...and by she I mean the boat. Progress is creeping forward, despite Mark's pal Tim's best efforts to distract him with beer. If there were a race to see who's boat will be finished first my money will be on our boat despite Tim having a year or so head start and a much shorter list. Actually, Tim providing a distraction from time to time is a good thing as sometimes Captain Perfecto needs to remember to have fun. You know what they say about all work and no play.
Mark has wired in the power control panel. Now we can select either the starting battery or the house bank, have a visual indicator to let us know if the bilge pumps are running and let us know when and what nav lights are on. This is so much better than the guessing game we had to play previously.
We now have one of the house battery banks wired in and ready to go. Previously we had one house battery. Not house battery BANK but ONE battery. Singular. For one lonely battery we sure did have a lot of wire spaghetti surrounding it. Not its nice and tidy and once the second bank is wired in we will have 630 amp hours. I certainly hope that is enough because there isn't anymore space to put batteries.
We are getting 2 starting batteries as well so hopefully we won't have to experience the "oh NO" moment we had on our last overnight when we realized the starting battery was nearly dead an d it was only by crossing everything and spitting that we got the engine to turn over. (and for all you saltier than Thou peeps who say you would have just sailed off the anchor I'd really like to see you do that with no wind and cargo ships, a cruise ship and tugs darting about a very narrow channel. You would have used your engine too though you might lie about it.)
Here's the power control panel in its lovely teak cabinet Mark made. It is now installed over the engine compartment behind the companion way steps.
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And just to remind you where we started...
I know wiring isn't the most exciting of projects but as this draws to a conclusion it means we can actually start sailing again and I'm fairly certain that the reason we bought a boat was to go sailing not to give Mark a never ending opportunity to"...'rebuild her. We have the technology. We can make her better than she was. Better...stronger...faster.”
Just a few more wires....
It's all just so NEAT looking. Very, very nice job. It looks like what I had envisioned Siempre Sabado's wiring looking like. However, the vision that remains in my head never quite matched the reality. Now I just want to gut the boat and start over. Or, even better, gut the boat and have Mark come and put it back together.
ReplyDelete-Steve
From one subsea sparky to another:
ReplyDeleteThat is beautiful!
Steve, Mark has been working on the wiring an average of 5 days a week for 6 months. Not 6 weeks, 6 months. You might want to think twice about gutting Siempre Sabado and having Mark do it. Yes, it will be tidy and exquisite and perfect but it most definitely will not be fast!
ReplyDeleteSix MONTHS!!!! That's freakin' incredible! No wonder it came out so nice. Oh, who am I kidding? I could work on mine for 6 YEARS and it wouldn't look as neat as Mark's job. Mark seems like the kind of guy you want to buy a used boat from. You guys are making Ceol Mor better than new.
ReplyDelete-Steve
Its more exciting than you think. Especially to someone about to go through it!
ReplyDelete