Day 30 - Engine is OK

I went to bed with the timer set for 2 hours and at the second rising, 2.30, I found what I was looking for: the wind had shifted and now we were sailing NE. Gybing the boat was a pleasant operation because the wind and sea were moderate and I got good visibility from the nearly full moon peeping through the clouds. After the gybe we were heading east with the wind coming from the starboard quarter of the boat. The strength of the wind had held up nicely and we were averaging 5.5 kts. At 3.45 AM I went out to make an adjustment to the Monitor airvane and saw the first light of dawn, which seemed early yet I was near the prime meridian with the clock set to UTC/GMT time. Down below I swapped bunks than had a mug of black tea surveying the situation with great satisfaction. If this new wind held up it would provide a good transition to stronger winds expected in the next day or two. I had managed to download a grib file the night before because I had ordered that one the day before, so it was first in the queue. At least now I had wind visibility for another day ahead.

I am still having problems with Sailmail connectivity. I am able to get good transmission speeds of over 1500 bytes/min, but reception is woeful at less that 200 bytes/min. Over and over the system disconnects me because there are too many transmission retries. After 6 or 8 attempts spanning 2 hours last night I had to give up and leave 5 incoming messages in the queue, though at least I was able to download 3. The frequencies in the 10 MHz range are starting to work better and I am hoping that soon I will pass a distance threshold where the transmission speed will leap to an acceptable level.

At 4.15 AM we were 800 miles from Cape Town.

It was a bright and sunny day, the following wind was a moderate 13-15 kts, so I decided to take the opportunity to run the engine for the first time since I encountered that starting problem on Day 23. I went in heavy with the startup because I wanted to explore and document as much as possible. I started off by reading the relevant section of the Volvo Owners Manual. Now that the solar panels were working the house bank was reporting 12.7V in contrast to the 12.4V at dawn. The starter bank was reporting a whopping 13V and I made a note to check the wiring of the wind charger to see if it was delivering its power to the starter bank. I turned on the main switch to the engine (more on this below) then I went to the cockpit suited up, wearing glasses and carrying a magnifying glass so that I could see the "pre heat" symbol on the tachometer window that Mark had told me about.

I opened the exhaust valve then moved the control lever from reverse (so that the prop shaft does not turn while sailing) to neutral/idle then kneeled in front of the EVC engine control panel and hit the on/off button that activates the panel and runs engine checks. No "pre heat" symbol came up during this stage. Then I heard the two bursts of alarm signalling that all was OK and noted the engine hours at 444.7. Now it was Show Time and I hit the engine start button. Instantly with no hesitation whatsoever the engine came to life and for a full minute I watched it idle happily at 700 rpm. I noted that the volt meter was at the full 14V. (Here I took my eye off the ball, as it were. Close reading of the manual suggests that the "pre heat" symbol is displayed AFTER engine start, which surprised me, so it may have in fact displayed.) I then noted some life in the temperature gauge, which had not worked on the previous run. I raised the revolutions to 1500 then sat in the cockpit watching the temperature needle steadily climb then settle at the normal operating temperature of 196F.

I have a theory on what may have happened. Two nights ago the boat was slammed hard on the port side by a wave, and as the boat heeled over I heard the double "Beep Beep" alarm indicating that the EVC panel was active. It had to be a shock rather than a water thing because the panel is recessed behind a protective window high on the inside of the port coaming, so any water that sprayed into the cockpit during that event would have passed over the EVC panel and hit the coaming on the other side of the cockpit. I then remembered that this had happened one other time, just before my problem engine run of Day 23. At that time I climbed into the cockpit and hit the "on/off" button to deactivate the EVC panel and returned to the cabin. This time I could not be bothered going up there and I got the bright idea of simply setting to "off" the main engine (starter bank) switch located at the navigation station.

The EVC will have a microprocessor in it, and my theory is that the agitation from that wave strike had snotted up the works, not to put too fine a point on it, and by cycling the main switch I had in fact rebooted the microprocessor. In support of this theory is the way in which the temperature gauge also began to work normally after the reboot.

I feel a bit like a chump because both Mark in the USA and Reg in Australia went to a lot of trouble to advise me on the problem, but I suppose that it is better to look like a chump than a hero with serious problems. (Thank you fellows for your support and for Mark, this EVC theory is one for your books.)

And needless to say, as of now SOP will be to cut all power from the "starter" bank while cruising and the engine is not running.

After 2 hours of running I shut the engine down with no problems. The wind had been strong enough for Jeff to steer the boat while under power and after shutdown our speed wend from 6.1 kts to 5.2 kts, so we had received some mileage from the run.

At noon our position was 35S48, 003E15, giving us a n-n distance of 128 miles in the direction 084T, directly toward CT, which was now 760 miles away. The barometer had risen 4 points to 1017 HPa. It was a brilliant sunny day with perhaps 10% cloud cover.

I treated the sliding main hatch with heavy duty silicone spray and when I finished I could slide it open from the inside with one finger. I then rewarded myself with 45 minutes in the cockpit sipping a tall cup of tea and enjoying the warmth of the sun and the sight of the boat as it moved through the water while the following seas lifted the stern, dropped it, rolled it, and pushed it from side to side at will. It was soothing and relaxing and I should do it more often. The temperature was mild - certainly short sleeve and shorts weather for the hardy Nordic types of Canada and the northern USA. After all, this is the southern summer and latitude 36 is only about 250 miles closer to the pole that San Diego and Perth, each at about latitude 32 in their respective hemispheres.

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