Tuesday 25th  June, The Coral Sea, South Pacific Ocean  18:35S  158:02E 

Today’s Blog by David (Time zone BST +10.00; UTC +11.00)

Still bumbling along towards Australia.  It’s been overcast since we left on Saturday but today we have had the first periods of settled rain.  Hoping that this is the weak trough we were expecting an the sun will come out by tomorrow. The wind has been good – between our beam and our stern quarter – since we left – strong enough to push us along handsomely but not so strong as to make it too uncomfortable.  Sadly though, we either i)  have not been going quickly enough or ii) have been going too quickly. Whichever, we are going to get to the Great Barrier Reef in darkness – and we want to cross through that in daylight. So we have had to try to slow down.

I said “try” to slow down deliberately because it seems that if there is any wind at all Serendipity is hard to slow down.  You may recall that we tried to slow down approaching Fiji and at one stage were still doing 5-6 knots with a  three reefs in both the mainsail and the staysail.  Right now, the wind is about 11-13 knots true, and  with two reefs and the staysail we are doing 6.5 knots. Ultimately, if we get there too soon, we’ll just have to heave-to until dawn on Friday when we will transit the reef into Mackay.

Niggles

I am conscious that we have deliberately spared you the usual litany of breakages, technical issues and breakdowns since we left New Zealand. This is  not because there haven’t been any, but because it has been hard to know how to deal with them. None have been life threatening – but a couple are a worry to say the least.  A brief update for those who may be interested…….

Service Alternator

This is the 110 Amp 24V alternator on the engine that provides power for the domestic batteries.  In truth, we rely on the generator for our domestic power supply but the service alternator tops up the batteries every time the main engine is running – particularly, for example, when we are raising the anchor and approaching or leaving an anchorage.  It also is a failsafe back up in case the generator fails.

In short the alternator has failed. Not in itself a crisis but it does eliminate the back up for the generator…….  Solution now in hand for Mackay thanks to Oyster Aftersales.  

Generator

We have had a recurring issue with the generator raw water intake in which an airlock has been forming in the strainer caused we think by bubbles forming below the water line.  When the generator is started, this air has to be pumped through the generator raw water cooling system so, for a short period each time the generator is started,  the impeller has run dry. In boisterous conditions, airlocks can also occur when the genny is running too. 

Possibly consequentially, the impellers have failed  about every 150 hours.  I say ‘possibly’ because Oyster kindly had some pipework installed in NZ – ‘Burpers’ – which seems to have cured the airlock  problem but we did have another impeller fail on the way between Fiji and Vanuatu.  Perhaps that is the last – the damage having been done before -  and the system is now working normally. Hope so, because we are running out of impellers!

A failure of the generator – without the service alternator - would be mission critical to say the least because we would have now way of generating electricity on the boat.

We have 700 Amp hours battery capacity and presently we use about 400 Amp Hours each day. If the genny failed, it would quite probably do so on start up when the batteries need charging so we would only have perhaps 450 amp hour capacity left.  Turning off the refrigerators (there are four) would eliminate most of the drain – and if we were to hand steer we could probably keep the drain to perhaps 8 or 10 amps – about 50 hours at best. Thereafter we would be what is known -  technically – as in the dark!  That would be a real problem approaching and trying to get through the Great Barrier Reef with no Chart Plotter.  GPS would be a problem too although there are now GPSs in IPads cameras etc so we could survive.

With that in mind, I serviced the generator – and changed the fan belt -  in Vanuatu before we set off.  Three days to go …..Fingers crossed!

Chart plotter

We have two chart plotters on board one at the chart table and the other on a steering pedestal. They are linked and a single data card serves both on a ‘master’/’slave’ basis.

The chart table plotter  had a hissy fit the other day and “hung”. When I rebooted it I found that the data smart card was corrupted and that the Chart Table plotter can no longer read data cards. Not a crisis in itself because I simply altered the ‘master’/’slave’ set up so the plotters still work with  the smart card in the pedestal plotter.  We have a new card for Australia but It did give some challenging moments in Vanuatu with no chart plotter data – and not enough detailed paper charts for local cruising.  Thank heavens for the IPad Navionics App!

Satellite Connections

A gremlin has got into our PC/satellite set up such that while I can send and receive email, I cannot access the internet.  Inconvenient, but no real crisis .

I have hitherto used an internet based weather service called Xygrib which is now off limits because to this problem. However, happily there are others which are email based and it happened in sufficient time for me to find out how to use them!

So that’s about it.  Mackay Friday night?

David Caukill

Yacht Serendipity

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