Birvidik

The theme electrical continues.

Those on whose hands time lies heavy will remember the saga of the batteries in Croatia last summer, wherein we replaced a Grand's worth of crap Rolls batteries with just under 800 quidsworth of Chinese AGM batteries. Well they've worked a dream this year. They've accepted and held charge beautifully, thus giving us the freedom to spend extended periods at anchor without worrying about the fridge giving up the ghost and my having to suffer the dire privations of warm beer. John Major I am not.

Thus it has been that we have lain to our own tackle (sounds nasty) for weeks on end, relaxing smugly as the solar panel and wind generator poured oodles of amperes into the loving care of the domestic battery bank.

We should have known it wouldn't last.

We were skulking in Vlikho, riding out a blow from the North West. Once you're sure your anchor is holding then lying to the hook is one of the least stressful ways of riding out a gale. If nothing else it always turns you nose into the wind. The most stressful situation is tying stern to a quay and holding yourself off with your anchor. It's too easy for the anchor to slip and then you crunch into nasty rough concrete quays or expensive Halberg Rassys.

Anchored in Vlikho you have a thick, sticky mud bottom and no more than eight or so metres of water, so we throw out 50 metres of chain and dig it in with the engine at a thousand revs. If it holds that it will hold almost anything the Weather Gods are likely to throw at us. Vlikho also has loads of space so you are spoilt for dragging room and have plenty of time to rectify matters if your anchor does drag. In addition the muddy bottom guarantees you a soft landing if you do drag into the shallows.

So it was that we were relaxing lying down reading despite the 40 knot (severe gale force 9) gusts that were buffeting the boat. I was quite laid back about this and was reveling in the thought of the excellent conditioning the batteries were getting from the combination of strong winds and bright sunshine.

Suddenly, there was a loud crack like a rifle shot, which had me sitting bolt upright in nanoseconds. At the same time the whole boat began to shake and rattle like a Keystone Cops squad car. We both shot up on deck and looked round frantically. Apart from the fact that the boat looked, felt and sounded as if it were about to shake itself to pieces, everything looked normal.

We rushed around like headless chickens trying to ascertain the cause of this unusual phenomenon, preferably before bits started falling off the boat. The vibration transmitted through everything, including us. We shuddered across the deck as if we had both suffered sudden onset advanced Parkinson's. I started grabbing various bits of the boat to see if there was any resonant vibration I could damp. It turned out there was - on the gantry supporting the solar panels, the davits and, most importantly, the wind generator. This latter was spinning at high speed, but looked to be operating normally. Nevertheless, I decided to stop it.

This operation is not as simple as the innocent phrase 'stop it' might suggest. The procedure goes along the following lines:

1 Look at set of six, sharp, one metre diameter whirling blades spinning furiously above your head.

2 Gingerly climb up the rear gantry to within arm's (and head's) reach of aforementioned giant blender.

3 Hold on tight to gantry with right arm and reach left arm behind whirling blades to grab piece of string attached to the weather vane that keeps the blades turned into wind.

4 Use the string to turn the whole caboodle through 90 degrees so that the blades are no longer pointing into wind. Do your best not to amputate eyebrows, ears or left arm whilst executing this maneuver.

5 When the blades finally come to halt, tie them off and descend from the gantry.

6 Observe that whole operation was only 83% as dangerous as you thought it was as there are now only five blades on the generator instead of the six you started with.

We had thrown a blade and the resulting imbalance had set up a vibration that resonated beautifully with the gantry and then transmitted itself to the rest of the boat. Tying off the generator had solved the problem but had, as a result, more than halved our power generating capacity. On the bright side the errant blade had nobly thrown itself overboard rather than flying inboard and scything its way through deck fittings, crew or cat.

It looks like it the catastrophic failure was a result of work-hardening, UV degradation, excessive load, and aerolastic flutter, so we've ordered an entire new fan assembly. At present we're coping on the solar panel, occasional engine use and the odd top-up using the petrol genset.

It's a full life.