I decided to learn as much about the system, so spent the winter reading. Most of it is over my head but thanks to physics in college I can grasp the essentials. There was an electrician at the yard I had kept in touch with but when we got there he had left for a job closer to home. The new part time electrician came and looked at the system. He seemed to have a plan but told us he had other things to do and could not work on Carrie Rose.
Our friend tried hard to diagnose the problem. We spent a weekend testing and complying data. It proved the original surmise that the system works fine with outside power but not with the generator. We even went so far as to next-day ship his computer from home to help with the process. But no cure was found, and thus began a search for another remedy.
Ten or eleven leads were followed online, on the phone, and in person with only one response. We scheduled an appointment for three weeks hence. When the time came Carrie Rose was launched and we cruised 30 nautical miles to the yard. It was nice to get on the water even if we had a raucous trip west on East Penobscot Bay. We docked in one of our favorite towns and waited.
The electrician came the next day. He was through. He had a plan. He would talk it over with the service manager and get back with us. Alas, they did not say no, but completely ignored us, so we left.
I have to say I began to feel like a teenager again. My emotions were all over the place. How was it possible to find no one to help? We were both ready to leave the boat and head home. Carrie Rose was taken out of the water again and we sat in a rock and sand parking lot.
Once we settled on land, the manager gave me another electrician’s card. He had come by to talk about his services. I called and he returned the call and most importantly, he came. He was an inquisitive young man who approached the problem like a competent internist. First he took a detailed history and then, got his notebook and multimeter out and did a thorough exam. At one point he exclaimed, “I can fix this!”
It took two weeks for him to return. We tried not to get our hopes up. It is an odd state of affairs to deem to be hopeless. When he came I had the boat ready and waiting. He immediately disappeared below the pilothouse hatch. Charlotte went off to read and I sat on the back deck. I could hear him talking to himself as he worked through the wiring. At the end of the first day, he needed a switch and said he’d be back when he found one.
Again, we suppressed any glad tidings. It turned out that the boat was dangerously wired. This needed to be corrected first and only then could the original problem be addressed. To our surprised he came the next day, finished installing the new switch and gave me the thumbs up to start the generator. His surmise was that the work he had done so far would solve the problem, when it did not we were deflated.
This did not stop him. He went to his truck and retrieved his computer, a cable and the necessary dongle to connect to the charger/inverter. The first attempts to connect were failures. Again, he persisted. He reached out to several folk for advice and when none was forthcoming, he went and had lunch.
My original plan was to disconnect the charger/inverter and go back to the boat’s less sophisticated arrangement. He was willing to do this but not without one more try. Back to his truck to make a new cable, while I lay in a stupor. To make this already too long of a story shorter, the new cable worked. The settings were set, the generator started and we both knew he had fixed it.
The next day we launched and traveled 15 NM to Northeast Harbor on Mount Dessert Island, my favorite harbor. Charlotte and I chilled out for four days. We hiked, ate popovers, took the free bus to various placed, and reveled in having a functional boat for the first time in four years!
Seal Bay, Vinalhaven, ME
1 comment:
Wow, what a challenging ordeal. Congratulations on persisting and finding the right guy to figure out the problem. So glad that you are back out in the water enjoying the rest of your summer.
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