Exit Engine Woes, Enter Electrical Woes
17 July 2015 | St. Maarten
Caroline Carroll, Sunny and damn hot!
We are happy to report that we took the boat out on Tuesday, and everything works perfectly with the engine. All the engine pieces are now in place and all the hoses and wires are zip tied neatly. What a relief! The engine alternator is presently only hooked up to the cranker battery. The last thing left to do, is hook up the alternator and internal regulator so that it can charge our house bank of batteries. This is where the trouble starts.
The marine electrician is not sure if we can hook all these things together safely. We are waiting for his boss to come back to the island so he can have a look. While the electrician was in the lazarette, we discussed how wonderful it would be, if we could just shut the lid and take him with us. Having your own personal electrician on board would be a dream come true. Unfortunately, Orine, didn't think it was such a great idea, he didn't like the accommodations. We are sure, one way or the another, that we will have power to our batteries before we leave here. We are just not sure when that will be.
As a side note, we have found out how the diesel shop comes in on "quoted budget". After asking three times, if the quote included everything that was required to get us out the door and being assured that it was, we find out that they make the customer pay for all of the clamps, hoses, strainers, screws, nuts & bolts, etc, tows, cranes, electricians, separately. We thought that some of this should have been included in the quote, no? We were told that they do this because every job is different and difficult to quote. OK, I get that, but it would have been nice if we had been told this up front. Also, you can't tell me, that the diesel shop couldn't foresee that they would need a crane to put the engine in the boat...come on.....