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.