Work Progress in Opua

For the last two days Arnold and I have worked on the installation of the new Raymarine masthead unit for wind speed and direction. The riggers installed the unit at the top of the mast yesterday morning after some difficulty in passing the new cable through the conduit inside the mast. Arnold and I then got to work on connecting up the systems. Arnold did the actual connecting and I did the hack work of passing cables from on part of the boat to the other. The wind instruments are now working with a cockpit display above the companion way and the data on wind speed and direction appearing on the C120 chart plotter down below. We are pretty sure that we can use the C120 to direct the Autohelm to steer relative to the wind rather than to an absolute compass heading, but that is to be investigated. We also integrated the "lifetag" man-overboard system to the C120 so that when the alarm goes off a red X appears on the chart plotter and a MOB waypoint is set.

We retrieved our rail stauncheons and two bases from the same rigger. The two stauncheons at the widest part of the hull on each side had been bent by our encounters with the jetty at Eden, and their bases had been bent. They have been straightened out reasonably well and Arnold and I will put them up tomorrow and the rigger will see how much if any the wire rails must be shortened to achieve a tight fit.

Bruce has been working hard on the mechanical and electrical side of things. Four diaphragms for the cooling water pump of the diesel engine are on the way from Norway. Bruce got on the Internet and learned that my broken "Orca" anchor winch was made in Australia. After much discussion with the supplier and careful measurements on Pachuca he has ordered a larger gear box rated at 2000 lbs to replace the 1200 lb unit that failed. This is very good because it means about half of the cost of a total replacement and gives me a much more powerful unit.

He did some more measurements today and after discussions we agreed that instead of a 120-amp alternator for the house batteries he will install a kick-ass 160-amp unit. This will mean adding about 75mm to the length of the engine housing. We will install four large gel batteries. He says that he installed two of these batteries on a boat and they ran the batteries down to see how many days it would take to get to 50 percent capacity. Those two batteries supported that boat, including refrigerator, for 5 days before reaching 50% capacity. He says that I will have three times the capacity of that boat. The idea is to have plenty of battery capacity and to be able to charge those batteries quickly. We also took delivery today of the hard-wired battery charger which we will set up for 240V and 110V.

The NZ Rutland agent inspected our wind charger and sent the following report to the manufacturer:

"I have been sent a 913 that was purchased from (deleted) in December 2007.
Serial # C10705144. Email attached below from owner Robert Morales with letter from (deleted) confirming purchase date.
Per letter attached from Robert with unit:
The unit has given three problems within one year of use.
1. In late May the unit quit working. The two bolts holding the yaw had fallen out and the unit had spun, breaking the yaw shaft wiring.
2. In late June the unit quit working. One of the brushes was discovered to be stuck and not contacting. Un-stuck and away.
3. Two weeks ago vibration and bad noise from unit. (The stator assembly is loose and floating. Unit was tied up and has been returned to me as is).
Also noted has been the issue of the rust on the tail. I would agree at less than a year it is bleeding rust. Client wants a replacement tail also.

Pictures attached of unit dis-assembled. The hub assembly and stator are un-repairable. The bearings have flogged the casing and as you can see the stator has rubbed the windings through. Unless the unit has been dropped on its face to cause the bearings to release off the hub, no idea why the bearings have spun in the case.
No obvious damage to hub casing to state unit has been dropped. Maybe the stator was not glued in?
Haven't seen an OEM stator with marker pen writting on it, maybe you can advise if this is now normal from factory to have marker pen on stators?
Unable to seperate the yaw from the housing as this is corroded together? The yaw assembly is still good. I wanted to inspect why the brush assembly could hang up?
No fault found with brush guide or internally. One brush does have a divit in the side. Wear face of both brushes is not clean. Will need a set of brushes.
I have spun the yaw assembly in the housing and polished the slip ring assembly. All ohm readings are excellent. Also checked rectifier assembly which passes.

Please advise your warranty stance. We have 12vdc stators and hubs with 24vdc windings complete in stock. I can split one and insert the 12vdc stator. We could also use the tail from our display machine in the shop if necessary? We also have a shipment leaving with you and could pass one of these machines as complete on instead? We have no stock of the 913 in 12vdc at present...
Please advise..."


It seems that this is a very good case for full replacement under warranty and the agent seems to be on my side.

Some minor things:
- Took delivery of two spare light globes for the compass
- Took delivery of three beautiful paper charts covering the South Pacific, North Pacific, and west coast of the Americas down th Ecuador.

Coming Attractions:
- Tomorrow I will pick up the backing plates and bollards which I will fit amid ships to assist the bollards that are slightly forward. These are larger bollards and will be amid ships where they belong.
- Awaiting delivery of the 406 MHz EPIRB and the gas cartridges for our life vests