Thursday, June 27th, 2024
OK, we are hanging in Petersburg waiting for the technician to arrive to determine if we are a go or no. This picture, a ramp to nowhere, paints our situation, but does it lead to a happy place?
The answer to our bad VHF and alarming MFD was the switch above, it’s failing. And the result is that while we think we are charging the battery this switch is slowly, but surely, draining down our batteries. We would run our Genset for two hours and only be up to 80%, The problem is it was all for not, the batteries would charge up on the Genset and then drain down on the faulty switch. Since this event I have been informed that these switches have a very bad rating. Most tuggers have replaced them with Blue Sea switches with a superior rating.
This is a picture from my friend, Dave’s boat. When I return to Anacortes I will replace all 3 switches with Blue Sea. But, everyone asks, how about now? What do you do? The answer is we will run the switch in the open position when we are underway with the alternator, or if we are running the Genset. At anchor I will close the switch isolating the draw down to the battery bank. Once underway, I will switch it back to open. The issue is the automatic setting is failing.
The good news is it was a “beautiful day,”. We had fresh scallops for dinner from the local fish market. We are off tomorrow morning at 5:00 am to exit before the fishing boats wherein silver salmon season opens. We will work our way down Wrangell Narrows to Thoms Inlet. From there to Ketchikan. Stay tuned.