Even more cool
A week and a half ago I wrote a post titled Electrical Troubleshooting, the focus of which was on our boat’s refrigeration system. Bob on Boat Bits, one of the blogs I follow even made mention of it. I’m happy to report that the issue has now been sorted out although we did have to enlist the services of a professional to make it happen. The cause of our troubles? The system was overcharged, meaning there had been too much refrigerant added. Mr. Mitchell, who we ferried out to our boat on Father’s Day, could tell what the problem was as soon as he connected his testing manifold. After he released some of the R134a refrigerant, the system not only cycles on and off as it should (6 minutes on, 4.5 minutes off when I was timing it) but it gets a lot colder too. It seems counter intuitive to me how taking refrigerant out can solve the problem which is why studying how these things work is on my to-do list. Perhaps I’ll start by reading our copy of Nigel Calder’s Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manual. There appears to be plenty of info in it.
Just before we had our refrigerator fixed, I heard a guy selling a testing manifold on the cruiser’s morning radio net. The price was right so I scooped them up. I don’t know what to do with them exactly but I plan to learn.
Even though we’re not doing a lot of sailing right now, we’re still anxiously awaiting all of the new Dyneema line that we won. For those of you who are new readers of our blog, or who have short memories, our boat was one of 40 winners of a complete set of Dyneema running rigging. We have been in contact with the folks running the show and have been assured that it is all still coming. I guess the riggers in Annapolis are a tad overworked right now. We’re happy to be patient though because as I said, we’re not planning on going anywhere in the immediate future, unless of course what I discussed yesterday changes.
Although this isn’t our Dyneema line, we were admiring it when we visited Budget Marine.
And speaking of line, we just replaced the line holding our trampoline together. I’m not sure if it has ever been changed before and it was starting to look a bit chafed in spots. Falling through the trampoline would not be cool, especially when underway and definitely not when underway with the engines running!!!
Before…
and after. The red line that we used for the tramp is the line that we purchased to secure our mast when we took it down to transit the Erie Canal.
M/R
After cruising now for a while now, could you live without refridgeration and just use blocks/cub ice? Just curious with power consumption and maintenance if you would be okay without a fridge/freezer….
Could we do it? Likely, although I don’t think finding block ice is all that easy. Cubes, yes, but blocks, no. And cubes just wouldn’t work, they’d melt WAY too fast in this heat. I wouldn’t want to be wasting my time on that. It just isn’t worth it to us. I’d rather buy another solar panel to fuel the fridge. Also, if you check out the boat bits link that I put up, he links to some pretty impressive portable coolers that I think would rock and they have a very low energy draw.
The more I read your blog the more you two impress me. Your desire to learn everything you can, and get the most of your adventure is awesome! Something breaks – you guys figure out how to fix it, or learn from the people fixing it so you can do it next time. Need to drop the mast to get through some canals – you two just build your own mast carrying system. Whatever comes up you just deal with it, and I think that epitomizes the sailing community. And to top it off – it sounds like you two may be the life of every party you show up at – or is it a party once you show up ? Is that one of those Chicken-or-the-egg debates? 🙂
Anyways continued good sailing to you! I hope that by the time I’m out there, you won’t have gotten bored of the sailing life, and I’ll buy you a beer at some tropical port someday!
Hi Tux
I think to do this long term, you need to either learn to be relatively self sufficient or have deep pockets, which we do not. Good luck with your own journey and we’ll definitely take you up on that offer of a beer when we meet!
Mike
PS: Love the chicken and egg thing:)
Calder’s big honkin’ tech manual is definitely a must-read. (Do I gain “boat geek” points if my copy lives on the nightstand beside the bed?)
How’s the woven part of the trampoline holding out? (I seem to recall some advice, from Chris White I think, that some types of trampoline fabric ought to be flipped upside down after a few years so that the UV degradation is spread over both sides, possibly getting a few extra years of life out of it.)
Yes, definitely earned some points there.
Our tramp looks great although UV degradation might be difficult to observe with the eye. I don’t know.
I do know that out of every cat’s tramp we have ever been on, without a doubt we like our material the best.
Here is a web site and forum that just deals in marine refrigerators:
http://kollmann-marine.com/
Thanks for that!