Good News Tonight!

SHIP'S LOG:

It turns out that the problem with the engine was the direct result of bad engineering. Sometime back in the distant past, probably when the last owner had the top end of the engine rebuilt, someone decided, for reason known only to them and God, to install a check valve in one of the oil return lines Basically what this did was lengthen the time (and the route) it took of the oil, which cools the engine, to circulate through the oil cooler. Now why this was done no one could figure out, not even the Ford Lehman people who were the parent company for the engine. The check valve was removed and the oil circulated and there was now leaking and the oil was cooler and the engine ran cooler and all is right in the world (figuratively speaking.)

As i have mentioned before, the mysteries of electricity and things that use electricity are something akin to voodoo and/or magic, at least to me. The perfect example is the windlass problem. As far as I could tell, it didn't work and I expected a burnt solenoid, a bad switch, ashorted motor in the windlass itself, a bad connection along the wire run, a bad circuit breaker, gremlins or all or most of the above in some ghastly (and expensive) combination. I took a multi-meter and tested the connections at the solenoid and got no indication of power. I moved back to the foreward head where the LECTROSAN ( the electric masticator for the toilet) had been attached to the boat's electrical grid and from which point the power also went to the windlass. I had removed the LECTROSAN, a super consumer of electrical power) as there is no way you can legally use it in US Waters anymore, so why have it. The connections in the head were no strictly for the windlass. I tested the connection and got a power reading of "12.83 Volts DC" - very good and then tied to find where the power disappeared from the there to the solenoid in the forepeak. There were no other connection from one spot to the next that could have become disengaged. I tested the solenoid again, no voltage. I went back to the head, and tried it again and got . . no voltage! Thinking that perhaps I had somehow read it wrong, I threw on the main power switch and retested only to find that i still got no readings!

In desparation, I call Done the Electrician Magician who works in the shipyard and he stopped by as he was leaving for the day. Using a "continuity tester" a length of wire with a probe contain a light at one and and an alligator clip at the other. When you hook it up right, the light will light. With the main power on, we tested the circuit breaker for the windlass and got light. We moved to the head and checked that connection and got light. Went to the solenoid and tested . . . the right terminals. Evidently, I had mistaken a big fat black wire coming off the solenoid as "the ground' when it was a much smaller wire. In fact, the big, fat, black wire I thought was a ground turned out to be the "hot " wire that actually fed the windlass instead. well, testing the right terminals on the solenoid got us LIGHT!!!!!!!. So the windlass should work. I went up on deck and hit the switch adn the windlass crank happily away. Strange as it may sound, I evidently never had the main power on whenever I had tested the windlass and so assumed that it didn't work. And so, when the pwoer was on, I never bothered to hit the switch. Evidently, electricaldevices require power to operate effectively. Who would have thought ? ? ? ? ? ?

MASTER'S PERSONAL LOG:

The broker called to inform me that 1.) he was losing his office int eh Shipyard but would have an office in downtown Mystic and he still want my business! (What business?) Secondly, he had a inquiry from some dude in Canada who knew Camper Nicholson and was interested. (Yeah, sure!) If he shows up for a test sail then we may have something, but til then I refuse to get excited.

Hopefully, this weekend sometime will see ABISHAG back at TYC. Still a wee chilly. I've not gotten the sails back from the loft. The motor is running fine so I can always motor over. Summer's here and the time is right for dancing in the street! ! ! ! or sailing on the sound.