We missed yet another New Year's party, this one because we weren't feeling good, the others because we didn't have any where to go that interested us; we aren't really the partying types. Here we could have walked around in shorts and T-shirts, all the previous years it would have been in a parka. We used to have great New Years parties at our house when our kids were young, and our friends were still all married to one another.Oh well, there is always next year, or usually next year anyway.
Yep, still ill. The anchorage has been really lumpy because of all the ignorant power boaters. No offence intended to the non-ignorant power boaters, as most we have had the chance to encounter have been very courteous. However, here in Miami, there are a lot of bad ones. And, a lot of them are obviously professional captains, that should know better. When a bad wake comes, we try to make sure that there is nothing that is not nailed down that could do damage when it flies across the cabin. And, of course we brace ourselves. But the movement does not help Serena's back. We have discussed moving to a quieter anchorage, but it has its downfalls too, and Serena is thinking that if she gets comfortable with the rolly anchorage, that when we go to sea she may not get sea sick for the crossing to the Bahamas. So, we put up with the inconvenience, which last night was not easy. Usually it gets quiet at night, all the power boaters go home, but not on New Years Eve, they stay out until morning. Maybe they'll be tired tonight.
As a bonus, this anchorage put us right in the middle of the most incredible fireworks show we have ever seen. There were 6 different locations letting off an amazing amount of fireworks, for about 25 minutes or so after midnight. Pretty cool. People were lining the rooftops of the buildings around us watching the show, and the party continued until the wee wee hours of the morning. I think I might need a nap this afternoon.
I mentioned on the last entry that we were having issues making power, and that I intended to install the high output alternator that we bought in Canada and brought along just for this purpose. It started out well, I ran all the wires, planned the installation to cut down on the amount of time that the battery switch would be off. As we would have no power on the boat while I was doing the installation, and dug in. Because of the heat I was dripping with sweat the whole time, twisted in every way possible, upside down, pretzel-ed, and hanging by my toe nails. I know the rest of the boaters are not impressed, because everything on a boat takes that kind of effort, but I am sick too. And, just as I am about to mount the new alternator, I find out that the saddle bolt that holds it to the engine, is the wrong freakin' size. In the dinghy, run to shore, try to find something that will work, (metric bolt in a standard country), purchase hoping something might work. Where is MacGyver when you need him. Dinghy back to the boat. Now of course it is dark out, there is no power on the boat, no lights, fumble around with flashlights, get it up and running, make it pretty tomorrow. Okay, slow down a second, make sure that everything is hooked up the way it should, and fire it up. I had no idea how it worked, so I just payed attention to what was going on, watched the readouts, and prayed that the smoke stayed inside the alternator where it belonged. Because, I know from experience, that after the smoke comes out, nothing ever works the same way. Run the engine for an hour, top up the batteries a bit, and have a very badly needed beer.
Yesterday morning I finished tidying up the wiring. Wrapping what needed to be wrapped, and tie-strapping everything so that it won't move around.
It fit perfectly. Except for the saddle bolt. The original mount used a M8 bolt, and the new alternator came with a 3\8" bolt. I ended up using a 5/16" bolt from the hardware store.
I also decided to leave the original wiring harness intact, just in case we need to revert to the old alternator, and installed new wires for the new alternator. The only thing I left out were a couple of indicator lights that we never looked at anyway. Nice and simple, it even uses the same belt.
I ran the engine with the new alternator after everything was cleaned up, read the manuals, and monitored the charging, just so I could figure out how the new setup works. I read somewhere a couple of days ago that when you live off the grid in a house or RV, that your favorite pastime becomes monitoring your batteries; on a boat, its the same. The new alternator uses a "smart" external regulator, and this one actually seems to be smart. It monitors the batteries, and determines when they are charged, then sets the conditions that tells the battery monitor that they are in fact charged, then it resets itself. And, it reduces the output of the alternator to a low float charge that will not hurt the batteries. It takes all the guessing out of figuring out what is going on with the batteries. What I did discover, surprisingly, is that the old alternator was actually overcharging the batteries on those days that we were motoring for long periods. It wasn't smart enough to know that the batteries were full, so it just kept putting it to them. Luckily it wasn't a lot of charge, and not for really long times, so no damage was done to the battery bank.
The new alternator is a 70 amp Balmar, and the old one was a 35 amp Hitachi. The old one would give about 24 amps on startup, and quickly go down to 7 or 8 amps where it would stay. The new one starts out at about 65 amps, slowly goes down to 50 amps, then after 18 minutes, if battery conditions are right, it goes down to 25 amps, where it stays until the battery is charged and goes down to 3 amps. Then it checks itself every 18 minutes to find out whether it should charge more, or stay where it is. See, smart. The real difference, the old alternator would take 3 - 4 hours to charge the batteries from 50 amps down, and the new one takes about an hour and 15 minutes. Mind you, the sun is shining quite brightly today, so the new alternator won't be needed. Murphy's law, work to solve a problem of nature, and nature will take away the problem just after you have finished your labour.
Looks like we may have a good weather window on Sun/Mon, so the next couple of days will be shopping, filling up with water, fuel, and trying to squeeze in a little Miami Beach. Hope everyone out there in internet land has a great New Year.
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