BlueSphere Ships Log

Strange dayz

alex@projectbluesphere.com — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 22:21:34 GMT

Man have I been busy!

I’ve been a electrician, mechanic, plumbing, mammajamma!

These days with the girls gone have been difficult. I’ve been quite introverted, not saying much to anyone, and uber-focused on my work.

My goal is to get the little Kubota charging twelve volt and running the fridge. I don't know if I’ll get the fridge working but I’ll get close. I’ve had to make allot of modifications to the little motor and engineer a bunch of parts. I’ve spent a bunch of time at the welders and machine shop. I hope to get to the point I just need to hire a refrigeration guy to do some plumbing (I don't know how to do the copper stuff), and vacuum down, dry, and charge the system. I’m missing a few parts (Solenoid & Thermostat), and will have to hunt around a bit. I’m getting the fuel system buttoned up, and the raw water system but I don't like my water pump. A friend told me to look into Iwaki (spelling) twelve volt water pumps, their are supposed to do continuous duty for a very long time. I’d put in a belt driven impellor pump but man are they craze expensive.

My batteries need to be equalized badly. I tried going the desulfator route and I’m not convinced it works. My Electromaax three stage charger doesn't equalize but I have another three stage regulator that is going on the kubota which should do the trick. I’m brining in the alternator to a shop so they can disconnect the internal regulator and get it working with the external one. I’m also re-plumbing all of my fuel lines on my main engine and putting in a polishing system. Not to mention engendering a piece that will fit between my small tiller pilot and the wind vane allowing us to have an autopilot at a very low amp draw.

I swapped out our old 1000 watt inverter with a 1800 watt pure sign wave inverter that a friend gave me before we left the states. It works great and I put the little control panel on the 110 board and it looks really nice.

I plan on going to the San Blas in about three weeks and plan to stay for a good six months. If I cant pull off getting the fridge going it will have to go on the back burner. Once it is all working I need to find a twelve volt clutch for my cat pump and build a water maker. After that systems will slow down for a while. Eventually I’m going to put in a propane water heater and an extra diesel heater for colder weather cruising.

I’m in Panama city for a few days taking advantage of all the great shops. I found good spar varnish at twenty bucks a gallon and good two-part polyurethane for fifty.

One piece of bad news. My beautiful dysfunctional iphone is dead. My friend had it repaired for me and it worked (for the most part for the last two weeks. It had some strange and random keyboard clicks but it turned off for the last time yesterday, I’m truly sad, it was such a wonderful tool and I will miss it dearly. I will get another one at some point.

I’m spending the night at my friend Roger’s house. He used to own and build Bristol Channel cutters, man they are great sailing boats. I spent more money then expected on this trip as i had to buy a new alternator, but the good news is I’m putting a new 94 amp alternator on my little kubota.

iPeace, love, and tools.

Man it takes allot of work to live like this!

Alex

Wiring

alex@projectbluesphere.com — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 07:45:13 GMT

Boy have I got myself into a mess, I have all the wires in the engine room torn apart and I'm rewireing the whole can of worms.

The little kubota is installed in the lazerette and running well. I still need to hook up the fuel lines as it is running off of a gravity fed coke bottle. I also need to bring it's alternator into the shop tomorrow and hook up a throttle/kill so I can control everything from the main saloon as well as get a new starting battery, finances are getting slim.

If I don't book a charter soon I'm going to run some backpackers to Colombia in a few weeks. It's not such a bad way to make a few bucks, I would rather sail around the San blas though.

Cheers from Panama.

Alex

iPhone

alex@projectbluesphere.com — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 19:05:27 GMT

All I can say is 'thank God' for the iPhone, oh yeah and all the good people at apple. I traded a mizzen for a defunct 2g (thanks chuck), and my buddy had it fixed for me (thanks David). How did I ever live without one

Sam and Guin are gone and I'm able to tear splendid apart almost every major system is apart. I've decided to do away with 110 All together. I opened the back of the 110 panel and found a burned spot on the teak bulkhead. No more 110 for me. Even if I leave the boat somewhere we have over 500 watts of solor to keep the batteries up. I wil still run the inverter but no more shore power cords! The burn must have happened when we were plugged in in Jacksonville.

I'm off in the morning to find scrap metal, I need to weld up some mounts for the little kubota.

It's weird without the girls around.

Peace from Panama!

Sent from my iPhone