You know - often I rave on to people about how I wouldn’t go sailing with anyone other than Peter and it’s so true. Not just the sailing bit though – it’s the living on board bit where he is just the most amazing person.

For the last few weeks he has been away. Before he left we went through all the things I would need to keep an eye on, the ropes and lines, the bilges and how we sat in the water. I could do all that without too much difficulty. Before he left he checked everything he could and I know on the evening he left to return to Robe and complete the delivery of the yacht he had helped get to Robe, he was sure all would be well for me.

Ah. The best laid plans!

We have missed his presence in many ways but none more than his amazing capacity to just be on top of things. Little things become bigger things when you don’t know what you are doing!

On the first night after he left everything was fine. The next night too. Then we noticed the toilet didn’t sound right when we flushed it. Not too big a problem as we only use it late at night and when really necessary. But the next day I noticed the water pump sounded tired and I began to be curious. That night as we sat relaxing after dinner and I was trying to complete some hand sewing, I felt as if the lights were dim and growing dimmer. I wasn’t sure – thought maybe I was a little tired and maybe this was a signal that I should head to bed – but it was true – the lights were dimmer.

A quick check of the little device that tells us how much charge the batteries are holding – which should have read 13 v while we are hooked up to shore power - sent me reeling. It was flashing the error message we get when we are on a mooring or at anchor to warn us that we have too little power to function.

I knew I couldn’t deal with the problem at night. For starters I could barely see anything, but I am also not so good at logical thought when I’m tired so I decided to sleep on it and start fresh in the morning trying to figure out what was happening.

Peter calls every day, using the sat phone, just to let me know where they are – but the reception isn’t so good and I knew that it would be impossible to try and hold a complex conversation about the electrical system with him, so it was us and us alone.

In the morning I set to thinking about things. What had changed? What thing that was different could have caused us a problem…..what would Peter do????

Just before he left he had been pottering about in the engine room and had come out, a little chagrined and said, You won’t believe it but I’ve just found a switch that says hot water. I think we’ve got a hot water system that is independent of the engine.

We laughed. Up until now we have only had hot water on board if we’ve run the engine. This is what the previous owner told us to do and we never questioned it. For most things we boil a kettle to obtain hot water and use the facilities provided by the marina we are at for personal washing. Not having hot water readily available is something we have got used to and don’t even really think about any more. To have had a hot water system all along just seemed laughable. But that’s life we said and waited to see if the water got hotter.

It seemed to at first and then not so much and to tell the truth, after Peter left I don’t think I really gave it another thought. Until now.

This was the one thing that was new and possibly causing a problem with the power.

The thing was, I had no idea where the switch to turn it off was, and judging by how long it went unnoticed I didn’t have much expectation of finding it. All I knew was that it was somewhere in the engine room. And the engine room – well with no power it is like a dark and eerie cave - you can’t see anything at all! The chances of me walking in and finding what I was looking for was somewhat remote! Never one to shirk from a challenge though I set off, with Liam’s tiny torch to guide me and would you believe that the moment I got in there and flashed it around the FIRST thing I saw was the needed switch!

Once off, I began to hope. But nothing seemed to change.
I knew I would have to seek out someone who knew something about boat electrics and who might have a spare moment – oh and who wouldn’t ask me for much in the way of payment seeing as it’s just a few days before Christmas and my list is still long!

I found a helpful friend at the local sailing supplies shop who suggested googling the problem to see if anyone else had ever encountered something similar and if that didn’t help, offered to have a little look.

Armed with that idea I set off home.

Google really is one of my favorite inventions. I quickly learned the names of the different components of our electrical system and read some interesting posts about the equipment. I didn’t find anyone else with a similar problem but did come away with a little more confidence to push some buttons and see what might happen – well just a few anyway and none of the important ones!

I noticed, after being out that the power reading on the batteries had increased. Then Liam suggested we turn off all the internal switches – to the lights and nav equipment etc and make sure that there was nothing drawing any power. Within a few hours the power increased up to 11.55v – we felt like we were on to something. With a little fiddling I figured out how to turn off the incessantly flashing error code and things seemed at last to be settling down.

The following day it was the same – the power continued to increase very slowly and then Peter (yes, another Peter) from the sailing shop called by.
He patted us on the backs and told us that we were doing all the right things, the power was slowly coming back up and he thought that it really was that the hot water system had drained the batteries. Give it time, was all he said – it will keep going – and then reassured us that he’d come back if it didn’t.

The thing is, we did get it sorted – but how long it took! If Peter had been here and not off sailing the oceans of the world (with my blessing I must add!) it would have been noticed sooner and never got so run down, of that I am certain. He would have seen the problem, known how to fix it, got it done and then had coffee with us!

So what is the moral of my little story?

Well it’s not don’t let your husband go off sailing another boat – though I have been tempted to call him a little hussy for running off with another boat! No, I think it is, be careful if you marry a capable person – they might just do everything and leave you clueless!