Tuesday, December 3, 2024 – It was supposed to be an uneventful day. The plan was to do chores around the boat in preparation for our 6.5-day passage to Puerto Vallarta, then head out at around 1500 (3:00 pm). 

Since we weren’t paying for another night, the marina encouraged us to leave earlier since check out is officially 1300. Their nudge turned out to be a giant blessing in disguise. Eric started up the main engine at around 1330. There was an issue with the stabilizers – when turned on, the screen said “server rebooted, call factory.” 

Eric has spent the last 1.5 years renovating Kosmos. We plan to write more extensive posts about the renovation, but for the moment we’ll summarize the work with: 1) The boat was 18-years old and many things had reached their life limit and needed to be replaced – including a lot of components on the stabilizers, and 2) We outfitted the boat 18 years ago when there were only two of us. Now that there are three of us; we needed to configure the electrical and water to be better suited for three people.  

Eric immediately called John Gumb Yacht Services, the company that did our stabilizer work, to help troubleshoot the problem. John Gumb had no silver-bullet answer, but the initial trouble shooting indicated it may have been electrical in nature. Eric called Weber Marine next, the company that did our electrical work (and more!). Weber also had no silver-bullet answer. 

Eric texted back and forth with them as he tried to troubleshoot. At around 1500 (3:00 pm), they figured out the problem: The up-converted voltage from our house batteries was too low during stabilizer initialization. The system voltage needed to be 24.0, and it was dropping to 23.6 during initial start up.

The quick summary of the problem: Eric thought that the battery that powers the main engine and alternator (which are still AGM) also powered the stabilizers, which apparently is how it is on some Nordhavn 43s. Today, we found out that the house bank batteries power the stabilizers (which are now lithium iron phosphate). The new batteries are set to float charge from the alternator at a slightly lower voltage than the AGM batteries (13.5 vs. 13.7), and the slight difference was enough to stop the stabilizers from initializing. Especially because any difference was doubled due to the fact Kosmos is 12v-volt, and uses an up-converter to get the stabilizers to 24v. There was also concern the up-converter was failing.

When we had been testing the system after installation, we’d always done it at a time when the batteries were in some state of charging, and thus the voltage was higher. Today, we’d been plugged into marina power and were at 100% charge, so therefore, the batteries were at 13.5v and didn’t initiate charging to a higher voltage upon start-up.

The solution was a part called a DC to DC up-converter that could be tuned to a higher voltage. Christi went to the closest AutoZone, which only had AC converters. Eric got a couple different marine people to check in Ensenada, but determined that since it was a specialty part, it was unlikely we’d find it in Ensenada.

Weber called around and found the part for us at a store in Point Loma (a neighborhood in San Diego). Weber bought the part for us on their business account. Eric called Mike, who enlisted a mutual friend, Derek, to go to the store and pick it up for us. Derek and Mike, drove the part down to the US-Mexican border. They arrived at the border at about 1915 (7:15 pm).

At about 1715 (5:15 pm), Christi hopped in a ride-share, which took her to the border. Christi managed to get a couple of nice sunset/twilight photos while walking from the slip to the hotel entrance for pickup.  

She arrived at the border at 1940 (7:40 pm). Since Derek had arrived first, he crossed into Mexico with the converter. The item got some attention in Customs, but Customs eventually let it through without charging a duty on it.

Derek made it to the Mexican side shortly after Christi arrived. He handed it off to Christi, and she hopped back into the waiting ride share.

The ride-share delivered Christi back to Ensenada at about 2130 (9:30 pm). She went straight to bed to get a nap in before her midnight watch. 

Eric had pre-configured everything while Christi was gone, so he was able quickly install the converter, although he had to jury-rig it with zip ties for the short term (the blue tape was for quick labeling of wires). He set the output at a healthy 26.7v.

He started up the main engine again at about 2230 (10:30 pm). There were no complaints from the stabilizers! Woo hoo!

After letting Kosmos warm up, Eric got Christi up and we untied at about 2300. There was only a sliver moon and it was cloudy, so it was especially dark. The saving grace was that Coral had a bright light shining near the entrance, which helped tremendously with visibility. Eric very slowly exited the narrow and rocky Coral basin, carefully following the same line out that we had taken in. 

We all breathed a huge sigh of relief once we’d cleared the dangerous area and were in the open ocean. And relieved that the sea conditions were not bad!

While we would have preferred that we identified and fixed the problem before we left San Diego, we are grateful the failure happened in Ensenada and not someplace remote where getting the part would have been difficult (or even impossible). Stabilizers are one of the most important components of the boat, and all of us would have been miserable traveling without them.

Likewise, we are grateful that the stars all aligned for us to be able to get our hands on the part same day. So many things could have gone wrong: 

• If we’d started the process at 1500, as previously planned, it would have been too late in the day to find and pick up the part same day. 

• John Gumb and Weber Marine were both available to help Eric troubleshoot. 

• We were close enough to San Diego to physically get the part from San Diego. Had we been further away and needed to have it shipped, it could have taken weeks with shipping, customs, etc. And that is assuming the failure happened someplace urban enough that there was even a place to ship it to!

• Derek happened to be relatively near the shop when Eric contacted him. Had Derek been home, he may not have been able to get to the shop before they closed. 

• Christi found a ride-share willing to go so far, especially during rush hour. 

• The rideshare would only take cash. Christi happened to have the exact amount of cash in her wallet needed to cover the round-trip ride. 

We’re calling this converter adventure a success and viewing it as a good omen that all will go fine on our upcoming journey.