It’s mid morning and we are 75 miles off of the GA coast and about 2/3 of the way toward Ft Pierce, our destination, where I will leave Pandora until Brenda and I return after Christmas to prepare for our run to the Bahamas.

We are motor sailing close hauled and making fairly slow progress which is a bit frustrating. However, our overall run has been pretty good as we sailed at quite a clip for the first 24 hours at the rate of about 200 miles a day. We expect that the winds will again be favorable once we cross into Florida early tomorrow morning and hope to sail the last 100 miles with a good NW wind behind us.

As both Jim and I have already purchased return flights from the BVI, neither one of us is too keen on paying for yet another airline ticket. With that in mind, I’ll be renting a car and we will drive straight through to Jim’s home in Wiliamsburg VA, beginning on Sunday. It’s not ideal but at least it won’t be too expensive. Such are the complexities of moving boats around.

There’s not much to report except that nothing more has broken and I feel like I understand Pandora a lot better.

One thing that I understand now is the refrigeration and if I knew then what I knew then, I would not have aborted my run and would be in the BVI by now. What I learned is that the fridge doesn’t cool well when we are in rough conditions or going fast, as the cooling pump draws in too much aerated water to properly provide cooling for the compressor. This problem could likely be eliminated by putting a new thru-hull in with a forward facing scoop, much like what is used on an engine water intake. In addition, it is commonly known that when water passes over a flush hole in the hull a vacuum is created, known as the venturi effect. As Pandora is such a fast boat, this effect causes the water pump to work much harder, against that vacuum, causing the compressor to overheat. The watermaker suffers a similar problem so I’ll have to replace that thru-hull as well. The Spectra watermaker instructions specifically warn of this problem as a cause of premature pump failure, something that I have already “enjoyed” on Pandora. For now, the simple solution is for me to just turn off the refrigeration and only cycle it as needed and not to allow it to draw down the temperature quite as low, thereby reducing the run time on the unit and minimizing overheating. It’s really unfortunate that I wasn’t aware of this sooner as great deal of frustration and expense could have been avoided.

Oh well, at least I know now.

We haven’t been in close contact with many boats for the last day or so but have talked to a few that have showed up on AIS. In particular, I was amused by a 70′ sport fisherman called “18 reeler”. The captain had a thick southern accent and I couldn’t help wondering if he made his money in the trucking business. Oh yeah, we have also had plenty of dolphins keeping us company, which is always fun.

I guess that’s about all for now as we make our way south. Oh yeah, we are officially into warm water so it’s shorts and light shirts, even at night.

If you have been watching my track on “were in the world is Pandora” you are likely scratching your head as to exactly why Pandora is underway and moving south along the US coast. So, here’s what’s going on.

Taking care of all of the “details” following our romp in the Gulf Stream at the beginning of the Salty Dawg Rally took a full five days on the Morehead City docks.  I won’t reiterate all of the issues, most of which I detailed in previous posts, but the list included plenty of items with the final task to replace the missing set-screws in the jib roller furler that were missing.

The absence of these fasteners meant that one of the upper extrusions was shifting and wore away the bolt rope and damaged part of the jib. I didn’t realize that this was a problem until we attempted to re-hoist the repaired jib. The repair required two metric set screws and finding the right size turned out to be fairly difficult and involved a cab ride to a local hardware store, a sort of nautical scavenger hunt ending with success in finding what ended up being two $30 set screws that should have cost about $1 each.

Anyway, when we had finally ticked off most of the items and I had time to begin thinking about what I was going to do next. Of course, the major issue was crew as the three had signed on for two weeks and that meant that heading out again for the BVI was not going to work as we’d never get there within the two week window.

My first thought was just to leave the boat in Beaufort, head home and then return after Thanksgiving and run to the BVI then. Yes, that seemed like a good idea. However, the rub was that getting crew to sign on for two weeks during the holidays seemed to me like a very tall order so back to the drawing board.

Ok, I’ll just continue on to Ft Pierce FL, leave the boat there and head back there after Christmas and spend the winter in the Bahamas. That seemed to be a reasonable idea even though I was very disappointed to give up the BVI after so much planning and anticipation.

After saying that we’d be leaving the boat in Beaufort, Ken and Cathy made other plans which meant that I lost them for the run to FL. Fortunately, Jim agreed to stay on and help me with the rest of the delivery. So, as I write this the two of us are working our way down the coast and should be in Ft Pierce FL late Friday or Saturday.

We left Beaufort yesterday afternoon and had a rough sail overnight with winds gusting near 30kts on a close reach. As there had been very strong winds from the south for the previous few days, the seas were pretty rough and confused as the winds clocked from the south to the west and finally NW, but we made good progress passing all boats that we encountered along the way and covering 100 miles in 12 hours, a pretty impressive run.

I expect that the remainder of the run will involve a lot of motoring but at least the boat will be where it needs to be and all settled in. So, after Christmas Brenda and I will either fly or drive south and rejoin Pandora in late December.

All and all, this run has been much more of a shakedown cruise than I had envisioned with all sorts of little surprises along the way. Hopefully, now that I know the boat better, this winter will be more relaxing and less of the “boat repair in exotic places” that it has been.

So, with the BVI totally “busted” I am hopeful that Brenda and I will have a fun winter in the Bahamas. It should surely beat the sub-zero temperatures of New England.

For now, continuing to head south to Florida and then on to home. Yes, home, I am getting a bit home sick, and can’t wait to see Brenda again, that’s for sure.

Ok, now I get it.  The last few weeks preparing for the Salty Dawg Rally and finding my way, sometimes painfully, to Morehead City NC has really been a shake-down cruise, an opportunity to get to know Pandora on an intimate level and better understand her and her systems.

On “old Pandora”, I had installed much of her equipment myself so I knew what to look for and exactly how to deal with most situations.  With Pandora “new”, It’s more like a scavenger hunt, where every little experience is a mystery and sometimes I really have no clue even if I think I know what I am dealing with.  “exactly where is that electrical smell coming from?”, “did the fridge compressor cut out because it is overheating or did it reach it’s set point and exactly what temperature is that anyway?”.

An Aerodyne 47 is a very complicated boat, well at least compared to other boats that I have owned, and sometimes I don’t even know if something is broken or not.  I just have NO IDEA what I am looking for.   Do I furl up the sail cover or leave it in place when I reef.  Furl it.  Now I know, furl it.  That was a painful lesson as I spent much of yesterday making minor repairs from when I reefed and didn’t furl.  It’s a big cover but between me and Cathy, we were able to maneuver it around in the cabin and get everything in order.   It’s all about attention to detail.  Pretty good work for an amateur, I think.Getting the sailcover off of the boom and back on was “magic” as Jim, Ken and Cathy handled the whole process.  I did the sewing.

How about getting to know her jib?  I patched the vinyl window and an area on the luff that had chafed on a rough part of the roller track where a rivet had broken, who knows how long ago.  Not serious but I’ll have it properly repaired next summer when she’s laid up for a few months. I also received the watermaker pump head yesterday (Just how much does Saturday delivery have to cost?  Really?) and installed it.  I was getting concerned that I couldn’t back-flush the unit as required without a properly functioning pump.  All better now.

It felt pretty good to have “most” of the details worked out, both things that broke and those that just needed attending to that I didn’t even know about.  All and all, the chores took about three full days, or was it four?  And that included a lot of help from crew.   Happily, they have been very good natured about the “change of plans”.   Perhaps it was the “Pandora made” biscuits.  No, it was probably the rum. Having cold beer on hand helped too.  Did I mention that the fridge is working again?  Actually, it always worked.  That was a hard lesson.

Glad to have all of that behind me.  Well, until things get “interesting” again.  And speaking of that, I am now looking for crew and expect to try to make my run to the BVI again a few days after Thanksgiving now that I know Pandora just a bit better.

Chores or not, I did make time yesterday to watch what is billed as “the largest Veteran’s Day Parade in all of North Carolina”.   Not sure how that compares to other “largest Veteran’s Day Parades”, but it boasted a LOT of very enthusiastic participants, throwing candy at spectators, and went on and on.  The procession took nearly two hours to pass.  With a number of big military bases nearby, there was some really impressive hardware.

This one would be right at home in the desert.How many helicopters do you see in your local parade?And, who doesn’t love the old Jeeps?I was trying to get my head around these little trucks and wondered how many beers it took when someone said, “hey guys, let’s build little trucks and drive them in public a few times a year and no, I don’t mean those embarrassing golf carts that look like a Corvette.   I am talking totally ridiculous.  Can I Have another Bud?”  “Here you go, Elmer. I want a mini truck too!”“No wait, I have an even better idea…  How about a motorized land boat?  And let’s make ten of them that match and drive them in circles as we move down the street.”“It will be awesome.  I’ll make a shrimp boat with wheels.”“I can make my golf cart into a Jet fighter.  It will look just like the one I flew in Nam.”“And we’ll have my buddy Jake bring his hot air balloon basket so he can blast flames into the air.”“I once saw the Blue Angles perform.  I’ll modify The Wife’s old Harley.  I am sure she’ll love it.”“Guys, what about me?  I want one too and I have always said that if I was going to drive a car that was REALLY tiny, it would be yellow.  Yes, bright yellow with red pin-striping. and real green running boards.”So, there you have it, from the sublime to the ridiculous and you will just have to decide which is the sublime and which is, well not so…

For better or worse, I now know more about Pandora than I did before I left CT.  And, as my dad used to say, “that’s more about penguins than you probably ever wanted to know”, and this is only the beginning.

How about another shakedown cruise in December?  Then I’ll really know her, all about her.  Well, except the things that I’ll learn later.

It’s early Saturday morning and here I sit in Morehead City NC aboard Pandora after aborting my attempt to get to the BVI.

In my last post, I talked about multiple equipment failures and my decision to head back across the Gulf Stream and stop near Beaufort to get things sorted out.

Faced with white smoke and an overpowering smell of electrical burning, I was convinced that my refrigeration had crapped out along with several other problems during our rough crossing of the Gulf Stream.

The real clincher was the “failure” of the refrigeration that made a stop seem like a really good idea.  So, as much as it depressed me to accept it, heading back to land was the sensible thing to do and the idea of arriving with a freezer of rotting meat wasn’t something that I wanted to think about.

Ok,trip aboarted and with a day and a half to sort through things, what really happened?

It all started with water in the propane locker that leaked into the interior of the boat through some inadequately caulked holes where wires passed through the bulkhead.  Salt water had built up in the locker as we thrashed along in heavy conditions and when we tacked to get a better angle on an “eddy” south of the stream, the water that had built up in the locker leaked through those holes and spilled all over the solar controller which was located right under some wires.

When I opened up the unit there was evidence that this had happened in the past but the controller decided to “croak” this particular time and boy it was a dramatic end.  As it was overcast and rainy when all of this was going on, it never occurred to me that all that white smoke could come from way back there and I incorrectly assumed that the refrigeration was the culprit.    One thing for sure is that it could have been worse, much worse.   I shudder to think what might have happened had there been “fire where there was smoke” in an area so inaccessible. Is is possible to love a blown fuse?   Let me count the ways…

Ken, Jim and Cathy, my crew, have been great and helped me remove everything from the “leaky lockers” as well as the “not so dry” interior aft compartment to get it washed and dry on the dock.  I sprayed out the interior section and set up an electric heater to work to dry everything out.   I caulked the leaky spots, inside and out to be sure, , make that double sure,  that this won’t happen again.

All was cleaned up by early afternoon so I turned my attention to the “doused” controller.

How could so much go wrong at the same time? Hard to believe that the fridge, controller and Oh yeah, the watermaker, which I forgot to mention, could all have problems at the exact same time.

Ok, controller issue resolved.  Could it possibly be that the fridge wan’t messed up after all?  I turned it on.  IT WORKED!  Can you believe it?  I had turned off a perfectly functioning piece of equipment.  Who knew.   I couldn’t decide if I was happy or sad that it worked.  I had aborted my run to the BVI for a “mission critical” failure that hadn’t failed.  The real culprit was the controller, something that I could easily have replace once I got there.

Can you believe it?  Isn’t 20/20 just great?  However, when faced with white smoke and the smell of an electrical fire while out at sea I made my best guess and I was wrong.    Now that I am writing this, I realize that it could have been worse, much worse, as it never occurred to me that the problem was way aft in a locker that “doesn’t get wet”.   The smoke and odor was coming from the solar controller, not the fridge.  Who knew?

Ok, it seems that the refrigerant is a bit low but that’s going to be addressed today.  Not a big deal.

But wait, there’s more.  I also have this automated watermaker that needs to backflush every 5 days to avoid damaging the membrane when it’s not being used and I discovered that it wasn’t backflushing any more.  Oops.  Great, another failure to deal with.  Good news, it looks like the fix is going to be fairly simple but I won’t know till later today when the part arrives from RI.  Can you say $68.47 for Saturday delivery?  That’s just the shipping. Don’t ask about what the part cost, you don’t want to know.  Hell, I don’t want to know.

Of course, the big question is “what about the BVI?”  I talked to Brenda and she still wants to spend the winter there so I’ll be recruiting crew for “yet another attempt” and hope to depart right after Thanksgiving.  All of this sounds like I am preparing for an expedition to ascend K2.  Is it me or does leisure really need to be so exhausting?  Hmm….

I do hope that we can salvage all of this and get to the BVI this season.  Besides, our friends Maureen and Bill on Kaloonamo (did I spell that right?)  are making the run from Trinidad to the BVI to meet up with us so we really have to be there… Right?

Almost forgot… When we arrived here my crew bought me dinner as they felt so sorry for me.  A sort of “pitty dinner” and it sure tasted great.  A cold beer… Thanks, I needed that.

I guess that the moral of the story is that things aren’t always as they seem.  However, a rough passage white electrical smoke? Better safe than sorry.

Editor note:  My brother Bill is going to be pissed.  Yet another post with no pictures.  Too busy fixing F%$#@$% problems to take photos.

 

If you have been following the Salty Dawg Rally group page I expect that you are scratching your head about my change of course.  Unfortunately, yesterday our refrigeration died and with a freezer full of food and week left until we would have arrived in the BVI, I decided to divert to Beaufort NC where I can (hopefully) get this resolved.  Having said that, it won’t be that easy as the unit isn’t manufactured any longer and repair parts have to come from CA, if they have them at all.  With that in mind, I have arranged for a refrigeration tech to look at the unit tomorrow and he will speak with the tech support person in CA to see if it’s a simple fix or worse.  Fingers crossed…

Oh yeah.  If you were wondering what I will be doing with all that frozen food that I have gone on and on about in past posts, wonder no longer.  I have arranged to have the food stored in the freezer at the marina.  It seems that they have a commercial freezer and are nice folks to boot.   Kay says, “of course we can help y’all.  We wouldn’t want all that good food to go to waste now, would we?”

We will be getting a slip at Port Side Marina in Morehead City for a few days, likely much longer if the fridge unit has to be sent to CA for repair.  With that in mind, I have to believe that the Caribbean isn’t going to be in the picture for this season.  It’s getting late and I don’t expect that there is enough time left to make the run without getting new crew for the run and all the complexities that go along with that.  Of course, there’s always the Bahamas and that wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

A number of other little gear issues crept up as it was just so rough and windy in the Gulf Stream. I broke a batten car on the mainsail and also managed to break the handle off of one of the line clutches on the mast when it caught on the luff of the sail as I was shaking out a reef.   I also discovered that the small viewing window in the jib is broken and while it isn’t a major structural part of the jib, it would be best to have that fixed too.

But wait, there’s more.  The main has an integrated sail cover and I didn’t realize that I could tie it to the boom so that it would be out of the way when I put in the reef.  Alas, when I reefed, the luff of the sail tore a number of fastenings on the cover which I’ll need to repair.   Good news, I have a sewing machine on board, and that’s something even I can fix.  Yahoo!!!

A particularly amusing problem (not) was that while we were sailing hard on a port tack for about 36 hours, a good amount of water backed up through the transom vent into the “watertight” locker where the propane cans are housed.  Unfortunately, some of this water leaked into the area under the cockpit where some sensitive electronics are located when we tacked.  Earlier in the season, I had noticed that there was a hole in the locker bulkhead where some wires went from the locker into the interior of the boat, that wasn’t properly caulked.  I should have fixed it but I never thought that it would fill with that much water.  As a result, I will need to clean up the small amount of salt that got on some of the equipment to be sure that no long term problems crop up.  Such are the tribulations of owning a new boat.

Frankly, most of these are all little issues but given the fact that the refrigeration is not working I decided to divert and get everything fixed at once.

Of course, the question that naturally comes to mind would be “what’s next”?  That’s a good question and beyond immediate repairs, and I’ll have to take that up with Brenda first and and my crew second, I doubt that there is enough time to get from Beaufort to the BVI in the two week window that I have allowed so it will certainly involve new crew.

That’s a bummer and to add insult to injury, I have already booked my flight home from the BVI and flights back there for me and Brenda after Christmas.

So, “where in the world will Pandora go now?”  That’s an excellent question but the only thing I know for sure is that we are headed back for landfall and I won’t need my passport to step on the dock, just a credit card.

As is so often the case, it all comes down to food and all I know for sure is that it will stay frozen, compliments of Kay and her good southern hospitality.

What’s next for Pandora?  Beats the Hell outa me, but for sure it’s going to involve Brenda, palm trees and perhaps a Kalik beer. Things could be worse, much worse.