Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Category: Cruiser Connections

  • Batteries !!

    Wednesday night was burger night at Clarks Court Bay Marina. For us it was but a short walk from the boat so we had to go. Where II were there during happy hour. We also bumped into John and Caroline from Sweet Caroline.

    We also made some new friends. Two British couples were there. Jackie and Dave from Jackster as well as Jamie and Lucy from Bamboozle.  They’re both heading west in a similar time frame to us and hanging around Grenada for a bit so hopefully we’ll meet up again from time to time.

    Today the focus switched to equalizing some of the drive batteries.  I hooked up three batteries in parallel, disconnected our house batteries and used the jump leads to connect the charger to the paralleled drive batteries.  The jump leads warmed up fairly quickly so I soon took off one of the batteries.  I took hydrometer readings of the problem cells every hour.

    For the first couple of hours there was no apparent change in the readings.  Ominously, unlike the good cells, the problem cells were showing little if any bubbling from the high voltage being applied to the batteries.

    In time, the worst cell began to bubble and as the hours progressed the hyrdometer readings went from terrible to not so terrible.  After 7-8 hours the batteries were quite hot so I stopped the session.

    Towards the end of this period I took detailed measurements of the house bank.  These had been on trickle charge overnight following their equalization and had since been disconnected from each other and any load.  In theory they should all have been reading around 12.7 volts.  Three read 12.6V and one read 12.4V.  The latter battery and one of the others had poor hydrometer readings on single cells (out of six).  I tried equalizing the 12.4V battery on its own.  It sucked up current and became hot quite quickly.  Not good news.  I then tried the other house battery with poor readings on it’s own.  The poor cell improved quickly but the battery heated up even quicker.  It never produced a good reading but it was heading in the right direction.

    That is where I’ve left it for today.  Part of me feels these batteries have been somewhat abused at some point in their past and we’re now seeing the results.  Part of me realizes there is more to do to learn the extent to which they can be recovered.  It seems that focussing on individual batteries has a greater opportunity for recovering bad cells so that’s what I’ll do tomorrow.

    Also accomplished today was cleaning out the chain locker, removing the old chain and putting in the new and switching the anchors.  Unfortunately we don’t have the right sized shackle to connect the new anchor to the chain so we may have to got to town tomorrow to pick one up.

    We also were introduced to Mick and his son Ian who live aboard their boat nearby.  They’re supposed to be terrific at boat work.  We dicussed our need to install a second anchor roller and windlass.  They’ll do more work than our professional quote for less so we’re lining them up.  This also means we need to get our new windlass ordered and shipped along with all the other stuff we need which is much cheaper in the US.

    No other projects closed off today but did some research including, if it comes to it, replacing all our batteries.  Haven’t come to that decision yet but it may happen so I may as well be ready for it.

    Aside.  It’s now mid-July and so far we have had NO tropical storms in the Caribbean even though hurricane season started in June.  This doesn’t correlate to having fewer storms but locals are saying it feels cooler this year and that means there’s less energy in the system.  That could mean we’ll be unmolested down here in Grenada.  Lets hope so.  Having said that, looking at the NOAA website just now I see a depression forming on a tropical wave in the eastern Atlantic and, for the first time this year outside of the gulf of Mexico, there is a warning.  Something to watch.

  • Batteries

    We’re now tied up at Clarkes Court Bay marina and have started a full equalization of all our batteries. We’ve already done this to the house banks a couple of times this year but never for as long as I’d have liked. This time should see us through a good stint without having to do this again.

    My plan for the drive banks are to take three batteries at a time and parallel them up to make a 12V bank which I’ll then substitute for the house bank and repeat the equalization process. This also allows me to take the house bank off line and let them settle for 24 hours when I’ll give them a full test. That way I’ll know if I have any issues to attend to.

    Other projects have been attended to today.

    I have fitted an on/off valve on the pipe that allows water from one water tank to overflow and fill the other. This allows the water maker to top off both tanks. However, this does represent a risk. If for some reason our port tank becomes contaminated, this system could push the contaminated water over to the other tank and we could lose potability on both sides. Not a big issue when we’re close to somewhere to sail to and work on the problem but this could be a literal killer in the ocean. I had thought of buying a bunch of jerry cans to keep spare water in case this happened but in one of my many talks to Jim we cottoned onto the idea of simply isolating the tanks from each other. The valve I have put in allows us to do just that. So in the future, before setting off on a big trip, we’ll fill both tanks then isolate the port tank. We’ll live off the starboard tank refilling it when necessary. If we lose that, we can go over to the port tank and ration. As a backup, backup we have one jerry can, the water in the hot water tank and we’re ordering a handheld water maker for last resort. This project won’t be closed until I have tested the system to be sure no air locks are being created and water does still flow between the tanks when it’s supposed to.

    Another item off the list is fixing the fast button for our electric winch. Turned out a connection had come loose. I squeezed the connector with my pliers and refitted it. It’s now on nice and tight.

    I’ve also installed the replaced shackle for the topping lift line. It still looks a bit small and I’m not happy. Where II is in the bay near us. I may go over and look at how there’s is done before I close this one off.

    Now that we’re on shore power we tested all four air conditioners. We had these put on for the years we expected to be in charter – not really for our selves. They need to be checked on and used from time to time just to keep them in order. I found two of them not working. In both cases it was issues with the sea water cooling line and in both cases I managed to fix the problem.

    Trish and Rob from Bristol Rose popped over earlier to talk WiFi and other boaty things. Well – that’s what Rob and I talked about. It was during my showing him my AIS setup that I was able to spot the problem with my foot switch for the electric winch.

    It’s getting near to 5pm which is happy hour here. Looks like we’re going. It’s also burger night tonight which was fun last time we did this about 2 months ago. Almost a different crowd by now. We know Hunter and Devi from Arctic Tern are here as Hunter helped us dock and we bumped into Devi earlier. Their boat is docked on the next pier. I believe they’ll be at burger night too. I’ll have to make sure I’m near Devi as last time I was able to swap my coleslaw for her chips.

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  • Saturday Projects

    Project progress :

    72V/12V bypass switch

    The rational for this project is to allow us to make better use of the regeneration on the boat.  We have a switch that engages the DC cross converters that allows us to flow charge from the drive banks to the house banks.  This keeps us off the generator for days when at anchor and allows us to fill the house banks when sailing regeneratively.  There is a ‘feature’ which cutrs off the cross converter when the drive bank charge drops below 80% and only reenables it when the charge gets above 86%.  We can get around this at anchor but when sailing this can get very irritating.  Given our typical tapping of the drive batteries at anchor and our usual sailing in the morning, we normally set sail with house batteries down at 50% and the drive batteries around 70%-80%.  As soon as we’re in the wind we’re regenerating but as a result of the described ‘feature’ we can’t use any of the power we’re making for the house bank.

    The fix is to change the switch so that we can activate the cross over relay whenever we want.  This I managed to do yesterday and am very pleased with the results.

    The project is not yet complete as the new configuration represents a risk of drive bank depletion should we forget and leave the switch on.  The next step is to implement a red indicator light somewhere in the visible console to warn us when the relay is engaged.  The light I wanted was in Island Water World’s other store so I can’t get it til Monday.

    Watermaker Reflush

    The water that comes from the watermaker has around 200 parts per million of impurities in it.  This better than most tap water but not good enough for using in lead acid batteries.  Good distilled water comes in at around 1 part per million but we’ve found it hard to find at times.  I understand that anything under 20 parts per million is ok (please comment if I’m wrong on this).  (NOTE:  We bought some battery water in Rodney Bay, St Lucia that had over 40 parts per million).

    In theory, if we run product water back through the water maker the new product water should be close to adequate.  If nothing else this could provide a promising backup supply of battery water.

    Yesterday I proved the concept.  I independently powered the valve used to take fresh water to flush the system at the end of normal operation and used the system in normal mode.  With Helen’s help we monitored the water quality as it came out and very soon we hard water at 10 parts per million.  Because the pipe I was using to collect the water was missing a seal we were leaking water so we stopped the test there.

    Having proved the concept I set about wiring in an override switch for the fresh water valve.  Turned out I had the wrong switch so all was able to do was run in all the necessary wires and fuse and leave it there.  All the marine and hardware stores close at midday on Saturday.  I tried to find an open store but the only one that was open didn’t have the switch I wanted.  To be completed Monday.

    Topping Lift Shackle

    The way the topping lift is tied to our boom eventually chaffs the line so a smooth shackle is required.  On attempting this improvement I discovered the shackle I bought was too small so I’ll replace it on Monday and have another go.

    Bow Locker Platforms

    The bow lockers are so deep that we rarely put anything in them.  We intend to put in place platforms on the convenient ridge half way up.  Yesterday we bought the wood and Helen cleaned out the lockers.  Now the wood needs cutting.  Once installed we’ll put rubbish/trash up front out of the way of our noses.

    Lazy Bag Line Replacement

    One of the short lines at the rear of the lazy bag (which covers the mainsail) was badly chaffed from rubbing against one of the reefing lines.  To protect both lines I put in place a longer one which should hang better.  This project can’t be considered closed until we’ve had the sail up and I can see the chaffing has been addressed.

    House Battery Bank

    Batteries require topping up and full equalization.  The former was completed but the latter awaits our docking at Clarks Court Bay Marina some time next week.

    Net result of days activities: Zero projects fully completed.

    In between all this we managed to refill the dinghy, did some food shopping and a walk around town.

    At 5pm Carol and John from Sweet Caroline came over for a couple of hours for refreshments.  We closed the day with an episode of 24.

    We’re at a parts jam for moving ahead on projects.  Jim has offered us the use of his electric saw which we can use to cut the bow locker platforms.  If this is available we’ll get this task done this morning.  We can also research some parts we need to build up our spares inventory as well as look for somewhere to get some of the more expensive items (such as a second windlass).  Some time today we hope to move out of the lagoon into the fresher waters (and more importantly fresh air) outside.  It’s a bit further to come into the shops on Monday but we’re becoming desperate for breeze.  We can also fill our water tanks.

  • Boat work, day 1 of many

    Quite a lot accomplished yesterday. Having prioritized my project list (61 items long) and determined what near term progress can be made on the higher priority items it was off measuring, buying, checking, going back to store to exchange items and get new and, in some cases, actually get into doing actual installs. In between all this I was off with Jim to do customs/import work on our collectively imported chain and our new anchor.

    During my second trip from the marine store I heard from Jim that we could go and collect the 960lbs of chain and anchor from the depot. A truck had been arranged for this and once we had made our bus ride, final round of paperwork/payments we had our two drums of chain and anchor. Trying to manhandle 450lb of chain in a round drum proved to be impossible so we got them off the truck by tipping them over and rolling them off. We couldn’t even roll them up a plank onto our trolley to get them to the dock so we had to pull the chain out of each drum, put the drums onto the trolley then hand the chain back into the drums. This was all reversed at the dock to get the drums off the trolley.

    Using the lengthy dock we were able to mark up our chain before handing it into the dinghy. Our last bit of effort for the day was to then haul the chain out of the dinghy into a forward locker we’d cleared. We were able to use the bow chain roller for this which made life fairly easy relative to all the earlier hauling.

    This didn’t leave much time to get on with the projects we had on the list. However, I did replace the furler line (existing one is too short) and as one project was simply to acquire a fuel filter for when filling the fuel tanks I have been able to mark two projects as complete as well as marking off some partial items. It’s all progress and it feels good.

    Project work finished in time to shower and get over to Sweet Caroline (Carol & John) for cocktails.  We were joined by Diter who is also in the lagoon.  We bumped into him back on Tyrell Bay outside In Stitches so we already knew each other.  A 5pm cut off for projects seems so reasonable that we’ve invited them back to Dignity today.

    I have been asked why we’re buying new anchor/chain so here is the rationale. On board we already have two anchors. The one we use all the time is a 44lb delta, which works very well, with 200ft of chain. The chain is 2 years old and a bit corroded but still serviceable. The second anchor is an aluminium jobby that has about 30ft of chain and 100ft of line. It can hold Dignity in light conditions but all we’ve ever used it for is a stern anchor to hold Dignity in one spot.

    Issues:

    • If we’re caught in a real blow and need extra holding power by having two decent anchors out we can’t do it.
    • If we need to anchor in more than 50ft of water (which we will in the Pacific) we can’t do it.
    • If we have a fouled anchor and can’t retrieve our main we have no effective spare.
    • Our anchor chain is probably good for 2 more years by which time we’ll have to buy a new one.

    To solve all these issues we’ve imported 300ft of new chain and a 57lb anchor. This is one of our bigger projects to complete as we’ll need a second windlass, a second anchor holder, some separation for the anchor chains, etc. We’ll probably swap over to the new chain / anchor while we’re on dock in a few days time to get the better holding power just in case we get a blow down here. The new anchor, by the way, is a 57lb manson.

  • Great Meal Out

    Over near the old fort are two nice restaurants, one on top of each other. For our meal out we figured one should be best so we went over and looked at the menu for each. On the ground floor was BB’s Crabback Caribbean Restaurant and above was a Chinese which I believe was called the Flag Restaurant. We all agreed the Chinese looked the most enticing so that’s where we ate.

    The food was utterly delicious and well presented. The best dish was “The Fish Jumping Over the Dragon Door” which was basically sweet and sour red snapper. Very well done.

    When we got back to the boat we learned from one of the neighbouring boats, Sweet Carolina, that we’d drifted into her three times. The winds have been quite weird in and out of the lagoon and the boats were swinging everywhere. We put out some more chain and that seemed to do the trick. They were pretty decent about it and ended up inviting us over to cocktails this evening. Can’t refuse company and refreshments.

    Today has been the start of projects. The plan to take a slip at Grenada Yacht Club has been thwarted as they don’t have the correct power supply for us. We’ve verified we can do this at Clarkes Court Bay Marina so we’ll head there next week for our battery equalization. We’re still waiting for notification that our chain is ready to pick up. In the meantime we’re picking up parts for projects and food. Things are going slowly and it’s quite hot and sweaty. This will be our life for a bit.