Two At Sea

September 5, 2022

I’ve been pretty unhappy with our  Balmar 100 amp alternator for quite a while and especially since we put in our lithium batteries. At best, we get about 60 amps from this alternator once it’s hot. Well, it failed completely in New Caledonia and I put my original, 60 amp Hitachi alternator back on the engine. Once it was hot, I got a continuous 50 amps from it, and it stayed relatively cool compared to the Balmar.

I ordered a marinized Bosch alternator (and new regulator) from Graeme at SmartRegulator in New Zealand. It’s installed now and wow, what a difference. Here are some pictures (please excuse my dirty engine compartment!)…

I made the alternator adapter bracket, designing it in the Fusion 360 CAD program, 3D printing a test-fit part in plastic and then having it CNC machined in aluminum in Gladstone. I gave the design to Graeme and he’s going to be selling the brackets soon.

Graeme did a great job marinizing the alternator, painting all the parts vulnerable to the marine environment. The alternator is now mounted rock-solid and putting out a ton of power.

We’re getting better than 100 amps continuously from this new marvel. Its temperature is leveling off at about 88C which is really great. I thought I’d have to install better ventilation for the alternator, but it’s fine without it due to its increased efficiency and big, external cooling fan.

I was also worried that I’d have to go to a serpentine belt system to drive this load but the 1/2″ Gator v-belt is driving it just fine with no dusting visible yet and no signs of slipping.

Another major advantage of this change is the price and availability. The alternator from SmartRegulator is about $330 USD. It’s a standard alternator (though marinized by Greame) that can be purchased in about any auto parts store. It’s used on Ford trucks among other cars. The Balmar alternator it replaced is over $1000 USD and from what I understand, Balmar isn’t selling service parts and instead insisting that it be returned to them for service.

If you’re making this change, keep in mind that some alternators (like the Balmar) are positive switching and some or negative switching like this Bosch. Make sure your regulator will work with your new alternator. It might be necessary to have your new alternator converted, but that’s easy and inexpensive at almost any automotive electrical shop.

-Rich

September 2, 2022

Here’s a shot from our morning anchored at Great Keppel Island…

We’re making our way north from Gladstone, our port of arrival in Australia this year. There’s a blow coming so today we’ll head to the Keppel Bay Marina to sit it out. Here’s a google map…

-Rich

 

August 21, 2022

This is the final episode in this series and is a post-mortem of the passage: what we did right, what we didn’t, and the lessons we learned.

I’d say, maybe start with this episode if you haven’t watched any of the others. Then you can go back and watch the other episodes to learn how to use the tools we used for this passage.

Here’s where you can find all the episodes.

Table of contents:
0:00 Intro
0:33 Departure Forecast
1:16 Day 1
1:37 Day 2
2:35 Day 3
3:20 Day 4
3:48 Day 5
4:08 Day 6
4:55 Final Day
5:15 Forecast Comparisons
7:16 Lessons Learned

August 14, 2022

It was a rough, six and a half day passage, but we made it from Noumea, New Caledonia to Gladstone, Australia mostly intact. We’ll post Episode 10 of our weather planning video series in a few days and that’ll show the details of this voyage. In the mean time, here are a few photos from the trip.

I think we’ll start with the best – Cyndi’s should-be-award-winning photo of bioluminescence as we sailed along on one of the few calm nights.

The Night Sky mode doesn’t always work out, but sometimes it’s great, even in it’s failures, as can be seen below.

Here’s what Cyndi was going for with this sunset. (Though, I really have no idea what was going on in the head of this great artist. Maybe the top pic was the objective?!)…

And lastly, here’s my contribution to this somewhat abstract sunset-at-sea gallery…

There weren’t many times that were this calm during our passage but I’ll give you more details in the upcoming video.

Just a quick word about Gladstone and the marina we’re in here – “fabulous!” It’s a great facility in a  beautiful little harbor, near a really nice little city. We’re very glad we chose this as our port of entry.

-Rich

August 4, 2022

We thought this stop in New Caledonia would be a brief two and a half week visit but it turns out you can replace “week” with “month” and that would be accurate. Those who’ve followed our weather planning video series know the story – there have been terrible conditions between us and Gladstone, Australia, our destination.

Don’t be sad for us. We have had an absolutely wonderful time here on this, our sixth visit to this sensational place. We love the people, the scenery, the surrounding waters, the marina, the food, the cheese, the wine, ok, everything really.

But finally the weather is looking good for the trip and we’re leaving in a few hours. We’ll report in once we make landfall in about a week. In the meantime, here’s a link to our tracking page with hourly updates of our position (if the Iridium GO keeps working!).

We’ll miss you Nouvelle-Calédonie.

-Rich