The weather was predicted to be bad today, so we decided to finish off the jobs below deck. The biggest of these is to clean the bilges under the floorboards in the main cabin. Tricia's training with the Clipper Race comes to the fore, Robin Knox Johnson insists that every boat in the race is deep cleaned after every leg, and seeing the good sense in this, we have adopted the same practice. No sooner had I been round undoing all of the (58, I counted) screws that hold the floorboards in place, and lifted the first 2 sections of floor, than some guys arrived, saying that our long awaited new batteries had arrived and they would soon be with us to install them. The batteries were the one thing that suffered during the nearly 2 years that we were prevented from being on the boat by Covid. They need to be regularly both used and recharged. At the end of last season we had a power failure at one point, and investigation revealed that the batteries were shot. So over the winter we took the easy decision that they had to be replaced, and the order was placed in February. When we arrived, we were told that they hadn't arrived, and there have been a few predictions about when they would get here. Anyway, rejoice, today was the day.
I replaced the floorboards and stood back while they started work. Very soon there was a bit of head scratching and phone calls to their boss. The new batteries are a completely different size and shape to the old ones, and the restraints that keep them in place will not fit. The new batteries also have a different connection on the top, so they was going to need to be changed as well. They were having to use hand tools only at this point, as there was a power cut to the boatyard and surrounding district. After a while, it was lunchtime and they went away, saying that they would be back in half an hour. Well 30 minutes came and went, and we concluded that we could not just wait, so I set to cleaning the bilges again. 2 hours later, when I was just screwing down the last of the screws, they came back, with the boss guy and armed with the necessary connections. All proceeded for a while with 2 guys working on the battery bank on one side of the boat and 1 on the other. The next consternation was that the terminals on the batteries were not on the same corners as before, so the "perfect fit" wiring already in place was going to have to be changed as well. The power to the boatyard was restored by now. With bodies and tools all over the place, then another guy arrived to re-gas the fridges. We had some trouble identifying where the motor for one fridge was and the boss guy asked me to turn the fridges on. I said I couldn't and when he asked why, I pointed to the rest of his team, busily working on the electrical systems. You do sometimes make assumptions that miss the most obvious problem. After making the poor fridge guy hand around for a while, we managed to locate the motor and by then there were sufficient batteries connected to allow the fridges to run and he could start his work.
Suddenly, everything came together. The tools were being put away and we have neatly installed, super duper batteries, and fully functional efficient fridges. The supply of ice cubes for the gin and tonics is assured!
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Steve (and Tricia)
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