With the coming of the bank holiday weekend, Vicki would be away with her family and l was going to get on with boat jobs. As it turned out it wasn’t any good for sailing as now strong east winds were dominating the forecast. As you know by now if you read my blog, Elektra’s mooring is exposed to the full force of the English Channel from east winds. Knowing l had work to do we moved Elektra onto her gale proof mooring in Carne Creek at the end of our holiday, at that time we didn’t know east winds would be coming. I then had work for a week by the bank holiday weekend Elektra was neeped until the Wednesday following.
I had a transmission to change on one of my ride on mowers on Friday when Vicki left for the weekend which took up most of the day but once finished l could think about boat jobs.
Having been away for 2 single weeks on Elektra we had found some problems, one of the battery banks was failing, charging OK but not holding charge after night fall. Also the cooker which l had been serviced in the winter, we had found the knobs impossible to turn on or off when the cooker was hot! So once back from holiday l ordered new batteries and a new cooker.
Back at the end of the winter, l had ordered new Flexiteek panels for the companion way steps, galley and heads floors. The panels had arrived just before our holiday. Another job was to fit them, we also decided a saloon carpet would be nice. And I had some external GRP repairs, so l had quite a list to be going on with. I started with the swapping off of the old step grip surface.
I removed the steps and took home to my workshop to make working easier. The old stuff came off realitively easy, it was the glue which was the problem! Wouldn’t sand off because it clogged up the paper, the only way l found that worked was to scape off a flat bladed paint scraper, going over it 2 or 3 times! Sticking down the new stuff was quite easy in comparison. But l think it was worth the effort
Then l started on replacing the batteries. Not too much of a problem you would think but 3x 75ah and 2x 110ah batteries loaded into pick up, out of pick up into dinghy, out of dinghy into Elektra cockpit and from the cockpit into the cabin, few! You would think that was the worst of it but l still had to exchange the batteries and reverse the process with the old batteries! Better workout than any gym could provide!
Then it was the turn of the cooker, now the cooker wasn’t heavy but it was bulky and l wasn’t sure enough of myself to get it aboard Elektra on my own, so l asked the help of my friend Tony and between us we managed it easily. Fitting it was a little easier except l found l needed the compression fitting from 8mm cooker to 6mm gas pipe which l needed to order from the Internet. So fitting cooker was put on hold.
Back to the workshop and get on with the other floor panels and better raised cockpit seating. I had bought clear epoxy coating for the underside of floor panels and the cockpit seating. I hadn’t ever used epoxy, so it was a learning experience for me. The speed of the process impressed me, l had only ever used varnish in the past. Having done 3 coats the next day l was sticking on the panels. Using a offcut from our dining room carpet l cut a piece for Elektra’s saloon. I think the end result is very nice.
Eventually the new cooker fitting arrived and the cooker could be fitted just in time for our next holiday.
The next weekend we were aboard finding out if all was working. I still wasn’t happy with the batteries and with my investigations found out the batteries had been wired up in such away that the 2 110ah batteries were never being used! No wonder we were having problems. The domestic bank had only been 150ah with engine 75ah. Not the 220ah and 225ah which l thought l was using. To compound the problem l had changed the banks slightly with the new batteries to what l thought was 150ah and 295ah but the 295ah wasn’t getting used at all.
The easy way to solve this was to run them as just one big battery bank of 445ah for the time being until l could get the leads remade (not recommended but for the time being with new batteries worked) What a difference this discovery made to our battery management, l almost gave up looking at the monitor. We were now running the fridge 24/7, charging the phones and tablets, just using power with no worries.
This will be one of my winter jobs, changing the banks over to 75ah engine and 370ah domestic.
Love Sailing 