I read somewhere that running a cruising boat is like running a small city. I agree with this assessment.

With covid time delaying our departure by a year, we’ve had another season of local sailing and mostly has been trouble free but not completely trouble free. The major “operations” of the city include water, electricity, propulsion, waste, refrigeration, communication, and entertainment. Everything needs on-going attention, but there are the larger projects to keep everything in top shape and prevent unexpected problems.

We’ve addressed every part of the system at least once. This year we had another few rounds with the electric system. We were anchored out for Thanksgiving when our batteries were starting to act funny and we discovered that they had prematurely died after only 18 months. This was quite sad, but they were fully covered under warranty, we believe we found the root cause issue and we ended up upgrading our solar charging strategy and our alternator charger.

This new alternator controller is going to take over the charge calculations. Besides having a mode for the Firefly batteries, the big advantage of this controller is that it reads the current via the shunt, so we’re not just relying on timers and voltage sensing. Huge thanks to Steve at Seabits and Brian at BRJ Solutions and Nick at Wakespeed for the consultation and helping us make all the right decisions on this.

So was it a big deal? Yah.. the three 78 pound batteries had to be taken out, and the new ones moved in. Ugh. Good thing for block and tackle! Then we (Rachel and I) had to re-do a whole bunch of wiring for the new controller and all the new wire runs had to be secured. Then we had to reprogram the solar controllers.

The good news is that we got to a root cause, it didn’t cost us much thanks to the warranty, and we have a far better system at this point. Covid silver lining: if we’d been in Mexico (which was the plan), dealing with the dead batteries would have been terrible and maybe impossible, they might have ended up being a total loss.

Here’s one of the old batteries after I took it home to run yet another load test. Yes, it failed miserably.

We were so proud of ourselves to get this all sorted out, and we get back to sailing to discover the fridge isn’t cooling anymore. Oops. We’ve already done one round of upgrades on the fridge, replacing the compressor and the thermostat. In retrospect, I should’ve replaced the evaporator at that time too and installed a filter drier. We have a keel cooled capillary tube system that’s highly efficient but not without its issues.

Out came the old evaporator which had several issues. Getting the new evaporator in was interesting. Carefully bending copper tube and running it through tight passages was a team effort, but it went really smoothly

I also installed a filter-drier (bottom right, under the shelf). And a new digital thermostat, which I got to 3D print a case for (in yellow). 3D printers are so awesome. Then we put the whole thing back together, evacuated the system, charged it and I even splurged on a gas detector (134a coolant) to check all the connections. We got all the leaks taken care of and we were back in the refrigeration business. Miller & Miller boatyards in Seattle provided excellent consultation and I can highly recommend them for being so helpful.

Here’s the old Balmar alternator controller. I like this thing, but we can do better. I won’t miss programming it with a magnetic screwdriver, though I got really good at that.

What other miscellany?

• Re-painting the wood parts of our dinghy to protect the wood,
• Upgraded the autopilot compass with a newer unit that provides more specific rate information,
• Got our bookcase in (though it still needs to be further secured). Rachel’s uncle built this for us and then Rachel varnished it. He’s awesome, this bookcase is totally awesome and so perfect, it looks like it came with the boat.

• Got an animal hammock for some of our stuffies. Rachel’s mom made this for us, it’s also awesome

• Replaced one track stop and two of our dodger snaps with 3D printed parts! Did I mention the 3D printer is awesome?
• Got a “Nightwatchman” device so our anchor light will turn itself on at dusk and off at sunrise (battery savings and safety!)
• Put in a new start battery (Lifeline with the same charge profile as the Fireflies),
• While working on the fridge we realized the Webasto heater duct goes right under the fridge, not ideal! We had some leftover insulation and Rachel wrapped it around that section of duct, which reduced the heat considerably. More efficient heat and refrigeration with one stroke!
• Moved the start battery charger to a new spot so we can more easily see the LED status without having to contort ourselves,
• I think there’s other stuff I am forgetting,
• Finally though, this month we took the boat to Seaview to peel the old bottom off and get a new paint job, this is something we were going to do in Mexico but… Covid. We will also adjust the pitch on the propeller that got messed up a couple of years ago on our MaxProp. It should be 18 inches, and I’m pretty sure that’s not where we are (will know as soon as we dissemble the prop.) One of the benefits of the Max Prop is that you can adjust the pitch with little effort. Thanks to Fred at PYI for help calculating the right number for us based on the boat and our current setup.

That’s quite a laundry list of items. And two of them completely unplanned. The boat is better for it and hopefully we will continue to increase safety, stability, efficiency, and comfort, but we’re getting more and more antsy to get out cruising, and hopefully 2021 will allow the world to open up and let us go out and do that thing.

What are my takeaways from the last three months, more lists:

1. I’m so glad I have a “boat manual” that has all the specifications, part numbers, previous experience, etc. It makes life so much easier. It’s completely worth the effort to keep it up-to-date.
2. It’s all about people. You have to give help when you can, and hopefully in return you will find people that are helpful. Steve, Brian, Frank, Nick, and so many others just these last three months. Thank you to all of them.
3. You gotta love boat work!
4. Nigel Calder is still _the man_. Boatowners Mechanical and Electric Manual is so critical and has a prominent position in our “Uncle Bob’s bookcase.”
5. There’s so much to learn. Just when you think you’re doing well. I mean, I didn’t think I’d had to get really good at bending copper tube or using refrigerant leak detectors in December, but here we are.
6. 3D printers are highly useful but it’s all about being good at the design software.
7. Working with retail marine stores can be frustrating has hell. The store we were working with shipped the wrong evaporator, for example, it took days to sort it out even though the error was on their end. Can you imagine having a problem in some far off place, ordering a unit, waiting however long for it to get to you, pass customs, etc, just to open it up and see some person picked the wrong thing off the shelf? Seriously, I’d cry. Maybe they’d be more careful if they knew it was being shipped to Bora-Bora or something? It makes me feel that the best way to deal with parts when we’re gone, if we just have to get something from a long way away, is to have it shipped to someone local to the marine store, and then have them re-ship it, just to make sure something idiotic like this doesn’t happen. Did I say idiotic? Yes. Is that a bit harsh? Maybe, human error and all, everyone has a bad day, but still, errors like this cost everyone a lot of time, money, frustration. All you can do is grin and bear it (and call six times until someone does something to fix it), and so it’s super annoying.

I guess that’s it. 3 week into January, now it’s pretty dark, the days are short, the pandemic is still awful, but there’s hope on the horizon and I guess now truly our “Top People” are on it. Let’s hope so.