We are really enjoying our time here in Palermo and expect to depart on Monday for points east and by the end of the month, Licata where Pandora will spend the winter. Our plans for next season are up in the air but perhaps we will head north to Croatia. Brenda will be heading to Scotland the last week of May so that suggests that I will get crew to run Pandora from where ever Brenda flies out of, likely eastern Italy, to move Pandora north to well, somewhere.
For now, i am focused in where to go and when to ensure that we get to Licata where Pandora will spend the winter and with abouit 250 miles to go and a need to be in Licata for about a week to get Pandora ready, we do have to keep moving.
However…
Palermo is a very nice place and the marina the best one we have ever spent time in. At about $100 a night, including both water and electric, it won’t break the bank, well not as long as we don’t stay too long…
It is pretty nice…
The city even has a huge reflecting pond with fountains. Nice.
Pandora on a very nice dock.
Yes, nice docks.
The view of the mountains and nearby industrial port is impressive.
It is a very busy harbor with a constant parade of cruise ships coming and going. This photo doesn’t really show the scale of these ships in a fairly small harbor. However, they do blot out much of that view when they come around the corner.
As the city is fairly large, the addition of thousands of passengers doesn’t really change much, especially since they are back aboard for dinner.
Yesterday we went to a large outdoor market and while I was fascinated by the noise and hustle, Brenda and Leslie decided, within a few minutes, that they wanted to decamp for a yarn store that was a bit less “real”.
It was mobbed although this photo doesn’t make the point. I had to wait for the crowd to clear a bit in order to even take a photo.
I stuck around for a while and had lunch. Sadly, the octopus salad that I had turned out to be raw and it had a pretty good “tooth”. I got a good amount of exercise by the time I was done. Not to worry as I was able to wash it down with a 3 euro local beer.
There was pretty much every sort of food you could imagine for sale and speaking of octopus, I have no idea if these were cooked of what made them so red.
Spices of every kind.
The spices were the one area that Brenda was interested in before she fled.
Not so much interest from Brenda in the slippery seafood. In spite of that, I did get some swordfish and cooked it aboard last night. Don’t ask, don’t tell. It was a hit.
Lots of cooked food for sale and plenty of tables to sit at. The place was hopping around lunchtime with hardly an empty seat.
Just about everything imaginable was for sale.
Lots of precooked options that looked pretty good to me. Not sure that the ever-present flies would be appealing to Brenda. Better for her not to see that…
Some of the vegetables were new to me.
Street fry, aptly named.
Liquor licenses are a lot simpler here, if there are licenses at all, than in the US. And lower prices to match.
And, of course, flowers and I do love flowers.
Before Leslie arrived, we had to do our laundry done and like so much else that feels like “first time” on this trip, the place we did the laundry was indeed “different”. It was basically a number of machines mounted directly into a wall on a street corner. No place to fold, right out there in the open with cars whizzing by. And, they really wiz, let me tell you. There are cross walks where cars have to stop but all they really do is to weave around you as you make your way across. It feels pretty risky at best.
Turn around from the machines and it was quite a view. So, while the machines were running, we decamped for a cafe on that square. Convenient for sure.
There is lots of beautiful architecture in the city worth exploring and today we plan to visit a museum before Leslie departs. I have no idea what this museum is all about but I pick this one…
This beautiful building was directly across the square from one of the knitting stores that Brenda and Leslie visited. I sat down in a cafe nearby while they swooned over balls of yarn.
We aren’t exactly sure when we will depart here but at nearly 100 euros a day in the marina, it does add up. Sadly, there aren’t many protected anchorages along the north coast of Sicily, or most anywhere we have been for that matter, so picking a good time to go is important so we don’t end up in an unpleasant or dangerous anchorage.
Looking at the weather for the next few days suggests that there will not be much, if any wind but that doesn’t mean that we will be able to avoid a north swell, which comes and goes as there aren’t a lot of sheltered places to anchor.
One service that has proven to be invaluable in understanding what to expect when we anchor and to help in choosing a marina is www.Navily.com. It is basically a free site that you can check the conditions on pretty much every possible place you might anchor and see what the weather “score” is, hour by hour, for wind and swell. And, for a modest membership, you can get the score farther out into the future, the next 72 hours. Additionally, as we spend time in any given place, the app prompts me to leave a review along with photos. It also provides a summary of reviews and specific comments from users so it’s a really useful resource.
Given how exposed many/most of the anchorages are and how variable the winds are, this service is invaluable and we generally don’t move without consulting the app.
So, our next decision is when and where we will go. As of now we are scheuled to depart tomorrow so it is time to decide.
I guess I’ll have to consult my friend Navily, not to forget Chat GPT too. Wouldn’t want him, her, they to feel left out.
Which begs the question. Do they feel? Scarry thought…
We headed the short last leg to Palermo yesterday to spend a few days exploring what will surely be yet another wonderful place. Well, I am assuming wonderful as we haven’t been disappointed yet with all of the places that we have visited, too many to cover lest I spend all my time writing and not enough time doing.
I’ll start with our 200 mile crossing from Sardinia to Sicily, about a week ago. We really hoped to sail as the two hundred mile run as it would be a lot faster with wind than motoring in a flat calm. So, we watched the weather and picked the most promising day and headed out with the hope that we could at least sail much of the time. While I don’t recall exactly how much time we sailed, it was quite a bit and for the times that there wasn’t enough wind, at least we were able to motor sail and made good time.
The nearly 200 mile run took us overnight, about 36 hours, and as we approached our chosen anchorage in the afternoon, the wind picked up to the high teens and we were hard on the wind so it felt a lot windier than that. Our landfall was to be sheltered from the wind by a massive cliff on Isola di Marettimo, west of Sicily. We dropped the sail and prepared to anchor but the winds were so gusty, sometimes topping mid 20s and shifting direction every few minutes that it didn’t feel safe to us so we decided to push on another 15 miles to the next island where it would be more protected.
All there was on this side of the island was a lone lighthouse perched on a cliff. I marvel about how these places are built, in such rugged areas.
After a long overnight we really didn’t want to go much farther but, fortunately, the next island, Isola di Favignana, wasn’t that far and we had planned to move there the next morning anyway, as it was on our list to explore. With all that late afternoon wind that last 15 miles was plenty “sporty” and annoying, but we made it, happy to be back in calm conditions. The anchorage was unmemorable, setting aside the super clear water, but it was calm. It also sported a lovely fort high up on the hill above us. Of course! EVERYONE in the Med has a fort or castle in their town.
The view of the fort as we approached the anchorage.
Oddly, in much of Italy, it is not legal to run a dink up on a beach so the only way to get ashore is to swim or go to a dock. Fortunately, there was a small marina nearby and they gave us permission to put the dink there for the day and walk the 20 minutes into town. It wasn’t much but convenient.
The highlight of this island was it’s history as a tuna fishery. Just about everywhere in Italy tuna is a major part of the diet and even though they have been catching them for centuries, it seems that the harvest is sustainable now but has had it’s ups and downs over time.
On this particular island, there was one man, Florio, that made quite a living and his factory, now a museum, was the biggest player in the area, from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s. They harvested perhaps 1,000 tuna a year in fixed nets that captured the tuna on their migration route. That doesn’t seem like a lot of tuna but they were quite large and it was not unusual to see tuna that were enormous by today’s standards.
One way or the other, big or small, there were a lot of them.
And they caught them by circling the fish in the pen with large nets and gaffing them into large open boats.
His big innovation was to can them in olive oil, a practice that continues to this day. The tuna as cooked in large open caldrons.
Then the cooked tuna was scooped out the caldrons with large strainers and sealed into the cans. Not sure, but the cans were likely soldered closed with lead. Not good but that was how it was done prior to the more typical rolled top that we see today.
The cans used were more like a gallon than today’s small cans. He also pioneered the roll top small cans with the key now common for sardines.
This was a very profitable business with a huge footprint on the island. It’s hard to imagine a factory today having such an impressive enclosed courtyard.
A lot of beautiful, if now rusty, wrought iron work.
Along the waterfront, there were bays where the tuna boats were hauled up under cover.
The scale of the operation was impressive and it is amazing that all of the tuna they harvested came from permanent nets strung nearby and harvested using these huge open boats.
This was no ordinary bland factory. The architecture is impressive.
Of course, with all that wealth, he had quite a home in town. It’s now a museum.
Florio also founded a car race in Sicily, the Targa Florio car race. Here is a photo of a Florio competing in one of the early races.
And, if your family has enough money not to ask what it costs to own one, you get a proper steam yacht, in their case, the Aegusa. Follow this link to a description of the yacht. It is a Christies auction page for a painting of the yacht. She was commissioned by Ignazio Florio Jr. and built in Scotland by Scott & Co. of Greenock, to a design by noted yacht designer George Lennox Watson. She was launched in December 1896. She was a 265 ft / 81 m long, roughly 1,057 gross tons, and capable of about 15½ knots. That is fast as even the largest yachts today generally don’t go that fast.
As an aside, Watson, the designer also penned a number of other famous boats, many more well known than Aegusa. They include…
Some of his most notable designs were:
HMY Britannia (1893) — probably his most famous yacht, built for Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. She had an extraordinarily long racing career and won hundreds of prizes; the RNLI later described her as Watson’s most celebrated racing yacht. lifeboatmagazinearchive.rnli.org
Thistle (1887) — Britain’s challenger for the America’s Cup.
Valkyrie II (1893) and Valkyrie III (1895) — two more America’s Cup challengers designed for Lord Dunraven.
Shamrock II (1901) — Sir Thomas Lipton’s America’s Cup challenger. Watson ultimately designed four Cup challengers, though none won the trophy. Science Museum Group Collection
Meteor II (1896) — a major racing cutter built for Kaiser Wilhelm II, another indication of the royal and elite clientele Watson attracted. Classic Sailboats
Rainbow (1898) and Gleniffer (1899) — large, prominent racing schooners from the height of the big-yacht era. Classic Sailboats
Mayflower — another important Watson design that later served as a U.S. presidential yacht.
The name Aegusa was the ancient name for Favignana. She didn’t remain with the Florios long. In 1898–99 she was sold to Sir Thomas Lipton, the tea magnate and famous America’s Cup challenger, who renamed her Erin. She later served as a hospital ship during World War I but ended up sinking when she hit a mine and sunk off Malta in 1916.
And a proper yacht of this scale, especially when steam powered, needs a big crew. Steam yachts were very complex and that alone necessitated a large technical crew. A huge boiler, under pressure, came with big risks of a major explosion.
Sunk, she is now a dive site but only for the most experienced divers as she is in deep water off of Malta.
And speaking of dive sites, the waters near Florio’s factory have seen a lot of action over the centuries with his factory a fairly recent newcomer.
There was an important battle fought near the island, the Battle of the Aegates Islands (Egadi Islands), (the link gives background and information on the discovery of the battle remains) fought on 10 March 241 BC just west of Levanzo, near Favignana. It was the decisive battle of the First Punic War, and it effectively ended Carthaginian control of Sicily and cemented Rome’s dominance of the area.
In particular, these huge, oar powered boats had a large bronze ram affixed to their bow and they would ram the enemy boat to sink her. This is an image of the battle.
Some years ago, the actual site of the battle was discovered, not very far from where we anchored, and more than a dozen of these rams were found along with other artifacts. They are now on display in a number of museums in Italy including at the Florio museum where a large number are on display. These rams were attached to the bow and when in battle, the crew would row like crazy and hit the enemy ship broadside. The ram would crush the hull below the waterline, sinking the ship. The design was specific, broader in the front and fluted to ensure that after impact, the attacker would be able to back up and free the ram from the stricken ship. If they were to get stuck they would be pulled down along with the damaged ship. With 300 oars, that’s a lot of coordinated rowing. I wonder how many rowers make for one horsepower? “Ok men, all forward on my command…. ok, ok, NOW back away, back away, faster, faster. Tonite there will be an extra measure of wine for you tonight. Only, kidding, as we will most likely be sunk too…”
Of course, many of the crew didn’t get that wine as they wend down with the ship, along with a large number of amphora, surely filled with that undrunk wine, discovered at the site.
Life wasn’t all that easy for these guys and contrary to the Hollywood version of crew as slaves, chained to their oars, these were a highly trained paid crew, hundreds of them rowing furiously, along with several hundred soldiers ready to battle in close quarters.
These were very crowded boats with no real option to sleep aboard. They generally went along the coast and stopped to camp ashore every night. Never the less, not a very comfortable life. And, as Brenda likes to say, “sailing is like being in prison with the possibility of drowning.” and a lot of them did…
And, speaking of “going along the coast”, it is just amazing and as we made the last 15 miles to Palermo yesterday, we passed some remarkable scenery.
I am always fascinated by how the haze makes the coastline look in the early light.
Of course, yet more remains of coastal defences.
And the scale of the cliffs with towns nestled along the coast makes me appreciate how small we really are.
This photo gives a good feel for the scale of the cliffs along the coast. Note the tiny fishing boat at the base of the cliff if you look carefully.
And there are plenty of fisherman out looking for tuna.
And some bigger boats too. These carry skiffs and deploy a long net around a school and close the bottom to capture the fish.
Anyway, we are now in Palermo and it is wonderful. The marina, the best that we’ve been to anywhere and all for about $100 a night, and not a lot more expensive than a mere mooring in New England. One thing that is REALLY expensive here is diesel, which costs 2.50 euro per liter, the equivalent of over $11 a US gallon. Painful given how much motoring we are doing.
There is even a huge reflecting pool right outside of the marina that puts on quite a show after dark with jets shooting high in the air. I’ll bet that the crew of those open boats, duking it out thousands of years ago, would have loved to pull (and they did a not of pulling) into this place for a cold one after a hard day of fighting.
I wonder if they were subject to testosterone testing to be sure that they were tough enough? “Ok boys, line up. Sorry, you’re count is a bit low. Toss him over the side. Next…”
Anyway, today Leslie arrives for a few days and it will be fun to watch them swoon over balls of yarn. I understand that Palermo sports a LOT of yarn stores. Perhaps Brenda will tell about how she and Leslie met years ago in an AOL chat room, remember those days? And how Brenda explained to our boys, very young at that time about why they should NEVER connect with “creepy people” in chat rooms.
Well, after decades they are still both knitting and I don’t think either one of them is creepy at all 🙂
We are really enjoying all the old stuff, for sure.
Before I get into what we have been up to for the last few days, yesterday we headed east and spent the night in a lovely little cove. The view at sunset was spectacular.
We were nearly alone with the exception of a few other boats that all left earlier today when we headed out.
There was a small beach but we didn’t have time to go ashore. We did spy a flock of sheep though. Brenda was impressed but not enough to go to the beach.
We had read that the water was very clear and it was. Not a great photo but even in 20′ of water we could see the anchor chain snaking along the bottom.
We passed this Moorish lookout tower, one of many that dot the coastline here dotting the landscape, all within sight of the next one so signals could be sent to warn of bad dudes coming their way. Under the category of “they don’t build them like they used to” these towers look pretty good for being thousands of years old.
At the recommendation of a fellow Cruiser aboard SV Cataleya, who I helped pick up a mooring in Calette di Mare, on the west coast of Sardinia last week, where we had seen the Roman ruins, we decided to stop for a few days in Calaforte, a small island off of the west coast of Sardinia.
The marina, Marinaforte, was beautiful and we also met a lovely couple, Selene and Joe, who charmingly introduced themselves as “Selene as in Celine Dion and Joe, as in GI Joe. We hit it off immediately and had some very nice time together. They split their time between their catamaran Turquoise and home in Switzerland.
We enjoyed our time there so much that we immediately decided that we’d plan on keeping Pandora there for the winter and cancel our reservation in Licata, Sicily, where we put a deposit on months ago. Even though we were told that they were totally booked for the winter Simona, the lovely office manager, pulled some strings and found us a spot. We were thrilled.
Not so fast…
Somehow I thought that I could cancel up until October 1st and get the 1,200 euro deposit back. Not possible…
As much as we enjoy Marinaforte, spending an additional $1,500 so back to the original plan and Licata for the winter it is.
To complicate things further I left our two damaged alternators with the marina in Calaforte for repair and true to form, for such a friendly marina, they are sending them via courier to the marina in Cagliari tomorrow morning. It’s hard to imagine this sort of service in the US and certainly not at Nautica Pinna where even getting a small electrical part from behind the counter we met with a stare that seemed to say “seriously?”.
We so enjoyed our stay in Cartaforte, a beautiful and reasonably priced marina that cost about the same as a mooring in Essex for one night and that included electricity and water. Such a deal.
There is a lovely plaza adjacent to the waterfront. Shade in an impossibly sunny place was welcome.
We had what was perhaps the best meal so far at a lovely little place on one of the narrow streets. Tuna is a specialty here so we had a wonderful simple meal of grilled tuna and some local white wine.
There were countless narrow streets to wander and they took on a very romantic image after dark.
Beautiful buildings, but alas, no castles…
But lots of towers just about everywhere. Just passing another one.
This particular tower was constructed around 1595 during the period of Spanish rule as part of Sardinia’s chain of coastal watchtowers. An armed garrison could warn neighboring towers of approaching Barbary corsairs using smoke by day and fire at night.
And finally, a lighthouse that is nearly new by local standards, built in the mid 1850s a mere 170 or so years ago. TheFaro di Capo Spartivento lighthouse was constructed by the Italian Navy. It was damaged by American aircraft during World War II and later served as the lighthouse keepers’ residence. The light remains operational and is now automated.
After years of neglect, the building was restored and converted into a very exclusive small hotel—apparently the first Italian lighthouse converted for luxury accommodation—while continuing to function as a navigational light. The dirt access road is restricted, so ordinary visitors generally approach on foot. It may be fancy but to get there you will have to work up a sweat before arriving. Hopefully, the offer an adult welcome drink. And when you see the bill, more than a thousand a night, You’ll need it.
More to come from our few days in Cagliari so stay tuned. And no, we won’t be staying at the lighthouse, if you were wondering.
After that, an overnight to Sicily. Who know what that will bring. More changes in the wind, I expect.
We finally left Bosa a few days after I finished the installation of the new inverter and alternator along with a number of other “to do” items, I felt pretty worn out. For a few days after that, Brenda and I just relaxed and enjoyed Bosa.
The last day that we were there turned out to be a special holiday for Catholics with processions that wound through the narrow Medieval streets. Brenda did a wonderful post that gives a great feel for what that last few days were like before we departed. I won’t repeat all that here so click to see what Brenda wrote.
I will, however, put up this photo of her. We had stumbled on this lovely restaurant earlier that day. It turned out to be the best meal we had in Bosa. What a charming spot.
The streets were full of the faithful.
Definately check out Brenda’s post above or you will miss a lot.
We topped up the fuel and headed about 25 miles south to well protected bay that has been used for thousands of years.
For the first time since we entered the Med, we had a spectacular day of sailing. Hardly a ripple and a lovely breeze. I did a short video as we glided along on a broad reach.
You can see our location as the red spot about half the way down the coast. The end of the course is where we will head after our two day stay here.
The bay, the Gulf of Orisanto, is one of the few on the western coast of Sardinia, has been used for thousands of years as witnessed by ruins of a significant Roman settlement, complete with two reconstructed columns. Nice view from the bow of Pandora. Brenda told me that the bay was called the Dead Sea by the Romans as it was always “dead calm”. Calm is good…
We chose this spot in large part as a well sheltered harbor but as a plus, the ruins of Tharros are amazing. People have lived in this area for nearly 3,000 years, beginning with a Nuragic settlement before the Phoenicians established an important trading center here in the 8th century BC. It later came under Carthaginian control and, following Rome’s conquest of Sardinia in 238 BC, developed into a substantial Roman city.
The site is well organized with carefully constructed walkways winding through what was once an important Roman outpost. I found it humbling to know that as Pandora rides on a mooring (you can’t anchor here as it is a protected area and they don’t want anchors to damage the underwater grass areas) and it is humbling to share spot where boats/ships have anchored for thousands of years. The site includes the remains of streets that Romans walked nearly 2,000 years ago as well as foundations of houses, temples and baths along with an amazingly sophisticated water and sewer system.
Of course, what is a visit to Roman ruins without a shot of Pandora framed by the remains of a building thousands of years old. She’s a tiny spot on the right hand side of the left column. The view reminded me of our own insignificance.
The setting is spectacular on this narrow isthmus with remains on both the protected harbor as well as the sea on the narrow peninsula.
High above the Roman city is the massive stone Tower of San Giovanni, built centuries after the Romans left by the Spanish as part of a coastal defense system intended to provide warning of raiders approaching from the sea. I climbed the tower and can only imagine what it was like to be there when invaders were a constant menace.
Brenda watched, I climbed.
The view extends for miles along the coast and across the Gulf of Oristano. On the ocean side wide sandy beaches. The color of the water is hard to believe.
Tharros remained inhabited for centuries after the Roman Empire declined, but by about 1070 the settlement was largely abandoned and its inhabitants moved inland to what became Oristano. I guess that was because there weren’t as many bad guys pestering them. Standing above the ruins and looking out over the sea, it isn’t difficult to understand why this beautiful and strategically important spot attracted one civilization after another and is still a draw today.
As the sun rises in the east, the morning light casts a beautiful warm glow on everything. Not a bad view to wake up to.
But it really gets interesting in the evening as the sun sets to the west.
After dark they light it beautifully.
Made even more magical as the moon rises.
I’ll admit that after how hard it was to work my way through the equipment issues this spring along with the trials at the marina in Bosa, and not to forget getting attacked by orcas near Gibraltar, it is more than worth it now that we are underway and visiting places that I could never have dreamed of when Brenda and I started sailing together on our 20′ catboat back in the late 70s. She looked pretty fetching if you ask me.
As we sailed, what we thought was a long way, the 15 miles between Norwalk and Port Jefferson on weekends, the idea that someday we would cruise much of the US east coast, Cuba, the Bahamas, eastern Caribbean and now across the Atlantic Ocean, would have seemed like a pipe dream. And yes, it would have been.
And, as I have remarked, it really wasn’t until we landed here in the Med, that Brenda has felt at least a little bit “at home” visiting places we couldn’t have imagined when we were just starting out as a newly married couple. Actually, come to think of it, had I mentioned dreams like this I think that Brenda would have run for the exits.
So here I am, nearly two weeks after arriving in Bosa and Pandora is finally everyting is fixed and we are nearly ready to go. Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but I do have a few “tiny” projects to do but at least we are up and running.
Getting repairs done and Pandora back in shape was quite a project, more than one. The good thing is that Brenda and I had rented a room in in the old quarter, a lovely neighborhood. My girl decked out with a hibiscus in her hair and a really nice blouse that she sewed herself. Only God can make a flower but Brenda can make her clothes. Handy girl.
Projects are finally done and Pandora is safely on the dock with AC running happily. So last night we took the dink into town and had a lovely dinner. The atmosphere was magical and with cooler temperatures finally here, I even wore long pants.
After the two kilometer run up the river, skimming along, we tucked the dink into a spot on the dock between two local fishing boats in the center of town. We headed to our favorite bar for negronis made with local vermouth. They were fabulous and a great way to celebrate finally being ready to depart which we expect to do tomorrow, Monday.
While we were eating dinner later we saw a shrine to the Virgin Mary that had been set up on the town square fountain, not ten feet from where we were sitting.
Half way through our order of steamed mussels we heard a brass band in the distance. They emerged from a narrow alleyway and passed us. It was quite a spectacle.
The link looks nasty but give it a try and see what we saw. For some reason when I put up short videos and they end up in “shorts” they never render correctly here.
We also visited the big church in town and it was in full swing with a choir singing. We were both quite moved.
All and all, it was a magical evening and especially needed after so many days struggling to install the alternator and charger/inverter.
The city looks so wonderful in the evening, especially the fort on the hill.
The waterfront all lit up in a warm glow.
And on the river on our way back to Pandora.
It was a great way to finally celebrate being finished, at least for now, with repairs to Pandora.
I have written, and complained, about the lack of communication from Nautical Pinna, the yard in Bosa, Sardinia as well as the individual that I hired to keep things on track for repairs to Pandora in Almerimar, Spain last winter. While some of the needed work done, and was fine, getting information from the yards and contractors was excruciating. But the biggest problem is that the more complex jobs, like sourcing a proper alternator or charger/inverter was just not possible in Almerimar or Bosa.
When I agreed to bring Pandora to Bosa I had no idea how much work would be needed but as work on the charger/inverter never happened in Almerimar, Pandora arrived with a completely dead unit and a failed, the second one, alternator on the engine. And to add insult to injury, my starter battery suddenly failed. Thanks to the builder for putting a combiner button to start the engine with the house bank.
Anyway, by the time Pandora was hauled in Bosa the list of repairs was long.
After months of sending notes to the yard secretary, the only person in the yard that speaks any English, and getting only occasional replies, I realized that I had to bring along the alternator and inverter/charger as excess luggage and install them myself. That seemed to be a good idea but, as is always the case with boat jobs, getting the equipment into service was no simple task and has ultimately taken me a week and a half to accomplish.
I should note that while I am generally a handy guy, I am totally out of my depth when it comes to electronics and when a possible failure of the new units, from a bad installation on my part, and no way to source new ones on a timely basis, my anxiety was at an all time high as I began putting everything together.
Access to the alternator on the engine was the first step but the new alternator looked very different than the old one so the wiring was not obvious and Balmar’s information on hookup was marginal at best.
The new alternator didn’t quite line up to where the old unit was installed and some modifications needed and with having two fail in the last year, I could not risk a third.
To help sort all of this out, enter Chat GPT to help interpret the instructions. I subscribe to a low level of “thinking” and with a lot of back and forth, the alternator was finally in and functioning. Note that this photo was taken before I had tidied up all the wires so don’t think that I am a sloppy installer, just confused.
Putting the new alternator in place was only half of the job as the unit has an external controller to ensure that the alternator is not overworked, a problem when feeding lithium batteries which can accept power so fast that the alternator, in the hot engine compartment, can quickly overheat. I didn’t realize that when the yard installed the lithium batteries a few years ago, they did not install a temperature sensor on the alternator, a critical piece of equipment that will turn down the unit when it gets too hot. Well, as it turns out, that is likely what killed the two prior alternators and here I am still without a sensor on the new unit. I didn’t know then what I didn’t know. Now I do…
The first time I turned it on it ran up to full output and quickly reached dangerous a dangerous temperature. What I also did not fully appreciate was that the external alternator controller had not been set to limit output so the alternator was immediately working too hard. Now I know that the original lithium installers had not adjusted the unit appropriately, in addition to not installing a temperature sensor.
This was clearly another example of “I didn’t know then what I didn’t know.” Now I know that the best way to solve overheating, without an temperature probe, is to limit output to about half of what it is rated for. The settings are complicated but with support from AI, I was able to configure the controller and after several test runs of the engine, things seem to be ok. I will still have to get a temp sensor but for now fingers crossed.
This was the first time that I had ever used AI to work on something technical and in some ways it helped a lot and in other ways, made it much harder.
I was able to point it toward key installation instructions and after a few moments of “thinking”, it came back with a recommendation. Mostly, this worked but it often contradicted itself and asked for repeated testing, which became very frustrating. However, by the time I got to the inverter/charger, the stakes were that much higher and after a few days fussing over two wires and here they went, I upgraded to a higher level plan which did the trick.
Sadly, the inverter/charger is squeezed behind some complex cabinetry which had to be completely removed.
It took hours to remove all of it, nearly a whole day. Cabinetry removed and all the mess exposed. The Magnum is very heavy and I had to get someone from the yard to heft out the old one and put in the new unit. Along the way the backing board that everything is attached to came free so I had to have them re-epoxy the board back in place. That was a day long setback.
At the “height” of these projects, the boat was totally trashed. And with temperatures in the upper 90s, and Pandora on the hard with no AC, it was HOT working all day.
After getting someone to hoist the new unit into place, now my job was to put all the wires back where they were before I took the old unit apart. I was careful to take a photograph of the wires and where they were in the original installation. Simple enough but for one small detail. There are two blue and two brown and once I had removed them I had no idea where they should go back in the new unit. And that turned out to be a very BIG DEAL that took several days of back and forth to solve. Oh boy, what s..t show that turned out to be. I am generally pretty good about marking wires and taking photos but missed on this one badly.
See two brown and two blue. Oops for not marking which went into which slot. HUGE mistake.
Of course, my biggest concern was if I switched blues or browns incorrectly and caused a fault, my new $2k charger/inverter would end up in the trash and I would be here in Sardinia with no way to get a new one.
So, I consulted with AI. FOR SEVERAL DAYS and we went around and around, testing and retesting and never being quite certain if it was ok. Finally, fairly confident that I was good to go, I energized the system and it worked. Well, sort of worked and didn’t blow up, which was good. One of the cabin outlets worked but the AC, water heater and all the rest of the outlets were dead. Obviously one or more of the blue and brown wires were swapped. Which one?
I spent a day, or was it two?, on this question, with support from AI, with no solution. Was it ok to just swap one and see what happened? I wasn’t confident, nor was AI, that this would be ok and finally after hour after hour, testing and retesting, I decided to upgrade to a higher level of AI thinking, something that my son Chris had suggested a few days earlier.
Somehow in all the fun I had forgotten about that but finally did and within a few hours we had firm answer. Just swap two wires and everything worked. I could have cried I was so relieved and Brenda could have strangled me for taking so long to do the right thing.
I sure wish that I could upgrade my thinking. Alas, no luck with that and in the heat, even worse. What? How do I do that? Huh
So, when all is said and done, it seems that the primary issue with both the inverter/charger and the alternator was high temperature. In the tight cabinet the Inverter/charger was getting too hot and the cooling fan that had been there was no longer working. I didn’t appreciate the risk I was taking by not replacing it. Done now, of course and on a programable thermostat that turns it on and off as needed by a nifty devise I purchased on Amazon.
We all know that heat kills, something that has been coming up more and more with the warming climate. And, it turns out that the most logical explanation of what killed my alternator, or two, and my inverter/charger was heat. Hopefully dialing back the alternator output and putting in the fan for the inverter/charger will do the trick. An expensive lesson, to be sure.
Enough of that for now, I hope.
This morning we were treated to a beautiful sunrise and we will be off tomorrow to begin exploring Sardinia and other places to the south.
Yes, a beautiful day with no more fixing stuff that I don’t understand. But if I do, at least I can lean on AI to help.
