August 15, 2012

Marsden Cove, NZ

By: Damian

One thing I forgot to mention earlier was that, while we were out of the water, we discovered 70 volts DC on the propeller. That’s not a good thing. Actually, it’s a very bad thing.

This, we found, was due to someone who didn’t know what they were doing re-wiring our shore power lead and getting the neutral and earth wires accidentally reversed.

Quite how long it was like that, we don’t know – possibly for a year or more before we bought the boat – but it probably explains the electrolysis on the rudder shafts (picked up in the survey, leading to replacement of both rudder assemblies) and on our stainless steel anchor chain (which we also had to replace, but swapped to galvanized since stainless was going to be about $15,000!).

The reason I mention this is that, while we were waiting for the repaired mainsail to arrive, we got a marine electrician to look at our speed log – that’s a paddle wheel in a through-hull fitting. It turns out it was toasted and needed replacing – also probably due to the same electrolysis problem.

Or maybe it was due to the power surge the marina experienced that also wiped out our boat stereo system, the television and my MacBook!

The electrician also discovered our radar wasn’t working (possibly also due to the power lead issue) and the cost to repair it was almost as much as a new radar. So that was added to our shopping list. But then we realised that, rather than just replacing the radar, it made more sense to replace all of our 10-year-old, superseded navigation equipment.

We bit the bullet and ordered a new chart plotter, radar and AIS. Kerry held me back from also buying the fish finder, depth sounder, and other ‘add-ons’ that were in my cross-hairs!

Needless to say, it’s never as simple as swapping out a new one for the old one. The new radar screen won’t fit in the hole in the navigation station fascia panel, so I have had to source cherry wood veneer on plywood timber, cut a new fascia panel and re-design the equipment layout to accommodate the new radar display.

Part of our on-going problems is that the boat hasn’t been used for at least the past year – which is never good for a boat – so no on-going maintenance, hence everything is going wrong at once.

But surely, the boat gods are going to cut us a break soon!?

~~~ ><(((°>  ><(((°> ><(((°> ~~~