Day 2 at-seA

February 8, 2024  

0217 Ship’s Time  

14º 25’ N, 029º 09’ W  

Steering 275º at 7-8 knots

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How immensely satisfying it is to problem solve.

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I had the 1400-2000 watch this afternoon, which is blissfully shady with our westerly heading and downwind sailplan setup, with both sails spread wide out each side of the boat creating a perfect sun-umbrella in the afternoon. Today was a project day for me. Last night I’d spent my midnight watch sorting out why the watermaker was only giving us half the expected output (easy solution — clogged pre-filters). Now I wanted to figure out why the Watt & Sea wasn’t outputting the full amount of amps I’d expect at 8 knots boatspeed, and why it was making a horrendous vibration, despite the new motor I’d installed just before departure.

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Veiko and I took up station at the stern and got to work on the hydrogenerator. When it’s operating nominally, we can do days and days without having to run the engine to charge the batteries, so it really is a nice luxury on these long trips to keep pace with our electrical consumption. While the unit was working — in the sense that it was putting out electricity — there was something ‘off’ about it. The smooth humming noise it usually makes was replaced by a harsh, vibrating, almost ‘angry’ pitch that just didn’t sound right.

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I’d learned before departure that the motor outputs 3-phase AC power. I had to re-wire the transom plug when I installed the new motor, and being 3-phase, the order of the wiring is moot. You can connect any wire to any other and still get the desired 3-phase output. However, once I deployed it after we’d gotten underway, I immediately suspected something was off due to that horrible vibration. My theory was that one or two of the phases wasn’t connecting, thereby reducing our output and unbalancing the motor, leading to that screeching.

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To make a long story shorter, I was right — the waterproof plug I’d re-wired was badly corroded on closer inspection, and at least one of the wires had broken off inside the housing. The solution was to hard-wire Wattsson directly to the wire leading to the MPPT control box and bypass the bad plug. Now, Wattsson is happily humming along, the pitch indicative of our boatspeed, a happy high-pitched whirring when we accelerate down a wave and pump out the amps. Veiko and I high-fived and I started prepping dinner, delighted in the feeling of having theorized and solved a problem that will make life onboard better for us for the crossing.

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In other news, the wind remains steady, the skies clear, and FALKEN is on course sailing fast to the west. We jibed onto starboard tack this morning at the watch change, quite the process getting the pole re-rigged on the new tack, but completed smoothly with all hands on deck. The latest GRIB model shows some slightly lighter breeze, which we’re sailing into now (making for some horrendous slatting of the sails at times when a wave hits us on the beam), but the Trades should remain more or less consistent over the next four days as we continue on a course slightly south of west. Barbados sits at 13º 14’ N, so we’ve got another degree and a half of latitude to traverse, and we’ll likely get even further south to stay in the steady winds before arcing north again on final approach.

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But that’s over a week away. Right now we’re all settling into the moment on our second night at sea, the stars bright overhead and the damp night air keeping us cool in the cockpit.

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— Andy