all quiet...

With the weather forecast to be OK on Saturday, with perhaps the odd light rain shower, and nice on Sunday, we decided that we'd head out to Walton Backwaters, get the hook down and chill a bit... planning to enjoy the beach for a walk Saturday evening, and perhaps a bit of a sit in the sun on Sunday.

As it worked out, the weather let us down a bit really.... while Saturday was very much as forecast, Sunday turned out to be dull as well.

We got into the Backwaters around 11h00 Sat, and soon got the hook down.... I wasn't quite happy with where we ended up, with the wind and the tide doing battle over where the boat should lay, so we had a second go, with which I was much more comfortable...

And we then just chilled... a pleasant lunch aboard and then a quick trip ashore for a walk (dashing back as the skies darkened for yet another shower)....

The outboard engine is playing up again.... It really needs a darned good service... it needs full choke to even run, and then isn't running at all well... I suspect the carb needs a good clean again... and maybe some fresh fuel wouldn't go amiss... it'll come home shortly for the treatment!

It was nearly 22h00 before I needed to stick the anchor light on... as you'd expect at Summer Solstice.... and this was a good thing... the batteries are clearly tired, and are running down far to quickly... they had reached 12.5V in no time at all...

Still... I had the engine battery isolated, so no worries... (more on this later)

We sat below, and enjoyed a quiet evening, using the paraffin lamp for both battery conservation, and for more atmospheric lighting.

Sunday, as previously mentioned was dull, even threatening more rain, so after a good breakfast, we decided to head back... I got the boat ready, set the switches to use both battery banks, stuck the keys in the ignition, and "click.... click"..... nothing... so I ran below, suspecting that the low domestics were dragging the engine battery down, and tried off just the engine.... not even a click... completely and utterly dead.... so I tried of just the domestics.... "click..... click"... it wasn't going to start....

We had about 6kts of wind bang on the nose, and the tide still coming in... so i'd decided that we wait for it to go slack, and then we could sail off the anchor.... darn... that meant pulling in 25m of 10mm chain and a 25Kg Delta anchor... that was going to be fun!!!

Anchored in font of us was someone we met once or twice before while out and about.... and he was close enough to talk to... I explained my predicament, and he immediately offered us one of his batteries to get her started.... brill.... so I dropped the tender back in (viva la davits!), and motored over to fetch it... it was a few mins work to stick it on the engine, and she started first turn.... a few mins to let some charge into the domestics, and taking great care to ensure that the domestics were still connected to the alternator to avoid blowing the thing, I removed the battery, stuck our own engine battery back in, and took the battery back...

So what had been the problem?

Well... my conclusion is that I am lazy, and never bother to start the engine off just the engine battery, instead using both engine and domestics.... I reckon that the engine battery must have died some time ago, but my laziness had hidden the fact... combined with tired domestics that had been run down overnight, it left me stuck.... ah well.... lesson learned....

Anyway.... after 20mins of running the engine, we were still chucking 35Amps into the batteries, and I decided that we'd been running long enough to try the windlass.... no problem.... up came the anchor and we were off... at least we thought we were...

As we motored past the boat that had leant us the battery, he called over.... "any idea why everything on board is completely dead?"...

"oh heck I thought.... i've killed his battery"

So I tied up alongside him, and helped him try to get his head around it.... with a meter, I soon established that the batteries were fine... the fuses were fine... but nothing at the battery selector switch...

This made little sense... the only thing between the two was a thick battery cable... unlikely to fail without some evidence eg smell/smoke... and no power had been applied anyway...

So that left the earth.... a little hunting... and voila!... another earth cable on the batteries that hadn't been reconnected when they were plumbed back in... 30 secs later, all was well!

And so we left, and headed back to Shotley... got the cockpit tent up, watched the Grand Prix on telly, and headed back for a sensible arrival time home...

I'd measured the battery compartments before leaving, and will be ordering new batteries this week... more money!

Miles logged 12nm
Miles this season 326nm
Miles since this blog started 4,223nm