Loose Ends and Sailing Preparations

The professional work on the boat essentially finished.

Bruce has some minor jobs to do with the electrics. Last week the new alternator was putting out less than 10 amps which was probably due to the fact that we had the batteries fully charged with the constant running of our small charger. We have run all weekend on batteries only in an attempt to drain the batteries enough to induce the alternator to put out something approaching its 160 amp capacity.

Arnold and I made the AC connection to Mastervolt charger. When we started it up it began to deliver of 55 amps into the batteries, as we would expect. We immediately shut it down to continue draining our batteries.

We were all very busy yesterday. Arnold spend hours tracking down the cause of very strange interactions between two failing lights (e.g. Turn one on, the other goes off). To Arnold it reeked of an earthing problem. He eventually tracked it down to a missing screw in the main panel amongst mat of spaghetti wiring causing an earthing problem.

I fitted the wood to seat the engine cover 75mm farther out, allowing room for the large alternator. Bruce was very helpful by providing the dressed timber cut to size. In the afternoon I sorted out the mess in the starboard quarter berth where all of the tools, parts, and materials are kept. We took the opportunity to retrieve the 35-lb Swarbrick anchor from storage under the quarter berth and swap it for the 45-lb Swaqrbrick that we have been using. From what I hear we can expect calm lagoons and good holding ground in French Polynesia so the 35-lb anchor makes sense because is easier to handle and presents less weight at the bow. We also moved 17 meters of chain from the anchor well to the starboard quarter berth. So up front we will be running with a 35-lb anchor with 38 meters of 10mm chain. For deep water I will attach the 70 meters of rope stored in the upper level. The 50-lb Swarbrick will be for storms and rough anchorages.

Bruce showed up at 9 AM and we fired up the engine and saw the alternator deliver more than 160 amps of current to the batteries that we had depleted over the weekend. So far so good. But then the engine slowed down and stopped as though it was starved of fuel. It was. The port tank was shut off. We opened the tap and Bruce showed me how to bleed the system. I then checked the starboard tank and found that the tap was open - so how could the engine have been starved of fuel? Bruce did a check and discovered that the fuel filter was dripping fuel. In fact all 70 liters of fuel in the starboard tank were now in the bilge. He took care of getting the fuel out and putting detergent in the bilge. I spent about two hours getting the bilge cleaner than it has ever been. He has delivered 40 liters of fresh fuel and will bring the rest tomorrow morning.

In the early afternoon Ian finished the repair work on our cockpit spray dodger so all of the canvas work has now been completed.

We expect to do a one-day sea trial tomorrow. We leave in the morning and motor into the Bay of Islands and drop an anchor somewhere. Later in the afternoon we will weigh anchor and motor back to the pen. That is not much of a sea trial but we are short of time. If the sea trial gives good results we will try depart for Tahiti on Saturday which I think is the 20th.