Category: 2022-06 (June)

Up normal time, maybe a bit late. Breakfast, the net and bible reading. Then Renee’ went into town to check out a store to see what she was going to want to bring back from the states in the fall.

While she was gone, I worked on the generator replacing the control panel. It actually went fairly well, the effort I put into understanding what I was doing paid off, and the drawing I made as well.

Unfortunately that was not the problem. The new panel has the advantage of having an LCD display for things like generator output in voltage current and frequency. Those all read 0 when the generator was running for 10 seconds or so. I was on the support line the 2nd time this happened and was directed to remove the voltage regulator and disconnect two wires and measure the resistance. It was supposed to read 60 ohms, and it only read 25 ohms. This means that the exciter coil is bad. This means the generator has to be rebuilt, and I don’t think we can get this done in Mexico.

So, what are the options?

• Well if we can get it to the factory in Florida it will cost about $2,500 to rebuild the generator.
• IF we can find someone here to do the work, we might get it done here. The support guy said that it could not be done on the boat. Which means the generator has to be taken off the boat just to see if someone here thinks that they can do the work. This means taking the boat to a boat yard, and removing the generator, about as much work as removing the engine from a car.  Remember this is a case of IF we can find someone who can do the work.
• Another option is to make sure that our water maker (our biggest AC load) can be run off of a Honda 2200 watt generator. We have one in the states, and would have to figure out how to get it down here. These generators cost about $1,100 in the US, and about $2,500 here in Mexico. If it can be run off the smaller generator, then we would have to store the smaller one on board and set it up once in awhile to run the water maker.

I don’t know what we will do yet, still investigating options.

After dinner we made some phone calls, and then at 8:30 we went over to Mike & Jennifer’s boat (an IP380) and then down to the show at the resort. A fire show, that was very impressive. As it turns out, they have a 2200 watt Honda Generator that I can borrow to see if it will handle the start of our water maker.

Then back to the boat, and showers.

Up about 7:30, breakfast and the net. Bible reading and catching up on the blog.

Eddie is due here today to remove the port winch and get it machined. Charlie is due here today to work on the aft A/C unit.

John Pounder will be here Thursday with a couple of helpers to work on the wiring. 

Eddie was here as expected took the winch apart and took the part that needed machining to the shop. No sign of Charlie.

Spent the day going through paperwork and notes on the boat about the solar panels, (old and new) as I might have a buyer for the old panels and controller.

Eddie was back at about 2:30 to reinstall the winch!

No sign of Charlie, so as it is 4 pm, we are off to the pool.

Tomorrow night we will be going to the show at 9 pm with the crew of an IP38, it is a fire show. Mike and Jennifer.

Up at 7:30 or so, breakfast and getting organized. Then off to the new church. The advantage is that it is within walking distance, so no bus this morning.  Ok, so that was the plan. Plans for us are written in the sand at low tide.

The closer church doesn’t meet during low season (hurricane season is low season). So, we caught a cab and went to our regular church, arriving after the first two songs (the ones that always seem to have the light show that I don’t like).

After church we went to a new restaurant and brought a new couple to the church. They are only here this week, but are working on establishing a relationship with Pastor Freddie. Larry from the new couple is a pastor in Ohio.

Larry and his wife Kendra gave us a ride back to our boat, then we rested for a bit and went to the pool and happy hour.

At the pool we met Chip and Kristine from S/V Second Set. They arrived here yesterday in the marina. They will keep their boat here for hurricane season and will be flying out in a couple of weeks.

Then back to the boat, dinner showers and bed.

Up at 7:30 breakfast, the net and bible reading.

Then Reneé headed off to do laundry, and I started into replace the control panel for the generator. This MIGHT be the reason it doesn’t run, as one of the switches pushed through the face of the circuit board that is the control panel. The following is a text I sent to some of my engineer friends to express my frustration.

“Hey, what follows is a rant. No action required, just thought I would let you know what I am dealing with. I am working on our generator. As usual, I really hate engineers who design without a thought to maintenance. I am in the process of changing the control panel. The instructions are pretty straight forward. One thing of note, the old control panel grounds the coils for the relays, the new one powers the coils. There’s at least 8 fuses in this setup. 6 in a fuse box that is mounted to the side vertically (vs on the bottom with the fuses visible). The screws that hold the control panel on go to nuts that are NOT captive, and are almost impossible to reach. So, of course I dropped 2, further disassembly required.”

Reneé got back to the boat about noon, and I was still getting familiar with exactly what I was looking at inside the control box of the generator that I had to rewire.

By 4 pm I was done working on the diagrams and pictures to understand what needed to be changed. We walked out to Ciao’s restaurant to see about church on Sunday and then took the bus to Cavernita’s restaurant for dinner. Renee’ had a stuffed potato, I had ribs. Then we walked back to the boat. We stopped at the store and got a container of ice cream.  Then back on the boat we got showers and watched the first half of the movie TRUE LIES.

We moved kinda slow this morning, after a late night playing games with friends.  We went through our regular morning routine then asked “Now what?”  Chava (the stainless guy) came for his money.  He installed our repaired swim ladder and it’s beautiful!  Neil worked on transferring movies from a friend’s hard drive and I made potato salad.  Eddie came with a friend to clean the electric winches.  We decided to look at the salon and fwd stateroom AC units and it’s a good thing we did!  They were filthy! We got them cleaned.  Next…pool and happy hour!

No pictures today.