Category Archives: Repair

Where we fixed something that failed.

Boat Repairs, Tidewater Comicon, and Dinner with Cruiser Friends

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Sunday, June 29 — View of the channel from the bridge taken during a morning walk. Kosmos is in the marina to the right, in the first row long the channel.

Statue near the bridge

This morning, Eric was feeling motivated to tackle some boat projects. But first, he transferred fuel into the day tank. Eric normally kept the day tank full. But because the fuel transfer pump wasn’t working, he’d let the day tank get low. The reason was that he normally used the transfer pump to balance boat. This means that if one fuel tank had more fuel than the other, the boat would tip sideways, so he used the transfer pump to move the fuel between the tanks to ensure the boat was level. Since the transfer pump wasn’t working, he was using the day tank to help with balancing. He’d let the day tank empty out, then he’d move appropriate amounts of fuel from each of the tanks into the day tank as needed for proper balancing. 

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More Exploring Deltaville, Virginia, USA

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Dawn on Wednesday

On the passage, Eric had noticed an issue with the newly fixed radio: it was working fine, but it was complaining about low voltage. He spent Wednesday morning on the phone with the company who’d done the repair to troubleshoot the problem. Eric eventually figured out that there was a knob to adjust voltage on the power supply unit (which was behind the panel), and that knob was in a spot where it could have been easily bumped when the converter box was installed. In the course of the troubleshooting, the “expert” gave Eric some incorrect information, which really bothered Eric.

In between phone calls, Eric changed the generator oil and filter, drained the engine oil, and replaced the O ring in the oil drain hose for the main engine. We also went to the boat yard next door to say goodbye to the family that had been hauled out yesterday. They were a really nice family and we hope to see them again when they return.

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Finishing Up the Boat Work and Getting Fuel in North Palm Beach, Florida, USA

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On Tuesday, June 17, we missed the sunrise, but here was a morning shot.

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday finishing up the projects. Eric confirmed radios were working, the other two air conditioning units were descaled, and Yacht Tech finished up the waxing, stainless polishing, and the gelcoat work. Unfortunately, not every gelcoat spot was repaired. There had been two separate work orders, and due to a misunderstanding, Eric had only authorized one.

We’d mentioned that the bottom red boot stripe had been touched up. Yacht Tech also touched up the smokestack stripe. When all the outside work was completed, they gave Kosmos a good washing and wipe down.

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More Boat Work, North Palm Beach, Florida, USA

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Dawn in Punta Gorda on Monday, June 16.

First thing in the morning, we said our goodbyes to Christy and headed back to Kosmos in North Palm Beach. This time, we took the Highway 70 back, which, for most of the drive was a two lane highway. The road took us through several small towns and a lot of farmland. It was a nice drive, with a lot more character and local feel that we’d gotten from I-75.

When we arrived, there were already workers onboard. On the exterior, there were people detailing the boat, one finishing up the waxing and one polishing the stainless steel.

Inside, someone was working on the VHF radios. We’d upgraded the radios in 2024, but there was a buzzing when the battery chargers were going, which interfered with our ability to hear/be heard. DC to DC voltage converters were installed.

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Replacing The Alternator Regulator

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As you may recall, in Panama, we had a catastrophic failure of our ARCO Zeus alternator regulator. The summary was that there was a mandatory software update, and the update caused the unit to malfunction and over voltage our main 12-volt electrical system. This caused our battery manager, in an effort to protect the batteries, to disconnect 12v power from the boat. Without the 12v power we lost radar, charts, GPS, lights, and various other systems. We also had a fire suppression system that shut down the main engine because it thought the loss of power was due to fire. Ouch. Fortunately, the failure happened someplace where we were not in danger, but that was mostly luck. Had we been someplace else when the boat suddenly stopped operating, we likely would have crashed into something. We also had enough emergency and backup systems that we were able to quickly gain control of the boat (we literally had a back up propulsion engine, as well as three other batteries banks to power the boat).

To continue cruising, the temporary solution was running the generator to power the batteries instead of using the main engine alternator while underway.

The company who installed the upgraded battery system, including the alternator regulator, was Weber Marine. Even though we in no way blame Weber for the situation, they covered replacing the ARCO Zeus as part of their warranty on their work.

David from Weber Marine flew in on Sunday, June 8 so that he could start work on Monday morning. When we’d scheduled this trip, Kosmos was supposed to already be back in the water and thus the A/C working. Having to do this project on the hard with no A/C was painful. Also, the yard hours were limited, so Eric and David couldn’t come in early to work during the coolest part of the day.

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