afternoon bath, the wind
pushed the
boat forward from behind. We tried to heave to - make the boat stop
moving
by stalling it by turning the wheel one way but the sails the other,
but our
intrepid Flying Pig just kept going around in circles. Adding the
genoa to
the equation didn't change matters. So, we dumped the mainsail and had
a
great swim.

The wind came up as we were getting out of the water so we put up the
spinnaker, again, but this time, as it was nearly straight aft, we
also put
the main sail out to do a wing-and-wing. Unfortunately, the wind was
not
strong nor consistent enough, and the main interfered with the airflow
over
the spinnaker. As has been common in the daylight watch hours, all
hands
were on deck, and the actual watchstanders's responsibilities were not
strictly delineated. Whoever was in the cockpit tended to do whatever
was
needed, whether it was their watch or not. It was thus that Phillip
and I
found ourselves there, and Lydia and Erkki were sitting in the stern,
chatting, and Lydia doing some photo shoots.

By this time the winds were building and , the seas (what little there
were)
were becoming a bit confused (due to the shifting winds), and it
looked like
it might turn into a lovely downhill sleigh ride on spinnaker alone.
However, that meant that the main would have to be dropped. To drop
the main
requires going into the wind - a maneuver which would put the
spinnaker all
over the standing rigging and perhaps damage it. On the other hand,
one of
the common techniques to drop a spinnaker is to "blanket" (cover,
dropping
the wind) it with the main. It's a pretty simple process, but requires
some
detailed steering in order to make the mainsail do its job. In the
end, I
erred in not flopping the main over on the same side as the spinnaker,
which, as you will see, caused a little excitement.

Phillip and I made ready to drop the spinnaker. It's a maneuver I
commonly
single hand, by taking the halyard (the line which pulls up the top of
the
sail in one hand and the spinnaker in the other. However, first you
have to
get the spinnaker sock down.

Under a lot of pressure (lots of wind), the sock which makes such a
snap out
of dousing the spinnaker is a bit challenging to pull down. The other
common
technique (if you're not racing and don't have to worry about what
direction, at what speed, you're going) is to relieve the pressure on
the
sail by motoring downwind to the same speed - or as close as you can
come to
it - as the wind. So, when the main, which was on the wrong side of
the mast
for the purposes of our maneuver, didn't do its job, I started the
engine
and began to do the downwind maneuver. See above about the sail - (!)
- I
was doing a bit of steering to try to get the spinnaker blanketed.

Any change in engine state is cause for heightened attention on the
part of
the crew. Combine that with full throttle operation and strange
maneuvers,
and all hands jump to attention. Add to that inexperience in sailboat
terminology and anything other than the entirely flat water experience
we'd
had all this time, and Erkki, jumping in to help, became concerned for
our
safety when he saw Phillip struggling a bit in corralling the
spinnaker
sock, which was flopping around due to the sea state. As he was trying
to
help, he attempted to lower the spinnaker, but didn't understand
either
which line, or how to deal with it. Compounding what was later more
clearly
understood, Phillip was trying to direct him, being the guy on the
foredeck.
It's a little like the blind leading the blind, as Phillip isn't an
experienced sailor (while being a very experienced mariner, on which,
more,
later), so communicating what to do wasn't clear. What little I did to
attempt to assist, by identifying lines (while I was driving), it
turned
out, wasn't particularly helpful to his comfort level.

Given that we were originally going to re-hoist it, Phillip and I were
going
to simply lay it on deck, turn the boat around to drop the main, and
then
put it back up again. However, it was getting toward dark, and one of
the
general rules is that you reduce sail in the dark. If the wind were to
continue to build, it would be difficult to deal with the spinnaker in
best
conditions, but perhaps dangerous in the dark. So, I made the decision
to
stow it, rather than re-hoist it.

Unknown to me as I'd not been seeing it at the time, however, these
exercises had frightened Erkki, and, after it was over, he'd
communicated
the negative impact of that experience, without the root cause, to the
others. He didn't understand what was happening, what the purposes
were,
and, worse, stepped into a maneuver already in progress, where we
didn't
have the time to make explanations. Not surprisingly, that led to
something
other than an enjoyable experience. Add attempting to take confusing
direction from more than one source (Phillip and me, on opposite ends
of
the boat from him). Add the elements of fear, and you have the reasons
most
people leave sailing if they aren't incapacitated in some way, or have
responsibilities which force them elsewhere. Not only isn't it fun,
sometimes it can be dangerous. That it wasn't, at all, dangerous,
wasn't
evident without the background of what was happening. Of course, I had
not
seen any of this, and aside from the comments received by the others,
was
totally unaware of his discomfort.

So, he was very ready to get off the boat. Revolt #1. Our dawn patrol
watch
together was very good, and our discussions helped him understand how
we got
to the point he'd gotten involved as well as that, while
"exciting" (not
really, but not dull), not any more dangerous than walking around on a
moving boat can be, regardless of what 's happening at the time.
However...

We're now into the next day, and have pulled into Jacksonville. On the
way
in, before the shift change, I'd called around and learned about where
to
fuel, arranged rental car transport for us in the afternoon and for
Erkki
and Phillip to get home, and a place to tie up while we did some
running
around (see below).

You'll recall that our electronics haven't been behaving all that
well.
Erkki, being an extremely high-level electronics designer, and
Phillip,
being an extremely high-level mariner, have not been happy with the
state of
our electrical system. That's not to say that I am, but I'm a bit more
fault-tolerant, as that's just the way it is with older gear. Lydia,
on the
other hand, has an extremely low tolerance for anything which involves
waiting (Lord, Give me patience - but I want it right now!),
including,
perhaps, a warmup period for our radar, or effort, such as touching an
older
piece of gear which was designed to require manual activation for a
light,
auto-dark after a few seconds to preserve battery life. Thus, revolt
#2.
Well, mutiny might be a better word. This is already too long, so I
won't go
into technical detail, but it suffices to say that our electrical
system,
from the stuff already aboard, to much of the newer gear added
(including
the new and expensive radar) was either poorly installed, simply
doesn't
work properly, or, worse, or perhaps in addition, has underlying
issues
which were supposedd to have been resolved as we went but have gotten
worse,
instead. Easily said from the outside, the consensus was that
"something"
must be done, and worse, it was fatally dangerous not to resolve this
before
making another move more than 5 miles from shore.

While I don't agree (people have singlehanded safely and successfully
without even the charts and other backups we have aboard which are not
high-tech), I did agree that we had a problem. So, after fueling and
moving
the boat to where the Jacksonville Marine folks had so kindly allowed
us to
park for a while, and picking up our car, we went
to lunch and hashed (pardon the expression) out our difficulties,
first
attempting to identify the problem, and then possible solutions. It
was
agreed that we'd do some diagnostic instrument shopping and return to
the
boat for some inspection.

Again shortening the story, the best that can be said is that the
installations of electrical (including electronics) gear have not been
tidy,
professionally standard, or, in some cases, complete. Compounding the
difficulties is that there are transients, dropouts, spikes and other
irregularities in the supply of electricity to our electronics. Thus,
it is
impossible to properly assign blame to the instruments until those
gremlins
are slain. At that point we can determine whether any given instrument
is at
fault, or if those gremlins were causing the difficulties.
Unfortunately,
that's a massive job. Whether we park ourselves somewhere for a couple
of
weeks and hope that the next one who has his hands inside all the
electrical
areas does it better than the previous several, or I do it myself,
we've not
yet decided. Stay tuned.We hugged and grinned and said our good-byes
and
otherwise sent our crew off in my rental car for their trip home.

Finally, as we were about to go to bed, it was evident that the
refrigerator
and freezer were not making cold sufficiently. Investigation proved
that it
wasn't making cold at all. Troubleshooting revealed that it was in
protective shutdown due to inadequate voltage. How revolting.

So, we have our work cut out for us. More later.

L8R


Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog and/or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to
make it
come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its
hands.
You seek problems because you need their gifts."
(Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah)

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 12:51:04 -0000, Skip Gundlach
wrote:

Finally, as we were about to go to bed, it was evident that the
refrigerator
and freezer were not making cold sufficiently. Investigation proved
that it
wasn't making cold at all. Troubleshooting revealed that it was in
protective shutdown due to inadequate voltage. How revolting.

So, we have our work cut out for us. More later.

Definition of cruising:

"Fixing things in interesting places"

July 18th - Oh, Savannah!

Oh, Savannah, oh, don't you cry for me. For I've gone to go to
Charleston,
the techie for to see!

We headed out the channel at 7:30, and turned the corner for Savannah.
The
breeze was light, so we - again! - motored toward our destination of
Savannah at 23 degrees. As I was already very up and awake (see below)
I
took the first watch and Lydia went back below to sleep. Soon, the
wind
moved around a bit so I could put up the sails. There was a trawler in
front
of me that caused some concern, as I'd have to change direction so
that I'd
be in front of him. However, as I proceeded to put up the main under
idling
autopilot, I saw that he was anchored. No problems! Even better, as I
came
around on my port tack, and passed him, I saw what must have been 25
porpoises milling around the boat. Perhaps the shrimpers threw off by-
catch,
attracting them, or maybe
the porpoises just wanted to show off, but they were all around the
boat,
and their
blowing as they surfaced was clearly visible from the half mile away
or so
that I was. Perhaps, one day at anchor, we'll be fortunate enough to
have
our boat surrounded by porpoises, too!

The wind was still low enough that I motorsailed, but at least it was
in a
position to do some good to our speed. Whenever the sails are useful
for
sailing, they also stiffen the boat, so the ride was very comfortable.
By
the time Lydia returned, just before our new, 4-hour shift change, the
wind
had moderated, but still was providing some lift. I suggested that we
continue to motorsail at a relatively high rpm in order to fully
charge our
batteries in case we found some wind and wanted to turn it off.

Of course, I reviewed where we were, and identified the various
vessels in
the area. Three of them were warships - a submarine in the middle of
what
may have been supply ships, as they didn't look like fighting craft.
As we
were moving out of the area of our chartbook of the East Coast of
Florida, I
went to the back of the book where there was a larger scale chart.
Imagine
my surprise when I saw that Charleston was actually very close to
Savannah,
in relative terms, Better yet, the coastline was curving so that we
would
have relatively even less extra to go there. As our kids were not able
to
come to Savannah, we quickly agreed that Charleston it was.

There is an overriding reason to hurry to Charleston, as well. It's
where
the guy I know from the internet - the one who got me started down the
road
to ship's internet connectivity - who loves to work on boat
electronics, and
is component-level qualified, making his living as a theater and
church
electronic organ repair professional. While he can't leave Charleston,
if I
bring the boat to him...

Before we went to bed last night, I troubleshot the refrigerator to
being a
low-voltage problem. We'd not had what I thought was low voltage, but
apparently the computer which controls the refrigerator does. Once we
ran
the engine, and the sun came out, we quickly recharged our (rather
large)
battery bank to "full", and the refrigerator continued to run until we
shut
off the engine.

Once again, it stopped cooling, and the freezer and refrigerator temps
rose,
even though the battery monitor shows "full." I'll have to run the
engine
again, apparently, to raise the voltage. We need to resolve this
quickly, as
it's crucial to our ability to live long term without shopping
continuously.

Meanwhile, we'd been referred to an anchoring spot up the river as we
were
leaving our kind hosts' dock. It proved to be nearly impossible (it
was, for
us) to get a hook into what sounded and felt like hard rock and
pebbles over
it. At least we got a polished anchor from the experience!

We looked at the charts of the river and moved much closer to the
inlet.
That proved to be excellent holding, and while disconcerting to find
ourselves so close to shore if the wind and current were just right,
it
never got shallower than 12 feet, and was mostly closer to 20. Two
tidal
shifts later, we'd slept soundly and woke to head out again.

So, as I write, we're on a starboard tack, the wind having shifted
nearly
opposite to what it was when we started, and it's picked up a bit,
too.
We're
moving right along on a broad reach, with an easy and comfortable
motion. In
the meantime, I've pulled the two most recent satellite pictures, with
another due in an hour or so. The most recent (last and upcoming) show
the
area where we are, but also from Savannah out to past Mexico City, and
from
Hudson Bay to Columbia. The next one will show from Texas to about 500
miles
from the African coast, and from Columbia and Venezuela to nearly the
tip of
Greenland. This particular piece of electronic gear is very certainly
a
bright spot in our otherwise mostly-frustrating electronic array.

Meanwhile, the wind has shifted, and picked up, so we're on a broad
reach,
making 7 knots in 10-12 knots of wind. We just had a real treat of
what
appeared to be a family of porpoises starting at the side of our boat,
but
then going to the bow for about 15 minutes of fun. The little ones
were
shepherded by a much larger one - don't know if it was Daddy or Mommy
- but
they swam so as to look at us, as if to say, "Please, take our
pictures."
So, of course, we obliged. Unfortunately, the water's not perfectly
clear,
and the speed of our boat (and them, of course) made it such that
there was
a lot of blur in the pictures. However, we believe we have many lovely
shots
of as many as 6 together, playing under my feet as I sat on the bow
seat. It
doesn't get much better than this...

My maritime net checkin was successful tonight, and we left a message
for
the internet buddy who's also a ham, but only has his rig in his car,
as
that's where he is most of the time. Also tonight we finished off the
last
of the fish. Our master fisherman had failed to catch anything at all,
let
alone something we could eat - but, boy, did we eat fish for the first
4
days! Of course, it's now our turn to become self-sufficient, so we'll
have
to practice. Now, however, darkness looms, and we have to secure for
unseen
circumstances, so I'll stop here. Next stop, Charleston!

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog and/or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make
it
come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its
hands.
You seek problems because you need their gifts."
(Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah)

July 19th - Doin' the Charleston


We pulled into the Charleston area early in the morning after an
absolutely
marvelous sail. Lydia had gone down to sleep after letting me sleep
longer
than the expected midnight change, and in return, I kept at it until
past
dawn and our entrance. That sleep deprivation would come back to
haunt me
later, as the out of sequence posting demonstrated a few days ago.

We got Larry on the phone and were directed to a special entrance we'd
missed both when looking at the electronic and paper charts of the
area. We
were also directed to the City Marina as necessary for us to
accomplish what
might be refrigeration repair (more difficult for a service person to
dinghy
out), electrical troubleshooting, instrument repairs and the like. As
much
as it's against my religion and our budget, we bit the bullet and
signed up
for the Franklin plus daily fees to be at the (very VERY long dock -
the
MegaDock, where the big guys park) end of the outside floating dock.

Larry had his hand-held VHF radio with him and was able to hear our
traffic
with the control for docking and thus was waiting for us when we
landed. We
quickly connected to shore power and commenced to troubleshooting
while
Lydia went off to discover who she'd chat up in THIS marina (if you
let her
off the boat, she's gone for hours, as there isn't anyone she meets
who
doesn't turn into a conversation, some of which involve geneology, let
alone
hail-fellow-well-met).

We quickly determined that we weren't getting nearly enough power to
the
batteries which appeared to be OK, but very low. Larry's first
supposition
was that the batteries were dead, but futher digging showed that the
charger
wasn't putting out anything like the 70 amps it was rated for. Out
come the
manuals and to cut it short, the charger and its controller were
fried,
literally (see gallery pix). So, the first order of business, as long
as
we're on someone else' (expensive - a surcharge of $6 per day)
electricity,
we need to get something to accelerate the charging, so it's off to
West
Marine. New charger installed, we're topping up the batteries.

To do our tests, we've turned on everything we can find to generate
lots of
load. If our charger is up to the task, it should shoulder all the
load and
have some left over. However, as we put all that we can find into
the
system's
load, it turns out that it's high enough to take all the charger has
to
offer. As it's a relatively small charger, that's not really
surprising -
we have lots of time when connected to regular 110V power, so it's not
worrying. However...

Then, while it's working, we check the alternator (the busy thing on
the
engine which is supposed to not only supply the electrical needs while
operating, but have lots left over to bring the battery up to cover
the
non-running times' consumption. We'd assumed we had high output
alternators
based on the markings on at least one of our spares. NOT! Just like
the
case marking sez, they're suitable for charging the starting battery,
and
nothing else. No wonder we've got low power. We've been assuming all
along
that our alternator was not only keeping up with the running load, but
could
easily cover other loads (like this computer!) as well. Instead,
we've been
steadily sucking out the supply, rendering us nearly bankrupt in power
terms. (You look at a boat's electrical system like income and
spending,
with the bank - except it can't be filled beyond a certain point -
supplying
the extra, such as drawing from your savings. We were making far less
than
we were spending, and our "bank account" - the battery bank - was
nearly
empty...)

It does its thing overnight - so, now it's the 20th. More working in
the
engine room. As it's cooled down a bit, I go in with one of the two
spare
alternators I have, and change it out, on the thought that perhaps the
one
which has been on the engine since we bought it was somehow
defective. Ever
hopeful, perhaps this one is 70 amps? Nope. Same basic output. If
we
load up everything possible at the same time, it's more than the
alternator
can supply, let alone fill the battery with the excess.

All this alternator testing makes for a very hot engine compartment,
and
heats the rest of the boat. Our marvelous extraction fans do a great
job of
pulling the hot air out of the engine room, but are awfully hungry for
electricity to feed them. As we're trying desperately to charge up
the
batteries, that's not a good thing. So, I continue to work on in the
heat.
Making it worse, I got only a few hours of sleep last night, as we
were up
until the wee hours. Tonight's no different - I was so out of it from
the
heat and lack of sleep that I posted our third day of the trip before
the
second!

So, we'll continue this saga at a later time. In the meantime, it's
been
great to actually meet the guy with whom we've been corresponding,
skyping
(internet telephone, with pictures, sometimes, even), phoning and
otherwise
picking his brain. Later, we'll do some basic touring, but save the
high
activity levels for our return trip when we're not trying to get to
NYC.

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog and/or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to
make it
come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its
hands.
You seek problems because you need their gifts."
(Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah)

On Jul 23, 8:32 am, Skip Gundlach wrote:
July 19th -

I go in with one of the two
spare
alternators I have, and change it out, on the thought that perhaps
the
one
which has been on the engine since we bought it was somehow
defective. Ever
hopeful, perhaps this one is 70 amps? Nope. Same basic output. If
we
load up everything possible at the same time, it's more than the
alternator
can supply, let alone fill the battery with the excess.



Skip............. just how many amps do you use in a day?!?!!!!?

Bob

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 15:17:41 -0000, Skip Gundlach
wrote:

My apologies for the out-of-sequence posting. I was totally blasted
from
the heat and sleep deprivation (why that was in later posts). The
last one
will make more sense after this

Skip, in all seriousness I would caution you to manage your cruising
to avoid sleep deprivation. I've been there and done that, and it
will lead to errors in judgement, sometimes serious.

We did 4 or 5 all nighters on our trip north last month and on the
first one I did not sleep all that well on my off watch. Come morning
it was apparent to me that I was not functioning on all cylinders.
Even though we were getting a 3 1/2 knot boost from the Gulf Stream
and the weather outlook was promising, I made a command decision to
alter course for Port Canaveral and get a good night's sleep. It was
a tough call at the time, and no doubt cost us some time, but in
retrospect I think it was the right decision. It's like reefing - the
time to do it is when you first think about it.

There are no cruising awards for endurance, and the slip ups stay with
us for a long time.

July 21st - Hot time in the old town, tonight

So, now a few days later, we're correcting these electrical problems
before
trying to determine exactly what's up with various instruments. One
clue
about all this was found last night on the way back from the showers:

As I walked down the extremely long dock, I noticed what seemed to be
a
strobe light atop someone's mast.
That someone was me, and the wind speed instrument's cups were
interfering
with the view as they went around, making it flicker. Once I had that
figured out, as that phenomenon stopped as I got far enough along
to have the cups in front of (rather than obscuring) the view of the
lens,
I continued on. Then it looked as
though it was dimming/burning. I stepped back, and it stopped. Forward
and
it started again. WTF???

The way navigation lights work, in order for people who are looking at
your
boat at night, is to have certain lights visible from certain angles.
When
you get past that angle the visible light disappears. So, what I'd
been
seeing wasn't our anchor light - it was the green light showing from
the
right side of the top of the mast. I'd thought it looked a bit odd, as
the
white anchor light is very bright and sort of blue in color. No
wonder...


But, back to the story, as I got closer to the boat, I found the green
light
disappeared (which is how it's supposed to do) - but not before the
red
light started to show up and confuse the view. Being much lower than
the
mast and not off a half mile or more, the view was very small as
compared to
the output of the light. Thus it looked as though it was getting dim -
but
in reality, it was showing both red and green together, and as I got
closer,
red only. Because I was nearly directly under it, I didn't get much of
the
light by that time, making it difficult to determine what it was.
Walking
further down the dock allowed me to see more of the light, to the
point
where the red and white were visible at the same time. BRIGHT red
light...

So... The red light's lit - at least for now. I'd lit the nav light
when we
were powering everything we could touch in order to see how much the
alternator was putting out, and had forgotten to turn it off. If in
fact
it's not broken, I presume it to also be a voltage issue (most of our
instruments have been misbehaving - see the "how revolting" post - we
presume them to be under-supplied).

So... Perhaps all of our electronic glitches (the radio aside - one of
my
contacts has provided the link to the solution in our Ham and SSB
radio) can
be resolved merely with the application of adequate power.

Today has been somewhat of a lay-day, in boatyard terms, in that not a
great
deal has happened. I've restowed the maelstrom, which resulted when
Lydia
emptied our storage that hid the wiring I needed for final
installation on
the new charger. In the process, I uncovered the other spare
alternator.
It's got labeling on it saying it's 70A. I'll install that tomorrow,
along
with a new belt, as the one that was on it has pretty well been used
up.
There's also some possibility that the worn belt was a contributing
factor -
who knows? - maybe they are *all* 70A and we're just not able to pull
it out
of them?

I'll also be making the final wiring of the charger. It's been in a
temporary location as we were doing our testing. If the new alternator
and
belt *does* produce that higher amperage, then we'll keep it. If not,
we're
in for some higher output, new, charging on the engine.

Tonight we had a lovely evening aboard an Island Packet whose owners
have
been following our adventures on line. We find we're notorious (in the
definitive, not pejorative, sense of the word) as a result of the
internet.
Earlier today there were a half-dozen dock-walkers from other boats
who
stopped by and marveled at what we'd done and been through. They also
admired the burnt-out hulk of our old massive battery charger, sitting
on
the dock, waiting for removal...

I've also worked on pictures. I absolutely detest Shutterfly, but if
one has
only a dialup connection, those tiny thumbnails will be visible
without
waiting an entire day to see them. So, there are pix at
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/w...0CcN3DFqybMXNw.
However,
there's also pix at our gallery www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery -
click the
first picture, and follow the links. The thumbnails in those galleries
are
as big as the shutterfly full pix and can be clicked to see larger
detail if
you like. Getting those together and up kept us up late again, so I'll
try
to sleep late before I head back into the engine room!

As I write, it's now Sunday Morning, and I'm off to deliver the USB
hard
drive I copied 20Gigabytes of music onto for our Island Packet
friends,
coffee in hand. Then it's back into the engine room!

Having now exited the engine room, there's lots done there. It remains
to
test it all. However, the battery condition is now in the "charged"
zone for
each of the dozen cells, where none of them were there on our first
reading
a few days ago.

Unfortunately for me, the alternator which I put on (the one with the
70A
label) had a stripped mounting tab, and I had to come up with a bolt
which
would go through in order to put a nut on it on the other side. Dad's
Hardware Store (the name the kids used to give my supplies at my land-
based
home, cuz any time they needed something, it was available, in stock)
has
migrated to being Dad's Chandlery. While it's still being stocked, and
therefore we didn't have the truly proper bolt for the application, we
did,
indeed have a makeshift solution. That temporary fix will be resolved
as we
get confirmation of whether or not the alternator will actually keep
up with
our loads, and fill the batteries as well.

Now that our refrigeration (34.3 currently) and freezer (7.1
currently) is
no longer a concern, and we don't have to worry about a repair person
coming
aboard to work on it, we'll probably ditch the lovely electrical
supply
here, and anchor out to test out our ability to make power on the
hook.
We'll no longer be able to leave our laptops up all the time, but when
we're
cruising, we won't be able to do it then, either. So, we'll get into
our
cruising mode.

And, perhaps, tomorrow, we'll do our electrical loads test, recording
each
and every thing we use as to how much power it consumes. From that,
we'll be
able to develop a power budget, making sure we always have more power
coming
in (over the long haul) than we are spending. We have what, for most
boats
this size, is a massive battery bank, so our storage should be
sufficient to
handle low-power-generation days. We just need to be able to identify
our
loads, and utilize our power judiciously.

So, I'll leave you here, and we'll go get some dinner. Fortunately for
us,
it's moderated in heat recently, which makes being below in the engine
room
much more pleasant. That's the forecast for the next couple of days;
perhaps
we can get all of our heavy lifting done before it gets hot, and
concentrate
on some seatrialing to prove out what we've done.

Stay tuned :{))


L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog and/or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make
it
come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its
hands.
You seek problems because you need their gifts."
(Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah)

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog and/or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make
it
come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its
hands.
You seek problems because you need their gifts."
(Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah)

On Jul 23, 12:59 pm, Bob wrote:
On Jul 23, 8:32 am, Skip Gundlach wrote:

July 19th -
I go in with one of the two

spare
alternators I have, and change it out, on the thought that perhaps
the
one
which has been on the engine since we bought it was somehow
defective. Ever
hopeful, perhaps this one is 70 amps? Nope. Same basic output. If
we
load up everything possible at the same time, it's more than the
alternator

can supply, let alone fill the battery with the excess.

Skip............. just how many amps do you use in a day?!?!!!!?

Bob

Hi, Bob,

We don't yet know. We're gong to do an energy audit, prolly tomorrow,
to see just exactly how much each item uses.

However, the root of the problem was twofold. We didn't have an
effective shore power charger, for some extended period of time (we
don't know how long, as it was just discovered). That meant that we
were being profligate with our 12V ashore and at the dock, and running
our entire, or a major part of the, load, on just the solar and wind.
At the dock and at the stands, that was pretty low as compared to
being out in the briny. The second problem was that, as we were
motoring for most of this trip, and assuming we had plenty of amps to
use pretty much whatever we wanted while motoring, in fact, either the
belt was slipping and/or the alternator was not putting out enough to
replace the amps being used and recharging that which was being taken
otherwise.

So, for a long time, and in particular in the last week, our batteries
have been in severe deficit. However, they're now up to snuff, the
shorepower charger does a great job in keeping up and dumping power
into the battery, and the wind and solar are now again making
meaningful contributions to our overall operation.

We're taking all the alternators to be tested tomorrow; if they aren't
up to snuff (the one I'd just put on didn't put out at all), we're in
for new alternators of higher output. I've got responses from several
sources about the means to achieve that in the same mounting as I
have, so I'm hopeful we'll be fine about it. Once we've proven our
charging sources, we'll go on the hook and prove our ability to live
in our budget.

Of course, in the end, it's pretty simple. We modify our lifestyle to
accommodate our electrical income. If we can't make it work, we'll
break out the Honda genset. If we find we use that all the time,
we'll figure out some means to make it reasonable to do so. We
planned on using it regularly, in any event, for powering our hookah
rig, so I'm currently looking for something which won't outgas to hold
the gasoline, as it uses straight, vs our outboards which are 2 cycle,
and, in particular, doesn't use much of it, so we'll have small usage
and some storage issues.

Thanks for the interest. Stay tuned in the coming posts about our
actual resolutions...

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog and/or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make
it
come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its
hands.
You seek problems because you need their gifts."
(Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah)

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog and/or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make
it
come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its
hands.
You seek problems because you need their gifts."
(Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah)

Skip Gundlach wrote:

We don't yet know. We're gong to do an energy audit, prolly tomorrow,
to see just exactly how much each item uses.

Add battery capacity, any way you can, it solves a lot of problems
including poor alternator performance.

Lew

On Jul 23, 8:45 pm, Lew Hodgett wrote:
Skip Gundlach wrote:

We don't yet know. We're gong to do an energy audit, prolly tomorrow,
to see just exactly how much each item uses.

Add battery capacity, any way you can, it solves a lot of problems
including poor alternator performance.

Lew

There is another path............. reduce load = smaller house bank,
smaller battery charger, smaller alt, less engine running, quiter,
cooler, also less things to fix!

Bigger aint always better. My 400 Ah house bank is huge...............
for me