Rematch

False start today. Grandpa Germain came down from Magog last night specifically so that we could start work at the crack of dawn. The plan was to lift and re-block the boat at 10am, in conjunction with the removal of the dagger board.  In preparation, we had to clear the boat of the dodger and bimini frame, davits, 330ft of 3/8 chain, the workbench and stairs.  Everything was done in time, including re-thinking the interior-board lifting/dropping contraption.

Despite our preparations,the owner of the boat that was already on the travelift didn't show up until 10h30, which delayed us by over an hour.  In the end, the lift freed up at 11h30, the workers told us we’d need stop for lunch in the middle of the job, got the lift in position , installed the slings and took the tension and that was it for the morning.

Upon our return from lunch, the owner of the yard met up with us, explained that the ground was too soft, that the travelift will sink, the guys didn't use support planks, it rained too much, blah-blah-blah..... can’t do it today. We have to wait until the ground dries up, we’ll try again next week.  Grrr.  Smells like, “We’re running late and we promised the lift to someone else this afternoon” but hey, it’s true that everything tends to sink in around here and what’s the point in arguing.  We’ll have to revise our plans. 

We’ll spare you the first 4 lines of this post again in reverse: We put everything back.  Then we decided to use up our bad mood on the centerboard.  We soon realized that the foot (the part that’s aft in the trunk) is light enough to be moved by hand. Not like taken-for-a-walk moved,  but enough to wiggle the forward top end that’s stuck and that does the trick: It moves, just enough to get stuck on another obstacle, a steel stopper plate welded across the bottom that defines where the board stops after it rotates.  Plan B; we lift the foot all the way into the trunk, hoping to slide the board out head first. Plong! Bit of a hard landing, but it's good thing done.  The boat will still have to be raised to free it completely, but at least we know that nothing major is stuck.

Then, for a distraction, we decided to toy around with the hydraulic system. Pretty simple after all:  A 1200w 12v electric motor on a pump runs oil in a closed loop.  When we use the windlass or bow thruster, we actuate what’s essentially a valve, which in turn diverts the flow to another pump: the windlass/thruster motor.  So it’s really like having a 12v motor on each of these units but without the hassle of voltage drop associated with running 100A in a long electrical cable.  After looking around for the on/off switch and testing around with a multi-meter, we succeed in starting the pump motor but a snapping sound can be heard in the background.  We find that it’s the ACR, the automatic-charge-relay, a device that puts the house and starting battery banks together for charging and takes them apart for discharging. It opens and closes continuously, and it’s very hot. Mmm…  What was supposed to be hydraulic turned into electric, and we pull out the multi-meter and schematics.  We’re not convinced that the motor should be drawing from the starting batteries, which is how it’s set-up.  The battery holds reads 12.65v but as soon as we put a load on it, it  drops to 9v.  A little search online reveals that the jury’s still out on that one but it seems a majority of people thinks windlasses/thrusters should draw on the house bank. We agree and Kivioq was setup that way.  Another good find: 1200w is not unusual for a windlass motor on a boat this size (which we were wondering); Moreover, thrusters came come equipped with 3kw power plants. 3000w! One more thing learned today (Grandpa Germain used to be an electronics technician at Hydro-Quebec, eh hem), a motor that’s underfed in tension (voltage too low, like in the case of a dead battery) will have a tendency to heat up.  A bit counter-intuitive but it explains why it started to smoke up last year when we started it up.  Nice scare!  In the end, what it smells like is new batteries… but not this year.