Since arriving we have had a variety of issues to deal with. Fortunately most have been resolved with little issue but the GENERATOR continues to gives us problems.
GENERATOR: It worked a dream until the last 3/4 days coming across the Atlantic. It had begun to switch of showing a light that said it was the engine that was overheating. John had tried mid crossing to check it out several times but still the message came up after about 5 minutes of running it.
There was the thought that perhaps some goose barnacles had grown in the intake/outlet grids under the hull. Richard dived under and prodded the vents and surfaced saying that there didn’t appear to be any blockages in them. Certainly all the poking in with wire had not improved the situation. Having checked the manual and eliminated all the obvious possibilities we agreed we needed some professional help.
John contacted the Fischer Panda dealer advertised in the marina. First stumbling block – they only deal with the electrical side of things and from what he was saying the guy reckoned (without seeing it) that we didn’t have an electrical problem. He referred us to Alwyn, who duly arrived and checked it out. All seeems o.k. so it must be either faulty part or an electrical fault. Can you get the other firm to do a check on the sensors and let me know what they come up with. Should this be an issue NO is it YES. John is playing pioggy in the middle and getting nowhere. Having attemtped to use it a couple of times whilst we have been at anchor the problem persists. We are now back in marina and will attempt to get someone to come again. Failing this we will head to Martinique and hope that someone over there knows a thing or two about FP Generators. Meantime we use the engine and occasionally get a little help from the wind generator which is proving less than useful.
Alternator belt: John had to change this when we were in Rodney Bay as the old one was slipping and therefore not charging the batteries when the engine was running. As a result we were low on house battery power for a night. Glad to report the man did a good job and we were fully charged by the time we got back to Rodney Bay.
MARTINQUE – Generator repair
Having made the effort to get to Marin in Martinique we were thwarted to find the repair man was not available for day or two. We tried 3 -4 times to make contact by phone all to no avail. We tried a different company to get work done and they pointed us in the direction of the Fischer Panda specialist – you guessed it – the guy who was unavailable. We gave up in the end and continued our trip running the engine when we were moving from a to b to keep the power up.
Long a short = back in Rodney Bay yet again arranged for the guy from Regis to come and check the sensors. (That was 4 days ago) he still hadn’t arrived yesterday so John decided to have another go at the guts of the thing. He got into the thermo switch and disconnected and reconnected it. So far so good it has run for 30 minutes without overheating. This is as good as it gets at the mo but it is progress. It will be put to the test en route and in Tobago Keys.
CHARTPLOTTER: Having been told by a Raymarine specialist that the deck plotter was dead – it has been reborn! This is due to the helpful knowledge and skills of Martin who it turns out is whizz at these things. He was bored and offered to take it away and look at it for us. It has been returned up and operational after he discovered that the back light soldering was cracked. He fixed it and it now works yipee and lots of thanks to Martin from Ranja (and to Miriam who had to be neglected while he played with it!) .
March 2010
John has been busy with a few jobs recently.
AUTOHELM:
Our auto pilot went on the blink after he had changed the compasses over. There seemed to be no real explanation for this and so the issue had to be pondered for quite some time before tackling things again.
Tackling the issue involved getting out the soldering iron and doing some reconnecting of wires that looked a bit dubious.
Results were successful and we are pleased to report a fully functioning autohelm again. I really missed it, particularly coming over from Guadelope. It is so helpful when there are just the two of us onboard and it takes two to handle the sails etc.
TOILET:
Well the pump has squeaked all the way since Portugal and over the Atlantic and we knew at some point it would become an issue. We were pleased to have purchased a new pump in Grenada as a just in case. We also had the repair kit just in case the in case was also faulty.
So middle of the night John went to the loo and it happened. The handle of the pump refused to work. It was blocked solid. Oh no! Bucket and chuck it till daylight ugh!
We had to close sea cocks and start the fixing process. It was pretty gross but could have been much worse. Really it was just a build up of uric acid and salt water that had to be removed.
Poor John he coped really well and managed to do the business and replace various seals. Result is a fully functioning loo once more (phew that’s a relief) but for those of you who came to know and love the squeak – worry not – it’s still there with more depth and resonance than before!
April/Easter 2010
THE GENERATOR AGAIN
We have had a recurrence of the overheating issue since we left Antigua. No amount of fiddling with connections, checking the coolant level, ensuring the seawater flow was adequate solved it this time. Ken from Dancing Walrus gave us some scale remover to treat any build up in the heat exchanger but that didn’t make any difference. We tried to get another thermo switch in Guadeloupe but there isn’t an FP agent there. There is FRED Marine however. Fred was sympathetic but as the boat wasn’t close by there wasn’t much he could do to help. He did however have a box of different thermo switches gleaned from other engines. He gave me 3 to try to see if a change would help. John was quite cheered up by this as it was the most helpful any technician had been since we arrived in December. Another emptying of the lockers followed with a return to blue air and depondency. You can’t fit a ring spanner/socket round the existing switch without removing the deisel injector! Who designs and installs such stupid arrangements! The effing designers and builders nof these m/cs should be forced to try and repair them in situ whilst being turned in a cement mixer under a a deluge of water. Maybe then we would get user friendly kit.
Next stop was Marin on Martinique and they have an FP agent whom we had tried to get hold of in january but he had been too busy. Called on tuesday to arrange for a visit on the thursday- terrific. He didn’t come tied up with another job! Promised for Friday at 9am. (We were due to leave no later than noon) 10am before Eric arrived, not an FP expert but he had been briefed on what to do. 2 hours later after removing the manifold to discover there was no thermostat valve which had been assumed to be the problem we were almost back to square one. Except that Eric noticed that the earth terminal for the switch which then controlled the coolant pump was loose. Was this the problem now resolved? I was sure that in 30 mins we would know and then get on our way but I hadn’t reckoned with the french lunchtime. Eric announced he would be back in 1.5 hours with a colleague to finish off. He did as he had promised, the generator ran for more tham the usual 5 mins so we paid the bill and set off at 3pm.
The generator did run for over an hour the next day but then shut down. I suspect there was still air in the coolant system and that had triggered the switch off. Fingers crossed that the top up of coolant and oil is all thats needed.
FRESHWATER SYSTEM
We had what we thought was recurrence of the leaky pump problem we had in La Gomera. We hadn’t noticed that the pump was running on overtime when we motored down the coast of Guadeloupe. It is quiet and the wind and engine noise had masked it. It was only when I went to fill the kettle and there was no water that we discovered it. What made it worse was the watermaker was running. We were taking in seawater , making it into fresh and then pumping it via the bilge back to sea. We now have a hand pump which makes emptying the various compartments a lot easier but we were very puzzled as the pump seemed OK. It turned out it was a hose on the hotwater tank that had come off, so an easy repair this time. Most of the hoses are double clipped this one wasn’t but it is now! Filling the tank in Isle de Sainte was different- you tie up to a buoy and hall the hose out of the sea. You than call Jerome on Ch68 and he turns the water on!
TRINIDAD 2010
ANTIFOULING:
Copperbot has been the bain of ourlife. The number of barnacles and weed that it grew were unbelievable, all apparent when lifted out in June. After a trip to the boat show and a discussion with the guys at the Copperbot stand we were advised that as long as the hull was green when we got backl it would be alright to put her back in the water as was. They gave us a half litre of the product to do some touching up where we had hit the rock etc. Anyway we waited for a dry day (becoming a joke here) and applied it to the areas where weed and worm had made substantial indents in the surface. It took a lot longer to cure than 72 hours as the humidity was clearly affecting it. However by the time it was due to be launched it was solid. As the boat was driven down through the yard at least 2 people asked us why we hadn’t renewed the antifouling on the hull. She sure wasn’t pretty and pristine more ‘apache’ like ken?
Anyway proof will be in the pudding . People we speak to here say that the product is no use in Caribbean waters and certainly based on last season we would concur. However we have decided we will give it one more go and if again we get huge growth of weed or barnacle we will just have to have her lifted and start again with a product more suited to the high water temperatures over here. According to Copperbot it should be fine but we feel for sure that it is unlikely to last the number of seasons they promote in their advertising. In fairness it worked really well in colder climes and research has shown a marked increase in the water temperatures around these shores. Also you never actually know what is in the waters you tie up in. Both Chagaramus and St Lucia are pretty gross.
Galley Joys: one thing you can say about the packet is she is solid. As the men were tearing apart her teak surrounds in both galley and heads we saw the quality of the wood and workmanship in it. However she is 10 years old and it was time for a facelift. We agreed a contgract with Same Crew to refit both areas with new moulded worktops. The saga of getting them to start the job has been the stuff nightmares are made of. High stress and finding yourself with very few avenues to turn to for help and support. However we found a few folk with a bit of influence to put pressure on them. Also once we asked for our money back and told them we were leaving brought them to the door.
Overall the result is very pleasing and will hopefully last for quite a long time. The inside of the boat has had to be gutted yet again as the stoor got into absolutely everything. All worth it though methinks. Will resist the temptation to have another project in mind for the end of this season tho!!
