Pachuca Back in Fremantle

 My sailing companion Peter Austin and I had planned a 3-day passage from Bunbury to Fremantle:  set sail sail for Bunbury on the morning of Monday, 20 April where we would spend the night at anchor, then set sail for Mandurah on the morning of Tuesday 21 April where we would spend the night on a mooring at "Doddie's Beach" just outside of the entrance to the Peel-Harvey estuary , then arrive at Fremantle on Wed 22 April.  The forecast was for mild weather and there was the promise of generally favourable though light winds with the assistance of a following current.

 Unfortunately weather forecast on the day before departure indicated a strong weather system on the following day, followed by favourable winds on Tuesday the 21st.  Peter and I made the decision to postpone our departure for one day, which proved to be very wise because on the night of Monday the 20th the city of Bunbury was hit by what was described as a tornado which caused damage throughout the area.  We also made the decision to use the expected favourable winds of Tuesday to bypass Bunbury and make the passage from Bunbury to Mandurah in one day.  

 Brenda and I had spent two pleasant nights at a guesthouse in Busselton and on the morning of our departure from Port Geographe Marina Brenda drove directly to her home once she knew that Bruce Diggins would collect our nearly new pen lines after our departure and convey them to Fremantle for my future use.  Fortunately at the last moment I realised that the boat's diesel fuel gauge was recording 1/4 of the 142-litre tank and Bruce kindly took me to fill up my 20-litre container.

 Peter and I motored out of the marina into Geographe Bay on the morning of Tuesday 21 April and were to motor that entire day and most of the second day through winds that were too light for sailing, although we managed get some help at times from the mainsail as we motored.  From memory we were making about 4 knots at around 1500 rpm from the Volvo 40hp engine.

 Hours into the passage we passed Bunbury and as planned decided to bypass it.

 A few hours later the Raymarine C120 chart plotter stopped functioning.  It would not respond to buttons and kept recycling through presentations of the home page.  From then on I spent much of my time using the old but excellent Trimble GPS to plot our positions on the paper chart, which involved a lot of use of the old fashioned navigation tools parallel ruler and brass dividers.

We approached Mandurah in the dark, something that I have always taken great pains to avoid. 

(During my 5-year circumnavigation I made only one night entry, up a channel of perhaps 10 nautical miles width  between the Brazilian coast and  a long island (think Garden Island) because strong low pressure winds were moving in from the east, which would have probably cost me at least two more unpleasant days out at sea. In the dead of night a marina security man motored out to see what was going on and helped me pick up a mooring. 

Earlier, my brother Arnold and I had reached Honolulu at night.  Honolulu is protected by a long reef with many navigable gaps, so in the night we saw a line of alternating green and red lights marking the passages.  We wisely sailed well outside of the reef until dawn.  Soon after arriving in Honolulu I was told of an Australian boat that piled up on the reef with total loss of his boat while coming in at night.  Later I realised that the Aussie must have been working to the Australian system where entrances are marked with red to the left and green to the right, which would have placed him on the reef because the American system is the reverse, "Red Right Returning".)

 

  It was late at night, around Midnight, and we were both tired.  I made the colossal mistake of trying to sail around a light that proved to be actually on land.  During our approach Peter kept saying that things didn't look right but I pressed on, fixated on dropping anchor.  Eventually I admitted that I was confused too and we dropped anchor perhaps 50 meters off the beach to assess the situation.  We eventually figured out where we were and even though we were safely anchored in reasonable calm water we decided to proceed to the moorings at "Doddie's Beach", Partly because Peter figured that the reef to our west may not give us enough protection from a rising swell, and partly because ... well ... after screwing something up I tend to try to make things right ASAP.

We weighed anchor and worked our way round the light marking the entrance to Doddie's Beach but we could not see any mooring floats with our hefty spotlight.  My recollection from years past was that the area had been been covered with moorings, but something must have changed.  We were tired, running low on fuel, and going back out to sea was not practical, so I agreed to drop anchor, accepting the risk that I expressed to Peter that our anchor might snag on a defunct mooring ground chain, rendering it unrecoverable.  

And so it was. 

 We spent the noisiest night at anchor that I had ever experienced - serious clanging, banging, with an occasional jolt of the boat.  Repeated visits to the deck revealed nothing, and I could see from our GPS position that the boat was not moving.

 In the morning the windlass stopped winding in chain due to overload, which confirmed that the anchor was snagged on a ground chain and explained the ruckus throughout the previous night.  

There was nothing nothing to be done but pay out the reaming chain and leave the 38m of 10mm short link chain and the nearly new 22kg Sarca "Excel" No. 5 anchor on the ocean floor. We still had no sailing wind, were running low on fuel, and had to get on with it.  I didn't even bother to log the coordinates because I figured that pay a professional to salvage the tackle would cost more than it was worth. 

 During this effort Peter mentioned that in the light of day he had seen moorings much closer to the beach than we had expected. 

 We motored to about the latitude of Coventry reef, west of Warnrbro Sound and well south of Garden Island, with Peter at the helm.  A wisp of northerly wind had appeared, we already had some sail up, and Peter decided to tack back toward the mainland.  At this point I was concerned at the prospect of spending the coming night at sea with a questionable amount of fuel left for motoring, no anchor, and reports of 40 knot winds in the coming night.

Steadily the wind strengthened and backed, and soon we were sailing toward the tip of Cape Peron and the southern end of Garden island.  The wind kept backing and soon we were sailing  directly toward  the entrance of Challenger Pass.  Peter was in his element, brilliantly helming to squeeze every ounce of drive from the wind.  I could see that he was having he time of his life and don't think that it would have been possible to drag him away from that wheel even if I had been foolish enough to try it.

 We entered challenger pass still under sail in the fading afternoon but we were forced to start the engine as we neared the shipping channel.  At that point I was quietly confident that we had enough fuel to make it into the FSC marina, but I had to keep in mind that if the engine stopped at the wrong moment we could wind up in a serious situation with no anchor at our disposal.  During this passage I received a telephone call from Kim, my boating neighbour in the next pen, who was watching us with binoculars from his home in the Coogee area.  We agreed to give him 20 minutes notice of our arrival at the pen, and I asked him to shine a light to guide us into the pen because they are difficult to identify in the dark.

We ran up the shipping channel in the dark, and Peter needed to know when to turn off the shipping channel and the course that me must set for the FSC entrance.  I got to work, triple checked my numbers, and told gave him the latitude of the turn and the subsequent magnetic heading for FSC.  It was a rhumb line well north of the shallows associated with the Parmelia Bank area.  After Peter made the turn I told him that I had given him only a ballpark heading and that from the chart we should be looking for a tight grouping of red navigation lights marking the entrance leading to both the fishing harbour and FSC.   It turned out that the rhumb line was for practical purposes bang on, and soon we were motoring up the FSC fairway and guided by Kim's spotlight we were soon safely tied up at Pachuca's home, FSC pen D81.

 I had left pen D81 one year earlier wondering when I would be able to get back to collect its pen lines, and I soon learned that without any prompting Kim and Greg, my pen neighbour on the other side of my boat, had taken the trouble to remove my pen lines which Kim then stored in his garage until my return, and here I was now guided into my pen by Kim with all of the pen lines in position and ready for my tie-up. 

Port Geographe was a marina, Fremantle Sailing Club was my home.

 Postmortem

 This was probably the worst executed passage in my experience. Most of the mistakes and adverse events are obvious but nevertheless I will document the main ones.

1. Circumstances forced us into a situation where we were sailing to a schedule. 

 This is a fundamental no-no of sailing because as one mariner told me, "It forces you to do things that you don't want to do".  We had been wise to delay our departure by one day due to the expected bad weather but should have resisted the temptation of making up for lost time by making the passage from Busselton to Mandurah in one day, which was to cost us dearly.  Thereafter I allowed myself to become victim to phenomena that I see over and over again in airline crash investigations: "Get-there-itis" (from sailing to a schedule), and "Confirmation Bias" as exhibited by my continuation toward that wrong light at Mandurah while ignoring indications that the situation all wrong.  Fatigue had contributed to these poor decisions.  

2. Insufficient diesel fuel supply.

 During a full year at PGM the thought of topping up the boat's diesel fuel tank never occurred to me until the very morning of our departure day, when we took on another 20 litres of fuel.  This was an inexcusable lack of preparation caused by complacency and lack of focus on the planned passage, but that meagre 20 litres of diesel proved to be crucial.

 3. Failure of the Chart Plotter

It is understandable that this was totally unexpected but nevertheless I was left with sufficient navigation tools for a successful passage, but in the end the night entry combined with fatigue and confirmation bias led to my navigation failure at Mandurah.

 4. No trip line at the head of my anchor.   

I knew about anchor trip lines.  

We had set off from Fremantle in 2008 with a trip line that I had prepared and was ready for use.  On the south coast of  NSW we approached the shore to meet friends from Canberra.  The plan was to drop anchor for the night but I told Brenda and Arnold that the area had all of the signs of a defunct mooring field.  I then found the trip line, clipped it to the tripping ring at the crown of the anchor, lowered the anchor into the water and sure enough, we found next morning when we tried to weigh anchor that it was snagged.  No problem: I manoeuvred the boat upwind of the anchor, used the trip line to tease the flukes of the anchor from under the ground chain, and soon we were on our way. 

 But why would I need a tripping line for day sails along the friendly Western Australian coast where there would be only day sailing and I would never be dumb enough to drop anchor on a mooring field?

Well, we know how that worked out.

 

5. No gas for cooking

 Before departure it seemed that I had plenty of gas in my primary and backup LPG gas cylinders.  Soon I discovered that regardless of which cylinder I brought on line, the stove burners would light up then die in a few seconds.  It was a mystery that could not be explained by the gas supply, the gas detection system, nor the gas plumbing.  This resulted in a passage with neither hot food nor in particular hot coffee.  Like good sailors we accepted the depravation and got on with it, but I can't help wondering if regular doses of caffeine might have lifted my game, so to speak.

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My next blog will cover the hardstanding and hull maintenance of the boat,  measures to deal with the cooking gas, chart plotter, and anchor ground tackle problems, and the surprising resolution of the LPG gas supply problem.. 

 

Fitting Mooring Lines

 I drove to PGM on Sunday (29Jul) to prepare for Bruce's visit the next day to fit Pachuca with proper mooring lines.  I brought with me 40 meters of new 22mm white rope for the job.

Bruce arrived at about 10.30am and we worked until about 4.30pm which included a generous lunch break at the marina's The Deck restaurant. The winter weather was a bit worse than predicted and we were forced to cope with the gusty wind and occasional shower of rain.  There was still work to do at the end of the day and I settled in for another night on the boat so that we could complete the job on the following day.

 I began Tuesday morning with a breakfast of Eggs Benedict at the marina's The Periscope Cafe followed by a visit the the marina's hardstand area where I met James who I was informed later is the yard's shipwright.  The hardstand area has only about 6 bays and James informed me that now was the time to book a liftout if my plan was to hardstand Pachuca in late August or early September.  On the way out I checked out the travelling boat lifter and was pleased to see that the water approach to the lifting bay is simple and straightforward.

Once again Bruce arrived  at about 10.30am and we resumed work in a splendid sunny day with very light winds.  Our work was completed by about 2pm and Bruce set off while I attended to some business at the marina office then departed for Darlington at 3.30pm, a bit later than I had wished because it meant that I would finish my drive home in the dark of night.

On the way to the Prado I dropped off the boat key at the marina so that the boat's gas system can be inspected while I am away.

 

 

                                                    Two bow lines and one springer

 

 

Bow lines and springer (more like a 3rd bow line) from the deck.

The boat faces the SW into the heavy gale winds.

 

 

 

Aft springer and stern line

 

 

Stern Line

 

 

 

Bruce doing his expert spicing. 

His boat lies on the other side of the marina in the background. 

For the record, here are some metrics from my drive home yesterday:

 

Road distance PGM at Busselton to my house in  Darlington: 236km/147mi,

Drive time: just over 2.5 hours, which included a 10 min "rest" stop where I walk around, stretch my limbs, and drink some coffee accompanied by something sweet to boost my energy. 

 

I did most of the trip at 110kmh/68mph and most of the last leg at 100kmh/62mph. 

Pachuca Moved to 15 Meter Pen

In my last blog I described the problem associated having Pachuca in a 10m pen masquerading in a 12m pen.  

 On Tuesday morning I spoke with Karen, the manager of PGM, by telephone and obtained her confirmation that pen F130 had been vacated and was ready for my boat.  On Wednesday I drove to Busselton and settled into the boat for the night under the plan that Peter would arrive at noon the next day when we would have lunch then move the boat in the afternoon. Before dark I visited pen F130 an found a large cabin cruiser occupying the pen.

 The next morning I visited the PGM office and was told that there had been a last minute decision to move another boat into pen F130 and Pachuca would occupy the adjacent pen F129.  I asked why I had not been informed of the change and Karen replied that they had phoned me several times the previous day with no response.  This did not make sense to me so I asked her to read out the telephone number that she had used.  She then read out the number and the last digit was incorrect.  That explained the miscommunication and she corrected her record.  Karen's explanation for the last minute change was that Kerry had forgotten that pen F130 had been promised to somebody else.

 The change of pen was not a big practical issue: Pachuca is now in pen F129 and instead of having the side jetty on my starboard side I will now have it on my port side.  

At about 10am I was preparing for Peter's arrival when I received a telephone call from Nigel, who had the pen next to Pachuca.  He asked if he could help me move my boat out immediately because he needed to move his boat to my vacant pen for a few days in order to do some work on the starboard side of his cabin cruiser.  I agreed to make the move with the suggestion that we get Rick who is on the PGM staff to help us.  In fact Rick was already on his way to my boat.  It was just as well that I had checked out the engine and made other preparations for the move first thing in the morning because I now was working with only a few minutes of notice. Nigel accompanied me aboard Pachuca while Nigel waited at pen F129 to take our lines, and we completed the move without much trouble.

Peter arrived just before noon, and by then he knew that the boat would be in her new pen by the time he arrived.  After a chat on Pachuca he drove us to Busselton where we had lunch at the Dome cafe.  After lunch we put in several hours of work, mainly tying the lines to our satisfaction.  At 4PM the boat was safely in her new home and Peter went on to visit his mother in Busselton and headed for home in Darlington.

 Pachuca is now in a much better position, with her bow facing the SW and directly into the strongest winds from stormy weather and the side jetty long enough to provide a better angle for the stern mooring line.

 I will coordinate my next visit with Bruce, who has offered to apply his rope splicing skills to fitting the pen with proper white polypropylene dock lines.

 

Facing the SW with two mooring lines at the bow

 

 Zoom the photo to see the stern line and a springer from the outermost cleat

 

 Port Geographe Marina pen F129

Visit to Pachuca

 

Yesterday was my first full day on Pachuca in her pen here D59 at Port Geographe Marina, Busselton.  Other than checking out the boat I had two primary goals:

(1) Use an overhaul kit that I had purchased at Yacht Grot to get the manual marine head working again,

(2) Replace the manual salt water galley pump which was probably more than 10 years old and had stopped working.

 

I arrived at the boat during strong southerly winds that had followed a spell of rainy weather and noticed almost immediately that the mooring line setup of the boat was totally inadequate.

The problem is because the side jetty is by design 10m long, just inside of the maximum allowed 20% shorter than the published pen length of 12m.  The result is that about 2 meters of the stern of the boat juts out beyond the end of the side jetty, with the consequence that both stern mooring cleats are too far aft to be of use.  Thus I was now looking at my boat whose only measure to prevent it from ploughing into the main jetty at the bow during a strong wind from the stern was one jib sheet running  from a cleat at the end of the side jetty to a cleat amidships.  The jib sheet could be replaced with a stronger line but the real problem was that the amidship cleat was designed for light duty such as tying up a visiting dinghy, and definitely not to hold the boat back in gale force winds.

After discussions with Kerry and Rick at the PGM office that were too extensive to cover here, I consulted with Bruce Diggins, the friend who had refitted the boat a about 10 years ago, and he agreed with me that upgrading to a 15 m was the best option.

I have secured pen F130, the only available 15m pen in the marina.  I had a look at it after our meeting and confirmed that Pachuca will fit comfortably in the pen. Tomorrow I will do some measurements to assure myself that the stern mooring cleat can be used to take the wind load from the stern.  Better yet, the boat will be tied up 180 degrees from the direction she is pointing to now, so instead of the bow facing NE she will face SW, which Bruce states is a better orientation for dealing with the strong winds that clock around NW to W to SW the S. Apparently it is the southerly winds that present the biggest problem.  Another benefit is that reaching the pen will be much easier, with is wider fairway and and more direct route than D59.

 

Here is  layout of the marina, with top facing roughly W/SW:

 

Moving from D59  to F130, almost directly across from D jetty.

 

On the money side, I will pay another $1700 for finishing the rest of my prepaid 12-month lease in a larger 15m pen, but that doesn't matter because the safety of the  boat is paramount.

 

Pen F130 will be available this coming Friday, but Kerry told me that bad weather is expected that day, and she does not seem concerned about how long I take to move the boat

On my first night I took advantage of the calm wind and darkness to check out my mast lights, following a report that the red light on my masthead tricolour was failing.   Back in my pen at FSC I could only look up at the mast from the jetty just in front of the bow, much too close to see the masthead tricolour, but here at PGM all I had to do was to walk over to C jetty and look at Pachuca directly from the front at an angle where I could see the entire masthead light..  All lights were working: red and green and anchor lights at the masthead, the steaming light and the deck light.  

 

 I spent yesterday afternoon refurbishing the manual marine toilet but was not able to remove the  pump handle which meant that I was not able to replace several "O" rings.  The toilet worked fine but sure enough there is a small leak of salt water from the pumping action.  The schematic indicates that the handle should screw off but I decided to consult with Yacht Grot before clamping the pump shaft to a vice and putting serious force on the handle.

 

Today, my second and last full day on the boat I scoped out the task of replacing the salt water pump and I saw that the best path is to remove the sink, which means first disconnecting its drain hose, then lift the near edge of the sink and slide it out enough to clear the overhanging fresh water pump.   Once the sink is out replacing the salt water pump should be straightforward and relatively fast.  

But after scoping out the task I decided that now is not the time to swap the pump because I don't want to risk leaving a half-finished job for my next visit when I'll be moving the boat to her new pen.  And let's face it, I have no need for a salt water galley pump with the coastal sailing that I'll be doing in this phase of my life.  I installed the salt water pump so that I could wash dishes using sea water when I was far out to sea and fresh water was too precious for washing dishes.  Having said that, the salt water pump is part of this boat and I like to see everything on the  boat working well.

 

Bruce made an unexpected visit to me and the boat, I as glad to see him because it had been a while.  I met him at the gate and almost immediately someone hailed Bruce and they started talking with him.  Bruce then introduced me to Paul, the man who will clean the hulls of our boats, this Saturday.  It is a relief because it has been over two years since the boat was out of the water for anti-fouling and I need to keep the grown under control until the boat is hauled out on either late August or early September. 

 

After a long lunch at The Deck restaurant we visited pen F130 then proceeded to Pachuca where Bruce helped me secure Pachuca with a very long, thick, and never used rope that I think I had purchased years ago to replace my main halyard.

 

Bruce fixed the line to the cleat on the side jetty with a double pass bowline knot, then we passed it forward where I cleated it off to the rear of two heavy duty  anchor/mooring cleats.  Then Bruce the fastened with a bowline the bitter end of the line to a cleat on the main jetty on the port side of the bow and I pulled the line tight, moving the bow from the side jetty, and cleated it to the front mooring cleat.  The result was splendid: the boat was now secure with the bow well off the side jetty.

 

 

  Line from side jetty cleat to forward mooring cleat

 

 

Line to forward mooring cleat

For good measure we removed the spray dodger, leaving only the folded down frame.  This was to reduce the windage from a strong southerly wind.  The removal revealed a torn zipper on the starboard side of the canvas and a crack in the plastic trap that holds the bolt rope along the forward side of the spray dodger.  I brought the canvas home and will take it to Fremantle for repair and a new bolt rope track.

 

 

Spray dodger frame down and bolt rope track to be replaced

 

The following (4th) day I drove back to Darlington, satisfied with the results and thinking about the return trip to move Pachuca to her new pen.

 

Pachuca Moved to Busslton

 About six months ago my friend Bruce Diggins, who had about two years previously had moved his boat to Port Geogrape Marina near the town of Busselton about 100 nautical miles south of Fremantle, suggested that I also consider moving my boat from her pen in the Fremantle Sailing Club to Port Geographe Marina. 

 My first reaction was to politely laugh off the idea, but the more I thought about it the more attractive the idea became.  Moving the boat to PGM would allow me the experience of life on a floating pen and put me on the edge of the wonderful cruising ground that is Geographe Bay, and a change of scene would do me good.

 It did not take me long to formulate then execute a plan, which is a one-year experiment during which I will retain my membership of FSC as well as ownership of pen D81.  

 I started off by making contact with Karen, the manager of PGM, and her assistant Kerry who after a process of  examination of my documentation on Pachuca's LOA (length), beam and draft, the state of her gas and electrical systems, insurance cover, registration, etc offered me a choice of three 12-meter pens on their D jetty.

 In parallel with this I made contact with Nicole at the FSC Harbour Office who was enormously helpful  in bringing me up to speed in all aspects of how to go about leasing my pen.  One useful item was  the price that the club charges for the leasing of club-owned pens, which provided me with a basis of formulating my asking price.  Another item was the fact that there were no 12-meter pens available for leasing.

 On 7 March I prepaid the full amount for a one-year lease of pen D59 at PGM, and a few days late I authorised the advertisement of my at the FSC website.

 Working with old friends and fellow sailors Peter Austin and Stuart Southern we agreed on the plan to make the passage from FSC to PGM over a three-day period as follows:

Sun 23 Mar: 25 nautical mile leg from FSC to an overnight stay stay on a mooring off             Doddie's beach at Madurah,

Mon 24 Mar: 50 nm passage from Mandurah to an overnight stay on anchor at Bunbury Harbour,

Tue 25 Mar:  25 nm passage from Bunbury to PGM

 We knew when we started that we would be facing three days of southerly winds but we were ready and willing to do a lot of motoring.

 The first day was the worst, with us having to motor from the shipping channel to Mandurah directly into a stiff southerly wind that at one point reached an apparent speed of 22 kts.

The second day was better, where we motored the entire day against a gentle southerly and in the calm waters, particularly during our passage inside of the reef.

The final day was the best day where we were able to sail most of the day against a moderate SE wind and were forced to run the engine for the last two hours due to a failing breeze.

 We had to discuss with the marina the fact that our 12 meter pen was actually only 10 meters long.  After being informed that having a 12 meter boat alongside a 10 meter side jetty conformed to an Australian standard and another issue that was left unresolved, Brenda my partner and her son Stephen took us back to Perth.

 By the time of my meeting with the prospective lessee of my pen at FSC at 10am yesterday (the 21st) the issue with the PGM pen had had been resolved and soon the contract was signed for the lease of my pen with my guarantee that the lessee could have the pen available for at least one calendar year.

According to Google, the road distance from suburb  Darlington to Busselton is 240 km representing a 2.7 hour drive.  This is in contrast to the 47 km, 47 minute drive to Fremantle, so I envision visits to the boat spanning at least 3 days, be it for work/maintenance or sailing.  This will mean getting back to spending more nights on the boat, something that I have done less and less over the last few years.

Here are photos of Pachuca in her new home, courtesy of Peter Austin.

 

Pachuca in pen D59 at Port Geographe Marina

 

 

 

 

 

Keel Hairline Cracks

 In my blog post of 19 June I described how the prospective buyers' concerns about the hairline cracks along the hull-keel boundary at the extreme ends of the keel led to the termination of the purchase agreement and my withdrawal of the boat from the market.  The buyers were not satisfied with my contention that these cracks were normal and inconsequential because they were beyond the last keel bolts, nor with my providing the name of the well-known shipwright who had tightened the keel bolts and declared them OK during the boat's refit in 2015, nor the fact that no surveys of the boat had flagged this as a problem..

Last week I ran into Dean, who has owned the S&S 39 "Dr Jazz" for over 20 years.  He asked me how the boat sale was going and I explained the role of the hairline cracks in killing the sale.

Dean laughed in amazement because he said that his S&S 39 had always had those hairline cracks and had never been of any concern to him.  

Later I wondered why I had never thought of getting Dean's testimony to help allay the concerns of the buyers,  but then I though 'just as well' because by then I wanted to keep the boat.

Postscript on Battery Problem

I returned to the boat after a 10-day absence and was delighted to find all three battery banks at 14.2 volts.  I reported this to Bruce who opined that 14.2V was too high and might damage the batteries, and something around 13.6V would be preferable.  The only inputs to the batteries were from the wind generator and solar panels, so we suspected that one of the regulators was failing.  Because the solar panel's Victron MPPT controller is only a few years old the wind charger's controller dating from 2007 became the prime suspect.  

Bruce visited the boat two days ago to switch off the wind charger and found the batteries at a comfortable 13.7V.  Nevertheless he switched off the wind charger as planned to avoid the possibility of overcharging during the strong winds of the winter gales, and later in the year I'll try to run some experiments to determine if the controller is indeed faulty. 

The important thing is that the 5 large batteries on the boat appear to be fine.