Well, i took my boat out for about a 5 hour trip tonight (see here for some pics: http://www.boatered.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=81884 )
I had some issues with the electrical stuff while i was out. I am an electrical idiot. I think i am really good at what i do professionally, and can learn most anything if i want to, but me and electricity have never been buddy buddy. Electrical and fixing cars are like the 2 things i have never had any interest in figuring out. Alas, i digress...back to the problem(s) at hand. Mind you that i have not yet had the "captain's delivery" from the dealer yet..that is next week. So i am more or less having to play around on the boat solo and figure it out as i go until i have a captain for a day to go over everything.
Anway, we dropped anchor and all seemed well. Radio was working for a bit but then it started doing the cut on and off thing again i posted about yesterday. No big deal- haven't had time to address it yet.
1) When i got onboard i noticed that the galley fridge was not really working. Stuff in it was luke warm-ish and when i was on it two days ago it was so cold the water bottles on the top shelf were literally blocks of ice. I had it plugged into shore power so i am not sure why it was not working??
2) I could never get the cockpit fridge or outlet above it to work, despite having all the breakers on and the gennie running.
3) the gennie was tuned up by the dealer prior to my buying it but it clearly needs to be tuned up again. It ran great for about 5 minutes and then started sounding like i needed to open the engine hatch and shoot it to put it out of it's misery. Thus, no boiled corn for dinner since i couldn't get it to keep the stove going.
4) After maybe 2 hours of being at anchor, the cockpit and cabin lights seemed to be getting dimmer and dimmer. When i turned on the windlass to bring up the anchor everything got REAL dim and windlass was barely working. Ended up hauling it up by hand and just using the windlass to take in the loose rode. Is this normal? After that i tried to crank the gennie up again to see if she would run right and it was like there was not enough juice to even crank it over.
5) I have a battery tester switch on the panel for my 3 batteries...#1 and #2 showed between 13-14 volts. #3 was only at 10 which i THINK (I told you i am stupid about this stuff!!) means that battery is more or less dead and needs replacing...yes?
6) I am paranoid about draining the batteries just using a few lights and the anchor beacon light and being stuck at anchor (with a distinctly unhappy wife in that situation). How the heck do i know/figure out when the batteries are going to be dying? I have an automatic battery charger that works when plugged into shore power so i would have thought i could spend the entire night out with some lights on, etc. and not have everything die on me! We very much want to sleep out on the boat but i am worried the batteries will die in the middle of the night and then the anchor beacon light will be off and some idiout will hit us doing 50 MPH (happened to a boater on this lake a year or so ago!).
7) Note one item is that i have 2 shore power chords but only one plug in @ the marina. I have thus only been able to plug in one chord but i have been plugging in the one that powers the galley fridge and stuff. I found out tonight i won an ebay auction for a Y-adapter so i should be able to plug both in this coming week (man those little adapters are expensive!!).
Ok. After you are done laughing at my electrical stupidity, i will look forward to any replies. Commercial real estate, land development, land planning, etc. are my thing, NOT electrical!!
I had some issues with the electrical stuff while i was out. I am an electrical idiot. I think i am really good at what i do professionally, and can learn most anything if i want to, but me and electricity have never been buddy buddy. Electrical and fixing cars are like the 2 things i have never had any interest in figuring out. Alas, i digress...back to the problem(s) at hand. Mind you that i have not yet had the "captain's delivery" from the dealer yet..that is next week. So i am more or less having to play around on the boat solo and figure it out as i go until i have a captain for a day to go over everything.
Anway, we dropped anchor and all seemed well. Radio was working for a bit but then it started doing the cut on and off thing again i posted about yesterday. No big deal- haven't had time to address it yet.
1) When i got onboard i noticed that the galley fridge was not really working. Stuff in it was luke warm-ish and when i was on it two days ago it was so cold the water bottles on the top shelf were literally blocks of ice. I had it plugged into shore power so i am not sure why it was not working??
2) I could never get the cockpit fridge or outlet above it to work, despite having all the breakers on and the gennie running.
3) the gennie was tuned up by the dealer prior to my buying it but it clearly needs to be tuned up again. It ran great for about 5 minutes and then started sounding like i needed to open the engine hatch and shoot it to put it out of it's misery. Thus, no boiled corn for dinner since i couldn't get it to keep the stove going.
4) After maybe 2 hours of being at anchor, the cockpit and cabin lights seemed to be getting dimmer and dimmer. When i turned on the windlass to bring up the anchor everything got REAL dim and windlass was barely working. Ended up hauling it up by hand and just using the windlass to take in the loose rode. Is this normal? After that i tried to crank the gennie up again to see if she would run right and it was like there was not enough juice to even crank it over.
5) I have a battery tester switch on the panel for my 3 batteries...#1 and #2 showed between 13-14 volts. #3 was only at 10 which i THINK (I told you i am stupid about this stuff!!) means that battery is more or less dead and needs replacing...yes?
6) I am paranoid about draining the batteries just using a few lights and the anchor beacon light and being stuck at anchor (with a distinctly unhappy wife in that situation). How the heck do i know/figure out when the batteries are going to be dying? I have an automatic battery charger that works when plugged into shore power so i would have thought i could spend the entire night out with some lights on, etc. and not have everything die on me! We very much want to sleep out on the boat but i am worried the batteries will die in the middle of the night and then the anchor beacon light will be off and some idiout will hit us doing 50 MPH (happened to a boater on this lake a year or so ago!).
7) Note one item is that i have 2 shore power chords but only one plug in @ the marina. I have thus only been able to plug in one chord but i have been plugging in the one that powers the galley fridge and stuff. I found out tonight i won an ebay auction for a Y-adapter so i should be able to plug both in this coming week (man those little adapters are expensive!!).
Ok. After you are done laughing at my electrical stupidity, i will look forward to any replies. Commercial real estate, land development, land planning, etc. are my thing, NOT electrical!!