As soon as we got the necessary parts we'd ordered from West Marine, it was time to implement the electrical system that Britt had designed (some details, and links to diagrams, are on the boat page). When we got Windom, the electrical system was stock: two gel cell group 27 deep-cycle marine batteries, each with about an 86 amp-hour capacity, wired as two separate banks with a switch between them. The battery charger was not working (and not fixable), so in order to recharge we had to run the engine. Without much 12V equipment (and judicious use of the radio and lights) these batteries gave us enough juice to go 4-6 days between recharging, but they would not be up to the demands of items like refrigeration, anchor windlass, or radar. And as soon as we stopped living in a marina, we wouldn't be able to use AC power -- no blender, no blow-dryer, no DeskJet printer, and no way to recharge our battery packs for power tools and computers. We'd bought an inverter/charger, which will charge our batteries from shore power when we have it, and provide AC from our batteries when we don't, but didn't have the other system components (cables, lugs, battery monitor, fuses) until just this week.
There is a sort of "systems room", reached from the cockpit lazarette (storage area), which gives access to the batteries, the engine, and the fuel and water filters. Britt installed the inverter and terminal blocks there, and built in two boxes for the new batteries using plywood, epoxy, and fiberglass. Then we moved the old wires and strung new wire to conform to his electrical systems plan. We don't have all the pieces in place yet, but the new power system is slowly emerging.
Marine wiring is quite different from house wiring. We'd remodeled our house back in Boulder, so we were familiar with standard house 110V AC work, joining fairly small wires by soldering or by twisting the wires to be joined and then screwing a wire nut onto the ends. 12V systems are more sensitive to voltage drop, so the wires must be sized appropriately: small wires can be used where current draw is low, but higher currents or longer wire runs require heavier-gauge wire. Because of the corrosive and vibration-prone boat environment, wires must be connected using ring terminals or insulated connectors, which are crimped on with a special squeezing tool. Crimping terminals onto small wires isn't bad, but crimping medium-sized wire is a pretty good workout, and the really huge wires can't be done by hand at all: they fit into a spring-loaded die, which gets whacked six or seven times with a hammer.
Very heavy gauge wires were needed for the anchor windlass, since the windlass takes a lot of current, and the wire has to go from the bow (where the windlass is mounted) to the stern (where the batteries are). We used size 2/0 cable, which is about 3/4 inch diameter. Drilling holes in the fiberglass bulkheads for the cables, Britt had to sharpen his drill bit every few minutes, and I got a workout shoving the huge cables through the holes. After we had them in place, Britt sawed holes through the deck for the windlass and its power switches. Our deck is a fiberglass "sandwich" with plywood in the middle, and it's important to keep moisture from getting to that wood core, so he made the holes a little oversize and then filled in the edges with marine epoxy to seal the wood. We then mounted the windlass and finished the electrical connections.
We haven't yet put our new chain through the windlass -- all 350 feet of it is still sitting in a barrel at West Marine -- but we tested it by using the capstan part of it to haul me up the mast on the spinnaker halyard. Britt sure found it easier to pull me up by pushing a few buttons than by cranking a winch by hand!
These trips up the mast aren't just for fun. The original trip up was to install a new halyard -- a line running up inside the mast, out through the top and over a pulley wheel (a sheave) on the aft side, and back down to the deck. Our idea was that we could run this halyard through a block on the end of the boom and use it to hoist our new batteries and lower them into the lazarette. (Each battery weighs over 160 pounds!) We would also use it to hoist our dinghy motor to move it between the dinghy and the outboard mount on the stern rail. So I took a long string with a small weight tied to one end up the mast, planning to drop it down the inside where Britt would fish it out through one of the halyard slots, and then tie the halyard to it for me to pull up. Very simple. The problem was that when I got to the top, I could see that there was no sheave installed for the line to run over -- it would just rub on the lip of the mast. There was a place for a sheave to be held in with a pin, but neither pulley nor pin was in place. I lowered the line and Britt tied a tape measure to it so I could figure out what we needed.
The company that made our mast Z-Spar, had thoughtfully put their phone number on it, but the number was disconnected, and when we called Caliber Yachts to inquire, they told us that Z-Spar was not doing business in the US any more. So we went to Chesapeake Rigging, where they fabricated the pin we thought we needed (not cheap!), and sold us a sheave.
I went up the mast again, and it was clear that neither piece would work. Both were too big. The rigging shop took back the sheave and gave us a smaller piece, a simple sleeve which would rotate around the pin; I stopped in at West Marine and bought a 3" long 3/8" diameter bolt. Up the mast again, this time on the windlass. The bolt diameter and the sleeve size were perfect -- but the pin hole was too close to the mast for the head of the bolt, or a lock nut on the other side, to fit. Clearly we needed a pin rather than a bolt, but we didn't want to pay again to have a new one made.
Well, boat life is a constant test of improvisation. Britt used a Dremel tool to flatten a few spots on the bolt, then drilled a hole through it on each end. He cut the head off with the Dremel, and voila! a pin! I went up the mast one more time, and finally installed our new masthead assembly. We still weren't finished, though; dropping the leader string into the correct place turned out to be a bit of a challenge, and then things got a little tangled inside the mast, making Britt's fishing job a little more complicated. But eventually we got our new halyard up and over and ready to go.
Britt
found a couple of 2x4s in the boatyard and strapped them to the boom
to lengthen it; we tied the spinnaker halyard to the end of the boom
to help hold it up, and ran our new halyard over a block (pulley)
which we tied on to the 2x4s. We brought the first battery from the
van to the finger pier beside our boat and tied it to our hoist.
Britt kept the boom from moving while I cranked on the winch until
the battery hung above our lifelines; then he swung the boom across
to the lazarette. As I lowered the battery, he nudged it into its
proper place. We repeated the drill for the second battery, and
disassembled our tackle, pleased with how well it worked.
It's great looking at all the progress we've made, but there's still lots to do. The new batteries must wired to our system -- we used up all our cable, and West Marine doesn't have enough in stock, so we had to order more. A few more components of the electrical system need to be installed, including the new large-frame alternator. The refrigeration equipment will show up near the end of the month, and we need to do some planning for that project. We still haven't put our new propeller on. But we are hopeful we'll be out cruising soon -- and if we're not quite done installing things, we'll just work on them as we go.