What Happens on a 36-Year-Old Boat...

Fuse that may be ignition circuit blew after changing alternator belt in Governor’s Harbor on 5/12; Rob bought new fuse but had to get 50 amps instead of 40 amps, which is what was originally in the motor.  Fuse is between starboard-side battery and the ignition switch, though it is unclear what exactly the name for this fuse would be.  Fuse was originally a large spade car fuse, recent model; replacement bought at auto parts store.  Rob also bought but has not used 40 amp smaller spade fuses.  After replacing with 50 amp large fuse, motor ran out of Governor’s Harbor, into No Name Harbor, then for 3 hours to Deep Creek and restarted to go one more hour into Plum Creek.

Motor ran fine to get out of Eleuthera and roughly half an hour to anchor at Highborne Cay.  Again, started fine to pull up anchor at Highbourne on May 17, then Rob could tell fuse had blown because the amp gage read 0 amps and battery levels began to drop.  However, we were still able to motor another two hours to Norman’s Cay where the motor stopped once lowered to idle speed and the gages would not work on trying to restart.  Other boaters made a fuse for us with 16-gage wire and spade connectors and suggested inspecting electrical system for any corrosion.  Rob replaced fuse with makeshift fuse, tightened the alternator belt, tightened a cooling hose clamp that may have been dripping on another wire connection (involved in this circuit – goes to distributor cap but unknown need of wire).  Visual inspection found no corrosion on any wiring in engine compartment, but found one spark plug wire was not connected at distributor cap (meaning we had been running off only three spark plugs for an unknown known amount of time).  Gage panel was not inspected.  Makeshift fuse worked(!) and motor ran to get off anchor and to lay anchor at Hawksbill Cay.

From Hawksbill to Warderick Wells, had to run motor almost entire time (roughly four hours) with no problems and we ran the motor occasionally during the four days at Warderick Wells to recharge batteries for 15 minutes to an hour at a time.  Getting off anchor and for the last half of journey (roughly two hours) to O’Brien’s, motor ran without issue.  Getting off anchor and for two hours after leaving O’Brien’s Cay, motor ran without issue.  We encountered ~10 foot swells in the Sound side, so decided to cut through Conch Cut to the Banks side, so boat was no longer being tossed about.  As we were halfway through a narrow channel, the motor just died as though we had run out of gas – no sound, no smell, just died though we had ¼ tank of gas.  I tried to start motor, where it tried to turn over but did not start.  Second try and none of the gages worked.

Makeshift fuse had melted the rubber cover and burned through.  Inspection of all terminals on the amperage gage in instrument cluster are found to be corroded, one at the level of blueish-green coloring while the other two are lightly corroded.  Rob cleaned the terminals after making another 16-gage wire fuse, which has already been found to make the gages work.  As of 5/31, no motor problems detected.  We're pretty sure that the gas tank being low and shaken up so much in the high waves just threw out a clump that choked the engine as we have not experienced that problem since and the engine started up without a problem after about an hour and a half of just sitting.

5/30 – The VHF radio has been turned off for the past couple of days while we have been at anchor, but turned on without trouble.  As another boat’s message came across the radio, I realized that the volume was up way too loud and turned it down.  I was able to call the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, receive their response, switch from channel 16 to 11, and have a brief conversation with the SCYC.  After returning to Channel 16, I switched the VHF off the way we have been turning it off and on since buying the boat by flipping the breaker off.

After thinking about the idea that possibly someone might have heard the boat’s name and would be interested in calling us, I flipped the breaker switch back on but the radio did not come on.  Rob checked that the fuse was still good, measured the wire coming from the breaker and the wire coming from the radio with the voltmeter, and found no problems.  After playing with switches, cursing just a bit, and trying new ideas, Rob found that as long as the VHF is turned off when the breaker is turned on, the radio has no trouble turning on.  However, when the radio is on and the breaker is turned on, the radio does not turn on… after six months of doing so.

5/31 – The Garmin GPS/depth sounder started intermittently beeping with “low voltage” alarms, but would go back to normal.  After about 10 minutes, it turned off, leading Rob to plug out the plug from the back.  He ended up pulling the pin cable connector out two or three times and plugging it back in before it turned on.  Then worked fine for about 10-15 minutes and suddenly turned off.  Cleaned the pin connector with wire brush of corrosion but that didn’t fix the problem.  Investigated the negative battery cable connection in the engine room to ensure it had a good connection (which it appeared to be fine – just wiggled the wire some and checked to make sure wingnut was tight on battery post) and tried the power button and it came on.  Suspect the issue to be with the negative battery connection as that was the previous problem in Marathon though visual inspection didn’t look like anything was wrong.

6/10 - What is that smell coming from the bilge?!  We've put fabric softener down there, we've cleaned what we can, but seriously cannot figure out for the life of us what that SMELL is!  We are in an area that seems to have a high sulfur content as my sterling silver rings have tarnished while swimming and you can smell the sulfur when you put your nose into the sand.  But, REALLY?!?!  Do we have to have that smell oozing from our bilge?!