…is the sound of a nicely running genset” I said to John after it was running for already 5 – 6 min, producing 220 V, and charging the batteries. The moment I finished my sentence the genset stopped showing the error code “not enough oil pressure”. I checked the oil out was at maximum, and started the genset again. It started, ran again, but stopped after about 30 s. No error message. I wondered and pushed the start button again. No reaction, not even the LEDs went on.

I has this phenomenon 2 – 3 times last week but when I pushed the start button again it worked.

“What is this?” I thought. Battery voltage was there. The ON-OFF switched worked. Where can the power supply be cut off?

Diesel-John arrived, but this is not his major. As if Paul, the electrical engineer, smelled the problem he came and started looking into the issue. There is no power. He assumed that the harness must have rubbed on the flywheel and a 12 V cable from the positive battery stud got damaged. I could not believe it because when I mounted the harness I check several times the distance between the plastic conduit is the harness and the fly wheel was with at least 5 mm sufficient.

Nevertheless I removed the already mounted enclosure, a part of the air intake resonator, and the exhaust type to finally could take out the harness. I could identify the pin via which 12 V are supplied to the engine control board.

Tomorrow Paul will come again.

While writing these lines I got the feeling that the control board is gone. 12 V go in but don’t come out towards the fuel pump and the glow plugs.

I’m thinking already about a plan B and will make a phonecall tomorrow morning.

What will happen with the genset tomorrow?

Now the fridge.

With all what was done on the fridge, the conclusion was that we can built it back in, connect all the tubes and run a pressure test overnight. This sentence was quickly written, behind it, it was a day’s workload.

So will the pressure be OK tomorrow?

But, there is always a but, sometimes even more than one.

What happened today?

As assumed, the battery went flat yesterday. Charging until this morning from 240 V shore power filled the battery sufficiently to bleed the 2nd fuel line. Happy moment No. 3.

Then I pushed the start button to with the intention to get the genset fully running. It primed, cranked, and started running. Happy moment No. 4!

Additionally I saw the the generator produced about 220 V. 220 V is normal because I set this lower voltage value to keep voltage fluctuations at a lower peak voltage.

Oh happy day!

And now comes the but. The engine stopped and showed the error message “Too low raw water pressure”. I checked the strainer and found it was empty. As it is above the water line I filled it up.

Pushing the start button, the engine started normally and ran again for about a minute. It stopped with the same error message. To make it short, I replaced the impeller of the raw water pump. The impeller was completely damaged because it was running without water for several minutes altogether. A too long dry run for any impeller. It was caused by two raw water hoses being connected incorrectly. People who work a lot have a higher chance of making mistakes. I don’t blame John; this can happen easily.

Pushed again the start button and the genset started. It ran nicely for about 3 min without running the charger for all batteries. I was wondering what the error message is. No error message at all. When attempting to restart it again, the behavior of the engine pointed to a too depleted battery caused by starting the genset too often without charging the battery.

“Could it be that the governor did not have a sufficient voltage and stopped the engine?”, was my first thought. This could be because disconnecting the governor stops the engine immediately.

I started charging the battery again from 240 V and called John. He thinks the same. A too low voltage at the governor will stop the engine due to stopped fuel supply.

I even made another cross-check about the considered route cause.

As I’m testing the French AI “Le Chat’ from Mistral, I describe the situation and yes, Le Chat thinks the same.

Finally, I asked two other AIs the exact same question and received essentially the same answer. So five times the same opinion. This looks pretty good!

It seems charging the battery again from 240 V, start the genset and go immediately into charging mode should solve the problem. The genset only needs to run long enough to allow the charger to recognize the about 220 V output voltage of the generator and switch through to 12 V charging.

So until the maximum happy moment I still have to wait a while. About 1800 I’ll give it a try…

If there’s no happy moment… charging over night…

John will come tomorrow morning if the test tonight is not successful.

“And you? Please keep fingers crossed for the 1800 test”.

… delays the happy moment I’m working for since quite a while.

Since quite a while my main work and my main brain occupation revolves around the genset.

All is assembled and connected except of the right part of the genset enclosure which I keep open to be able to see if all hoses are tight when there is pressure inside.

My final main concern was the polarity of the brushes of the generator. The field is flashed by a DC current to enable an easier start of the genset. But a DC current creates a magnetic field of certain direction. With a wrong polarity the field points in the opposite direction and the generator might not start up or can get damaged. The manual says the red cable on the F+ connector and the black one on the other connector. But, there’s always a but, both cables are white. But, there is another but, a technician working on the brushes marked one cable with little piece of cable tie. Is this the for the F+ or F- connector?

I decided it’s for the F+ connector. But, there is a third but, is my decision correct or wrong?

Paul, the electrician says polarity is not important. The same was said by Harry, one of his electrical engineers, says the same. Because of the field direction of a DC current, me, the physicist is convinced that polarity matters. Who is right??? 2:1!

I don’t recall how often I read through the manuals. As they are digital editions I searched yesterday by accident for “flash” and found a small paragraph titled “Testing Field Flash”. Don’t know why I never came across this little paragraph before. (Seems I need glasses, stronger ones…)

And in this paragraph I saw how I can make the test. A test to see if my decision about the polarity is correct or if I need to work for 1 – 2 h to change the polarity.

I cranked the genset (with the governor unplugged to prevent the diesel engine to start) and happy moment No. 1 of the day! My polarity decision is correct!

As I built in new fuel hose there is the fuel line to each cylinder. The first cylinder was bled quickly. Happy moment No. 2 of the day.

On my way to happy moment No 3 and 4. the battery got flat. Since weeks it was not charged and had just enough power to start the PRT Volvo. My Volvos start extremely fast. But the genset needs priming, field flashing, and the generator turns during cranking this requires quite some power.

Now I’m charging the PRT engine battery and have to be patient until tomorrow morning when the battery is full and I can go for my happy moments No. 3 and 4.

Right now the rain shower and wind gust is so strong that I can’t even open the engine room hatch to go in quickly and close it again. Wind today is typically around 15 KN, but guys reach 22 – 23 KN.

In this weather, it would be nice and cozy in the cabin, reading and writing, sorting out pictures and deleting what’s not needed. Even working on the new mini homepage with the new blog and the new tracking would be something that I could do.

Since days I’m working in the engine room with the hatch closed because of rain and with a headlamp on the final setup of the generator. Work is progressing.

A days before the identification of some of the many cables in the main cable harness was my concerns. After having identified the cables, added labels, and talking care of a few spots with traces of chafing, I had to solve the next puzzle “How was the cable harness placed in the genset?” I had also Paul, the electrician looking at it. He saw a bent on the harness, which matches the generator side but still he did not have the solution for the part going around the diesel engine. While I was sitting beside my beloved genset contemplating on how the harness goes around the diesel engine, I got the idea that there could be a kind of duct between the diesel engine and the smaller part of the air intake resonator. I removed the resonator part and indeed there was a short duct. However the duct was not long enough for the harness passing the flywheel safely. It was just unprotected above the fast rotating flywheel. An extremely poor construction! The discovery of the channel under the air intake resonator gave me the idea to look for pictures I took last year when I had to replace the manifold. And “hurray” there was one picture where I got the confirmation that the cable harness went around the diesel engine that way. To be honest, I was scared! How can a cable harness just be fully unprotected in this position. I need a protection!

The first idea was using a cable conduit. I took a part of the conduit removed from the thrusters and kept for any possible purpose in the future. To make it short I could build an additional protection for the harness. Getting the harness in position still was tricky, but I got it in the right. I also used a cable tie to secure it close to the coolant outlet of manifold which gets less than 80 degC, most likely even less than 60 degC because of the already seawater cooled coolant comes there out of the manifold.

“Done!” I told myself and tackled the next thing.

While placing the cable harness, I saw that John missed one nut holding the manifold on to the engine block. When I touched this threaded rod I felt it is broken. “You don’t want to know the words I used”. It broke because the engine was moved at the repair shed by someone not carefully enough and this threaded rod got bent. John bent it straight and it broke when the manifold was attached. You can imagine how happy I was knowing there is the broken part of a threaded rod inside the engine block. I removed the manifold and stared for a moment at the broken part inside the engine block. Will I be able to get this out? I was quite worried. Having no other choice, I prepared the drill out. Very carefully I drilled a hole to insert in a next step a screw extractor. But then I became lucky. When the left cutting drill (Thanks Terry for getting me one a while ago.) was 10 mm inside the broken thread came out just with the slowly left rotating drill. Gosh, was I happy!!!

Diesel-John gave me on the phone an address where I could get an M6 threaded rod. A call and Sue from Wangharei Marine Service sent me one by courier. Had to buy 1 m and cut myself.

Today I assembled the manifold and reconnect the seawater and coolant hoses again.

Problems most often never come alone.

While preparing the generator side of the enclosure, it turned out that the ground connection cable from the generator became too short. Paul, the electrician, who I asked for a repair, did it in way which shortened it and it became too short. Another poor design by the manufacturer for using such short cable. Fortunately, despite a very heavy raining period, Paul came by and will make a new one for the next day.

We had a cup of coffee and a good talk until the rain got less.

Skype – the last peace of Microsoft SW will be removed from my PC soon. I used Skype always to make phonecalls, especially long distance calls whenever I had internet connection. It was a great feature of the original Skype with pay-as-you-go subtracted from a credit which was reloaded automatically from my credit card. I paid when I made calls and the credit was kept there for when I needed it.

Now all Skype users will be moved into Microsoft Teams where monthly payments are required to make phone calls. The old lady pay-as-you-go feature is gone. Beside this Microsoft just takes the money I still have in my account. So I did again “America first” – and first I looked for a non-American VoIP provider and softphone provider. In Linux Mint forum I got the hint for linphone, a French company and as VoIP provider I found a small German company. In the next days I’ll open the account and install the SW. I’ll publish details when all is running.

Yesterday, during the day the wind was pretty strong. Most of the times in the 30 KN range with gusts up to 40 KN.

MaRe rocked in her 8 docking lines but was always safe.

In the late afternoon the genoa of an about 40 ft mono hull broke open. The cause of unknown to me. a bunch of sailors worked on it. As they couldn’t tame the sail I changed into my foul weather gear and went over to the boat in troubles. I didn’t understand there approach without success. Only when Gareth, the marina manager, came an took the lead the approach became successful. Together with about 3 – 4 sailors the genoa was fully opened, pulled down, and stored in the cockpit. Problem solved and all went back.

While we had dinner I got the feeling that the wind is dying. My feeling proved right and now we have a blue sky but the wind still howls a bit in the mast and rigging. While writing this in bed, I can’t feel a movement of MaRe.

I conclude the cyclone is gone.

Back to normal life and work to prepare MaRe.

The wind grew stronger during yesterday and last night. During the day, wind speeds went up into the mid 20 KN range with frequent guest in the 30 KN range. Then later it increased into the high 20 KN range with gusts in the mid 30 KN range.

During the night it might have been higher. I did not watch the wind speed meter during the night. Now in the morning it feels to be high 20s with gusts mid 30s.

Rain was on and off.

MaRe is docked securely. I will now get up and check the docking lines for chafing but don’t expect any problems. The docking lines on the windward side are brand-new.

Whatever you get in the news, we are very safe in the marina. Please don’t worry.

Questions? Send an email.

Since yesterday late afternoon the wind increased. For most of the times I see 15 – 20 KN at the display. However, I also saw wind speeds towards 30 KN. On top of this, a lot of rain pours down on us poor people.

Outside, at sea there are wind speeds of up to 50 – 60 KN. If I be there now, I would be running with only the storm job or bare pole.

The marina is pretty wind protected.

For more details on the weather please see https://www.metservice.com/warnings/tropical-cyclone-activity%20

While writing this, I’m hearing in the distance a siren but have no clue what’s happening. The wind in the marina is below 20 KN.

Beside this, the diesel engine is built in and all diesel hoses are replaced by new ones and are tight.

The cables harness had been cleared out and all terminals seems to be identified. Paul and Harry did a good job, which was a bit difficult because the circuit diagram does not match fully the cable harness.

When the rain stops, which is most likely only on Friday, I will continue working on the genset with building in the air intake resonator, a part the enclosures and the cable harness.

Today and Thursday we wanted to travel with Maria and Terry north for sight seeing on the west coast, stay for a night in a nice place and visit on the way back the Ngawha hot springs (https://www.ngawha.nz/) Due to the bad weather we delayed it.

I am also working on the new tracking and blogging homepage. Once all is running I’ll publish here the new link. Should you miss something please send me an email to ocean11@gomi.es; it’s a new email address I was forced to set up. The old ones with reinhold@xxxxxxxx or stapf@xxxxxxx are alive as well.

Until I publish the new mini-homepage with tracking and blogging, please continue reading the blog here in PredictWind.

Yesterday, MaRe was relaunched on a very short notice.

Now she back in the berth were she was before. I missed Terry’s helping hands on the floating pier when I had to dock against a rather strong wind from about 45 – 90 deg PRT. But she is safe against winds from all directions. 3 docking lines on each side keeping her away from the pier and finger and still it’s easy getting on and off at the sterns.

Diesel-John got the generator in with most of the mechanical installation done. With his preparations it was easily done.

On Thursday I sorted out the rather complex cable harness because not all cables where labeled before they were disconnected. I always label all.
Some I could identify using harness diagram and the trouble shooting manual. I found also connections which did not match the circuit diagram. A not updated manual from the manufacturer? In general, I’ve never seen a messier cable harness than the one in my Onan genset.

I called Paul for help because I also saw some cables, which suffered from chafing. He is working on that.

Diesel-John strained a muscle in his legs, thus we decided he continues only on Monday when his leg is better.

By then I expect that Paul comes back with the cable harness.

Yesterday I did a bunch of small boat jobs. Today, as the wind is weak, I’ll tie up the reef lines, which I shortened for safety reasons a while ago.

After being in the berth for a while, OBM came to me to say that’s much warmer being back into the water. She also pointed out that’s quieter here. Me too I felt the quietness. On the other side I miss seeing the people I worked with for a while.

Later she got attracted by a group of seagulls standing on an unused finger pontoon. The birds lined up and fought most likely for certain positions. We didn’t understand what they did but it was interesting to watch them.

Using a shower etc on board again makes life more comfortable. No need to walk a long way to the hardstand area’s shower.

After OBM’s delicious as always dinner, I felt asleep sitting at the table reading some news on my mobile phone. This tiredness was the reason for publishing this text only now.

As for the news, I’m just waiting for the name change of the USA away from “United Banana Republic of America”, where rich people buy positions in the government, to “Dump Empire” with DJ Dump as the first emperor. The majority of the people with US voting rights elected him not seeing the writings on the wall. All the retirement money in stocks is gone…

I recently saw a nice cartoon. The Statue of Liberty on her way home, which is France. This cartoon describes my feelings pretty well.

Reading more is a waste of time.

Just one thought. I always wonder why companies from other countries can sell their products in the US? To sell something, you need buyers, don’t you?

I’m only curious about the inbound clearance conditions for a planned stop-over in Guam, Saipan, and another inhabitated island of the Northern Mariana Islands. A mail is sent to the related US authorities…

Since yesterday morning it’s raining and raining and raining sqand will continue until tomorrow morning – if the GFS forecast is right. We’ll see!

Today on the way back from the supermarket. It rained cats and dogs and we got pretty wet despite rain jackets we used.

When we left the supermarket we met our neighbors from the trimaran on our PRT side. They came back from a longer tour around the South Island.

My OBM is in call with staff on her company in Tokyo and also preparing our dinner.

My right arm hurts from removing old adhesive from 2 smaller parts of the plastic wallpaper and the GRP wall. When my arm started hurting my brain worked better and I got the idea to use turpentine. Window-John sent me a Signal message that the chandlery is Paul sells turpentine. Please keep fingers crossed that turpentine is a useful solvent.

I also had to fix handles at 2 small hatches. These Lewmar hatches have handles being only bonded to the hatch. Bonding only is not the best especially when the sunlight kills the adhesive. It seems they want to sell new ones. Now I fixed each handle with screws and made it watertight with a marine adhesive. I fixed this way already years ago 4 other hatches of the same type. No problem since the fix.

What else happened in the meantime?

The teak at the transom is fully done now. It looks good and feels good when walking barefoot on it. Also the swim ladders are mounted. Window-John did a great job as a carpenter.

The antifouling is also painted on top the rub rail and a bit higher at the stern. I’m curious how good this will prevent fouling growing in this area.

The mainsail and the genoa are back from repair and mounted.
Remaining work is attaching the reef lines to the mainsail. Already I shortened each of them by about 25 cm to move pressure points to another part of the lines.
Both sails are well repaired and the same time the weak spots of the old sail as it was made by Doyle Austria poorly are well improved. The head of the mainsail got a UV protection. The end of the batten pockets are much better then the originals. The batten receptacles are much stronger and technically better designed. The battens appear to be of a much better quality. Last but not least I have better tell tales in the main sail.
As for the genoa, the UV protection is made of sunbrella, a much better material then the original one used by Doyle Austria when they made the sail. Also on this sail I have now better tell tales.
In summary, the Kiwi sail makers did a good job again. The first one was my Big Blue, the gennaker I got made in NZ and shipped to Hiva-Oa, French Polynesia.
So I’m looking forward to hoisting both sails again.

We had a relaxed have a day as well. Terry invited us for a dinner at his place. So we rented a car from Paul Woodley of Marine & Engineering Supplies Ltd. As Paul and I know each other in the meantime, I got a special car from him. Early afternoon we started to Wangharei to do some shopping. Boat supplies and food, then headed to Terry & Maria’s place. With my osmAnd map I have a good navigation system in my mobile phone and find all I want to go to.
As a present for them we brought bread baked in the morning and some Japanese sweets, OBM brought along from Japan. Terry and Maria are awesome! I can totally see us becoming close friends if we lived near them in NZ
As a nice surprise Tanya came as well.
Terry showed OBM the huge property around the house. It’s a paradise.
I prepared the “recipe” for Maria to start a Linux Mint live stick so she can test Linux Mint. (Starting with Windows 10 I also could show her special and nice things of Linux Mint.
Now I expect a call for an installation of Linux Mint before we sail away.
The dinner was as always delicious. The dessert was again a Pavloa with a peach compote and vanilla ice cream. The size of the dessert plates are for a meaningful main dish….

The new railing nets are mounted as well. I started the work with Chris and he completed the aft parts of the railing with a pretty good idea. The aft parts of the railing are a bit special and were never covered with a net. For safety reasons I decided to have them covered as well.

New safety lines are attached under the boat. They are holding oneself should the boat capsize and getting out of the boat through the emergency exits on both hulls. Any boat can capsize like any car can crash somewhere.

I did a lot of work tidying up plenty of things and also throwing away things I recognized I’ll most likely never will need on board.

On Thursday we had a short but nice time. Boh, my crew member from Vava’u to NZ, popped in with Tanya on their way to the airport. It felt good seeing Boh again just before she heads off to Australia where she will work on huge farm. I wish her all the best for her time there. I could not stop short but to tell her again, that I would love see her as a Kiwi entry to the Vendee Globe single hand yacht race around the globe in about 80 days. She has all the talents needed.

The fridge in the hallway started leaking again at one of the connectors. It seems that a fridgey once used a permanent threadlocker at a screw where there is the leak now. In the next step, the connector will be removed and the pipes are braized to each other. That’s the best because the connection is then really tight.

I think I wrote that I found a small leak at the 40 l boiler. As I could last week move finally things from aft cabin at PRT to the one at STB, I could open the big hatch under the aft cabin beds and the boiler could be checked in detail. As a result I replaced the boiler. Cove Boatworks got a new one within 24 h. The one I have now is a newer version of my 21 years old boiler and has a nice mixing valve additionally. Thus, we get hot water, but when it gets out of the trap, it can’t reach close to 80 degC anymore. Thus, we have a fine temperature in the kitchen and the shower temperature is easier to be adjusted. An improvement.

The remaining big work is the installation of the genset. By Monday the base tray, where a cut out is made to mount special 12 V studs, is primed and painted by ACES who did a good job on the base tray and the enclosures before.
With Chris I also bonded the news sound absorbing material on the almost new looking enclosure parts. These absorbing material I cut already in shape a while ago. I checked with my pictures in the phone, positioned the cut out parts, Chris marked and bonded them. So bonding was done fast.
Beside all the delay in the checking of the generator, which made me very “happy”, there is a good thing. Diesel-John will be back on Monday and takes care of the re-installation of the genset.

Now people ask me when I will splash back into the water. My answer is always: “The day before yesterday!”. However, I talked already with Remi who is charge of haul outs and launches and he signalled me that he can do it on short notice. Today I’ll send a message to Susi of the marina and ask for a berth starting on a still unknown day of next week…

My OBM is finally back again. On Sunday I picked her up at Auckland airport.
The day before I stopped working at 1300 to pickup the ordered rental car and drove to Auckland to spend the evening with friends. One of them I haven’t seen since the earlier 90s. A very nice evening!

From the airport we first drove to Wangharei. There I picked up my
Garmin InReach Mini 2. I also got a few things needed for MaRe. We had late lunch at the Hundertwasser museum l. He definitely had his own style.

I like his style and thinking sometimes about painting 1 or 2 walls of our house in Hundertwasser-Style.

About OBM, It feels good having her back, but I also feel bad because MaRe is still on the hard.

Things are progressing.

The new solar panel is working, so does the new battery monitor. All the old, not anymore needed things are out. The solar charge controller and service battery bank monitor is from Victron and there performance can be checked on my mobile phone, tablet PC, and PC. Also connections for a second wind turbine are foreseen. However I could not get a new tower in time thus I’ll add a 2nd wind turbine later. On the way to Japan I’ll sail mostly on the STB tack thus already installed wind turbine is on the windward side.

The 2nd fridge in the PRT hallway is working again. At one of the connectors there was an o-ring leaking.

The teakdeck at the stern is 99 % finished. John only needs to add a seem of mastic (marine sealant) around the edges. It looks not only good, it is better. The old teak was just to old. Window-John did a great job!

Swim ladders got there steps and are ready for being re-mounted at stern.

The salon windows also got at the outer edge a new layer of paint to have the UV protection for the DOWSIL adhesive and sealant in place. Another good job done by Chris.

The sunscreens also got new tenax buttons wherever the old ones didn’t work anymore properly.

Starlink is working fine. It caused me for half a day headaches as the cable connection between the router and the antennae didn’t not work. I unplugged and replugged the cable for more than 5 times, but the connection didn’t not work. Next day Pajo, the electrician came unplugged and replugged the cable and Starlink worked. Magic hands. I threatened him to cut his hands and take them with me.

The new mounting pole for the Starlink and the 2 GPS antennaes is supposed to arrive finally today. Mounting all will take a while because the GPS antennaes need to be completely removed from, meaning the cable need to be pulled out for the entire length.

New bow nets are mounted. I used 2×3 lines to have always a safety back up should one line gets damaged. This work I completed yesterday. The new new material made of highly UV resistance plastic with a fiber inside is very flat, thus good to stand on, and it looks also pretty nice with it’s white color.
Today I the attached edge covers

Sails – I called up Toby and the sails are ready. I’m supposed to get them this week. Strange, he was at the hardstand a few days ago but didn’t bring the sails along.

Paul, the electrician knows that he should check the generator since January. Diesel-John asked him several times to do this work and I called him several times telling him that Onan has almost no spare parts in NZ and not even so in Australia; this because their spare parts stock policy is from the middle ages. Never ever an Onan genset again.

Decided to paint a part of the rub-rails and the lower part of the canoe stern with white antifouling to avoid growth of fouling. In this area. Chris already painted the area with primer and will today apply the white antifouling I have on board since Hiva-Oa.

The cockpit enclosure is work in progress. The cushions are already finished.

By mistake I updated the PredictWind offshore app. Now I have to delete it an reinstall the older version which I keep on my PC. The Offshore app is not the best piece of SW. I’m only glad the Keryn once gave me the link to download an older version.

Sometimes I feel pretty exhausted!