Success

12/12/14
Little River, SC

Today Mark finished installing the wind generator while I watched.  Well, maybe I helped  a little bit.  In any event, I would never have gotten all the things done on the boat that we have accomplished without Mark's help.  I don't say it everyday, but I really appreciate him.

We started the day looking for a problem with the 120 volt outlets on the starboard side of the boat.  Then I remembered that there was an outlet in the starboard birth.  I checked it and it was a GFI outlet that controlled the other outlets on that side.  When I reset it everything worked.  Dumb!

We then strung a power cord across the dock to get power back to the boat to run the battery charger. The inverter and the charger are all working well, so it was onto the wind generator.  I had to cut a hole in the back of the starboard birth to mount the controller.  We pulled the wire through to the controller and one from the controller to the batteries. This all involved several trips to various stores for misc. parts. All the metal that goes on a boat is either stainless steel or aluminum. Preferably stainless.  They are really proud of that stuff. At least the price they want would lead you to believe so.

During the day, while we were working, both Doug the welder and Jack the canvas guy were at the boat doing their thing.  Doug finished fastening the rack to the boat and Jack made patterns for the rear panels for the cockpit.  After he finishes those there will just be two side panels and he will be done.  There goes several BOAT Units. If you are not familiar with BOAT Units it stands for Break Out Another Thousand. This boating thing is really expensive.  They say a boat is a fiberglass hole in the water where you pour money.

Anyway, by 5:30 we had the blades on the generator and everything hooked up.  Now we will have to wait for the wind to blow.

Tomorrow I will try to put the boat back together.  There are things scattered all over it.  Tools to pick up, trash to throw out, and stuff to re-store not to mention general cleaning and sweeping. I also have several wires to tie down and label so the next time we work on it we will know what we did the last time.  Besides sll that I have to move the boat back to its home slip.

When Jack gets finished with the canvas the boat should be ready to go.  We just have to get some clothes aboard and Lynda has to do the provisioning.