Sans Souci left San Jose Del Cabo this morning, headed for Ensenada. It will be a fairly long run, approximately 800 miles non-stop.
There was a bit of excitement as the boat departed port. Just as the boat was leaving the marina, while Jeff was still running the boat from outside the pilot house, at one of the wing stations, all power cut to the steering controls. Had it happened a few minutes earlier the boat would have been inside the marina running without steering. Not good. As the boat was already in open water, it wasn’t a big deal, beyond being a heck of a way to start a long passage. The steering inside the boat is working fine. I’m very curious to find out what occured and why, and what I can do to ensure it never happens again. Last week, when the boat was running without air conditioning in hot humid conditions, the temperature inside the boat was running over 120 degrees. It raised havoc with the electronics…
Diesel fuel is only $2.75 a gallon in Mexico, so they’ll be topping off the tanks before crossing the border. Also, one of the crew is a Costa Rican national who boarded the boat at Golfito and needs to get off the boat before heading further north.
Almost exactly eleven months ago Sans Souci turned the corner southbound at Cabo San Lucas.
There was a bit of excitement as the boat departed port. Just as the boat was leaving the marina, while Jeff was still running the boat from outside the pilot house, at one of the wing stations, all power cut to the steering controls. Had it happened a few minutes earlier the boat would have been inside the marina running without steering. Not good. As the boat was already in open water, it wasn’t a big deal, beyond being a heck of a way to start a long passage. The steering inside the boat is working fine. I’m very curious to find out what occured and why, and what I can do to ensure it never happens again. Last week, when the boat was running without air conditioning in hot humid conditions, the temperature inside the boat was running over 120 degrees. It raised havoc with the electronics…
Diesel fuel is only $2.75 a gallon in Mexico, so they’ll be topping off the tanks before crossing the border. Also, one of the crew is a Costa Rican national who boarded the boat at Golfito and needs to get off the boat before heading further north.
Almost exactly eleven months ago Sans Souci turned the corner southbound at Cabo San Lucas.
4 Responses
You probably need to get back on the boat sooner than later, especially since the captain is there. That way you can get the boat into or out of the slips and locks while you have a helping hand. I imagine you’re a bit rusty after not being on it for so long, so I’d sure take advantage of his suggestion. Maybe he could pick you up somewhere along the coast so you see for yourself how the boat is running.
Many radars offer MARPA instead of ARPA, which is simply a scaled back version. My recollection is MARPA can only track 10 boats at a time and ARPA can track something like 50.
I have the cheapest Raymarine Raydome on my boat, and it has MARPA, which has worked great. It is a big help running at night and in the fog here in the PNW. Now that AIS class B is available I will seriously look into getting that as well.
David: Interesting question… I have wet exhaust, and the engine room is VERY well insulated. However, there are lots of things that generate heat. First, in this particular instance, there’s the water itself (90 degrees), and the air (100 degrees). Inside the engine room there are two large main engines, the generator, and the inverters (which put out lots of heat). My electronics also generate a huge amount of heat. The Kaleidescape video server is in the pilot house, with its terabytes of server capacity, and throws out a ton of heat, as do all the other nav electronics. Ordinarily, the air conditioning would be on, or the doors and windows would be open. However, because of the hurricane there was a fair amount of sea spray. Salt water is tough on everything inside the boat. When there’s a lot of moisture we keep things sealed up. When you add up all that heat, then add on the extreme humidity, and the complete lack of ventilation, it can get pretty miserable. Normally it isn’t an issue, but murphy’s law was in full swing during Jeff’s run into Cabo. -Ken W
Ken,
You don’t have a dry stack exhaust, if I remember correctly. Is the temperature in the boat a result of the engine’s heat? I remember Nordhavns having large Dayton blowers to clear the heat from the engine room. Are these same blowers used on vessels with wet exhaust? Just curious as the wet/dry exhaust debate continues with my pre-purchase thinking. Thanks, God’s Speed to the crew..
Respectfully,
David Evans