Dying wind, dead battery
11 July 2014
With Patti and Lily off to the mall for some back to school shopping (I know, it's still July, right?), I decided to go for a sail after work. I didn't go on Wednesday, mostly because it was crazy windy, and despite the forecast, it looked like rain to me. Turns out that the "widely scattered thunderstorms" that were predicted for late that night turned up several hours earlier. Glad I didn't go.
So on Thursday, I get to the boat before 6, and go to start the engine. Nothing. Not a peep. I try to turn on the GPS. Nothing. I think to myself, "I saw that the bow lights were on before leaving on Saturday, and I turned them off. What could it be?". So I go to the breaker panel, and sure enough, all of the switches are in the same direction. I look closer and notice that they are all "on". Holy smokes. It wasn't two switches that were accidentally turned on on Saturday, it was all but two, and I mistakenly turned them all on. Nuts.
So the battery is stone dead. I pull start the engine, which fires up quickly and decide to go out anyway. The trees were shaking and the flags were flapping on my way out to the marina, but less so than over the weekend. I figure the wind will be over 10 knots, but not 15. However, while motoring out, it seems very calm to me.
I raised sail once in the harbor. The wind was light, so I shook the reef out of the mainsail. I tacked south, hoping to sneak out on one tack. No such luck. I tack west, hoping to sneak out that way. Can't make it. I have to tack between Bird Rock and the big rock. Once into the Sound, the wind picks up a little, but not much. I sailed due south, pointing right at the Reef marker. I didn't get too far before the wind died completely. I didn't wait around long. I started the engine, furled sail and headed back in. I don't think I was sailing for much more than an hour.
One interesting thing I learned: I definitely have an alternator. After I started the engine at the dock, I turned on the GPS; it worked fine. It shut down almost immediately after I turned off the engine.
I took the battery home and hooked it up to my charger. According to the meter on the charger, there was almost nothing left in the battery. I started the charge before 8 pm; I checked on it around 11, and there was almost no improvement. I left it going all night, and this morning, it was up to 90%. Thank goodness for deep cycle batteries.