Tuesday, January 26, 2016

January 19, 2016 New Honda Generator

Dave was up earlier than me and listened to Chris Parker’s weather forecast.  When I got up, he had to repeat the recording for me.  Chris Parker recommended leaving during the day on Wednesday and sailing straight through to Green Turtle Cay by Thursday evening.  That is exactly what I said last night!!!!  Boy did I feel smart.   A friend of ours, Gary Krieger, was listening and actually called in to ask a question.  We had always heard that you shouldn’t cross the Gulf Stream in a wind with a northern component because the wind will fight the northern flow of the Gulf Stream.  So why is he saying it is OK to cross tomorrow?  He explained that a 40 foot boat that weighs 40,000 lbs should be able to cut through the waves at the winds that we will have.  So we’re going with it.  And so is Gary, but he is stopping at Westend and staying at a marina during the rough weather. 

So after breakfast, Dave went to work on the electrical issue with the Gen Set.  First he had to take several things out of the starboard lazarette that are stored on top of the generator   He opened up the generator, took all the wires apart, cleaned and lubed them with protection (No-oxide), tightened the belt, checked the air filter and changed it, checked for leaks, and checked for corrosion.  With the generator running, he turned on the circuit breaker, then each of the 4 switches with waiting between each one.  The indicator lights for each switch were dim, and the voltage gauge read low, which is what he had been noticing that prompted his concerns.  He shut everything down, waited a few minutes, then repeated the process.  He turned on the switches one at a time and they were still dim.  As he stood there cussing, he would go back and forth with the switches and over time, the lights became bright and voltage was up.  It was like it just needed some time to catch up. The on/off switch was faulty, too (wouldn’t shut off automatically). He cleaned up the connections and that worked much better.  So then he called Next Gen.  The service man asked if the rpms of the engine were different or if it changed when Dave saw the change in the brightness of the switches.  That was all normal.  So he said to check the Hertz to see if it was the electrical generator vs the diesel engine of the generator, but we didn’t have a hertz meter.  And even if we had the meter, whatever wasn’t working would then have to be fixed.  By now it was 3:30 and Dave decided to move on to the next option-buy a Honda generator, since we wanted to leave for the Bahamas tomorrow.

Dave first found a Honda dealer, Lawnmower Headquarters.  He called them to see if they had one on hand and how late they were open-until 5:00.  They did have a Honda EU2000i that he wanted.  He was at the city dock by 4:00.  He tried to take a taxi to the Honda dealer, but the taxi driver needed an address.  He could tell him the name of the restaurant he was standing outside of, but that wasn’t good enough.  So he gave up on them.  He also looked at the bicycles you could rent from a stand, but you had to sign up ahead of time online.  All this took about 30 minutes.

Dave called the Honda dealer back and told them he wasn’t going to be able to make it there.  Was there any way they could deliver a generator to him?  He was then transferred to the manager.  He explained again that we live on a boat, he is standing at the dock with no transportation, and we want to leave for the Bahamas tomorrow.  She said they could deliver one, but then she was hesitant about getting his information to be sure he was legitimate and the amount of the transaction (about $1000) was also a concern.  She wanted to e-mail him a form to fill out.  Well that wasn’t going to happen since he was standing on the dock with no way to receive an e-mail  He told her that he would just have to go to Home Depot to get one of their brand of generators.  The lady said that we wouldn’t like it.  And Dave agreed.   We had owned a EU1000i in the past and really liked it.  So she asked him to have a couple forms of ID and she would deliver the generator and finalize the transaction in person with a portable credit card reader.  They filled it with gasoline and oil and made sure it was running OK before they delivered it.  The manager and another young man showed up at the dock, took his credit card, his driver’s license, and Dave asked if she wanted any other bearded pictures of himself.  Then voila, we had a generator.  He didn’t have any cash on him, so he wrote her a $20 check as a tip.  He was back to the boat by about 6:00, just as it was getting dark and damn cold.  We haven’t figured out how we are going to connect everything to the generator, but Dave will make it happen. 

In the meantime, I went to the public library about noon to use their wifi for about an hour.  Then I met Gloria and Mike at the theater to see “The Revenant”.  It was beautiful to see on a big screen, but it wasn’t a “feel good” movie.  The story was based on Hugh Glass and took place in the Dakota Territory.  But it wasn’t filmed there.  It would have been boring to show the land scape along the Missouri River.  It was filmed in Alberta, Canada instead. After the movie, Gloria and Mike gave me a ride back to the boat about 4:30.  Dave wasn’t there, so I called him and found out what he was going through, but I didn’t get the full story until later. 

Once Dave returned with the Honda generator, he had to put everything back into the lazarette on top of the generator.  We will deal with storing the dinghy in the morning. 

1 comment:

  1. Darn! Wish you had our telephone no. We were just up the road in Hobe Sound with a Ford Pick up! We drove down around the inlet and called for Luck of a Fool on our handheld VHF but could not raise you. Would have loved the adventure of helping Dave get that Honda 2kw.

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