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 16th - Hey!! Wasn't that Daytona Beach??

After an extraordinarily short sail last night in very light wind, we
again
gave up and fired up the Iron Genny. We continued to get a great lift
from
the Gulf Stream,. 4 knots of lift, in fact, most of the time. In the
times
we've had a decent wind, we're making 10 knots over ground. Lydia and
Phillip had the dawn patrol, and it was a very good one at that.
Lydia's
been rather gun-shy of night watches after the wreck, but this one was
very
productive. Thunderstorms and squalls were skirted after spotting on
the
radar, her understanding of the operation of the chartplotter and GPS
was
enhanced, and in general she felt much better about night operations.

As it was my turn off-watch, I had another good night's sleep, other
than
that Erkki and I elected to allow the relief watch to sleep until
1:30, so I
got a late start. When I arose, I found that the crew had mutinied and
demanded to go to Savannah. We'd been making such great time, and the
route
looked feasible, that - I think - they didn't want it to end quite so
soon,
and so wanted to press on.

That sounded good to me, other than that I was concerned for our fuel
and
water. Fortunately, upon investigation, we found that our smaller
water tank
was the one which we had exhausted, and so the larger, nearly half
again the
size of the original, was the one we were working from now. In
addition,
we'd
already resolved to do salt water showers or swims, again, using the
fresh
water shower at the stern, or the regular cabin showers, for (just)
rinsing.
As it turns out, that won't be necessary, but it's good practice,
anyway, as
Lydia and I expect to be enroute to New York in a few days, and not
come off
the water except for emergency or disastrous weather.

However, there were several complications to the plan to go to
Savannah,
having to do with transportation, scheduling, and others. In the end,
the
problem which cinched my desire to go to Jacksonville (even though
we'll
have to go to Savannah, anyway, in order to mail off our proof-of-
export to
the tax people in FL) was that after detailed calculations, Erkki and
I (who
very much wanted to go to Savannah) determined that we would be out of
fuel
well before our arrival. On the other hand, we could comfortably make
Jacksonville, in the early morning hours, at the rate we expected to
go.

In my absence (while I was asleep), the fuel tank had been sounded
with a
stick they'd found. I had a chart of the tanks aboard as well as an
indicator of the depth as related to percentages of volume. The
dipstick
which came with the boat had ¼ tank markings on it, and we had
slightly more
than ¼ tank available. That was informative in that we could now
extrapolate
our fuel usage, and how much more we had available.

In their enthusiasm for all the lift we'd obtained from the Gulf
Stream, and
neglect of the impact of the fuel we'd have to burn while coming
ashore from
the great distance we were out, the fact that we'd nearly certainly
run out
of fuel before our arrival had escaped them. So, Erkki and I did a
more
detailed analysis, and determined that we could safely - but with only
a
small reserve - make Jacksonville. So, that's where we headed.

As usual, there's no wind today, so at about 5 we got ready to take
our
swim. Oops. There's no wind because we're motoring in the direction of
the
wind, at the same speed as the wind. Stop the boat, and there's a
small
breeze. Boats tend to blow around when there's a breeze, and this was
no
exception. Flying Pig is such a sailor that she doesn't want to stop.
No
luck whatsoever in putting her in irons - heaving to - which makes her
sidle
sideways with small jogs. So, we dumped all the sails, lay a-hull
(sideways
to the waves and wind), and jumped in.

Because we headed in toward Jacksonville, we were now out of the Gulf
Stream, and the water was a few degrees colder. More, it was a very
different color - not nearly as pretty as in the Gulf Stream. However,
it
was refreshing, and that was really the point. Notably, though, the
wind
continued, and it was sufficient to allow us to put up the sails
again. This
time, as it was nearly dead astern, we put out the spinnaker and set
the
main sail in a wing-and-wing configuration. As I write this, we're
making
more than 6 knots through the water, in dead silence - other than the
splashing of the waves from the bow. When the boat stands up, as it
does
under spinnaker sailing (vs heeled over under standard sails), the
water
flies off the bow, very impressively and entertainingly for those
sitting in
the bow seat over the anchors.

Depending on our winds, we expect to be at the Jacksonville inlet
shortly
before dawn. We'll make our way up the St. John's River and make
arrangements for our crew's car to go home, try to get connected to
the
internet, post all the log notes and collect our email, and even more
importantly, attend to some of the repairs we need doing. It's been a
great
run. We'll have done over 700 miles in about 5 days, and everyone's
still
talking to each other!

My attempts to check in on the Maritime Net tonight were again
frustrated.
As was the case a couple of days before, I learned that the difficulty
was
some inconsiderate HAM using a digital form of communication. With
thousands
of frequencies available, and this being a very long-standing net, an
experienced hobbyist (one who would use this type of communication
would be
very experienced) should surely know that this frequency had a
significant
purpose, and should have avoided it.

On the whole, however, if that's the only thing I can find to complain
about, I guess it's doing pretty well. I'll take another nap in a
while and
then take the dawn shift with Erkki. We'll bring her home.

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

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 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