So what’s happening with our 401K and retirement savings? Who the hell knows! We have more urgent issues to deal with right now. We’ll worry about that later.
We’re still at the transient dock of the 600 slip Aqua Yacht Harbor
This is what we see outside our pilothouse (thankfully, the easterly winds have settled down):
We met Chip Lucas in the ship’s store here at Aqua. He was from ”Grand Harbor”, another very nice marina one mile away. Chip was actually giving Charlie Thomas (captain of Freedom’s Turn) another looper we’d been traveling with, a ride to Aqua’s ship’s store. Chip, who seems like a great guy with a ton of experience has made the Tenn-Tom trip no less than 117 times! He’s even honorably mentioned in the authoritative and ubiquitous “Fred Myer’s Nitty Gritty Tenn-Tom Cruising Guide” as essentially “one with the waterway”. Chip offered to help in any way he could via email. Thanks Chip!
After going to dinner at Freddie T’s with Cap’n Larry of Adriana, using the nicest courtesy van of any marina so far, and a brief but torrid encounter with one of our least favorite TV characters,
we “go back ship” and bid Larry a good night, and were joined on our foredeck by Richard, the young professional 3000 ton South African captain of the $4.2 million 75 foot Lazarra, “Leap of Faith” moored immediately behind us on the transient dock. We enjoyed quizzing Richard about the boat, which he considers small. It has four Volvo engines, each of which is 435HP and each of the four shafts has two ultra-light counter-rotating props. He was proud of how efficient this drive train is and explained that he can cruise at 28 knots burning only 66 gallons per hour. That IS rather amazing for a 75 foot boat. If he throttles down to only 10 knots, she sips only 5-10 GPH. We found it interesting that Richard admired our boat and lifestyle in sharp contrast to a fully automated high bucks crewed ship (although admitted that it was often a lot of fun exercising her capabilities). Uh-HUH ~~
We are still agonizing over whether to leave the mast up or not. I carefully measured our vertical clearance (again) – 50′ 2″ is absolute minimum required with the stick up – we’re hearing 52 foot fixed bridges “shouldn’t be a problem from here (mile marker 450) to Aberdeen (mm 357.5), but below there (357.5 to 000.0), could be a rain watershed issue on the Black Warrior (depends on the weather whether we’re ok or not, we’ll then have some tidal variations as well). I’ll be calling the Corps water management experts again today for additional recent input. Then it’s decision time today and tomorrow since the only places where we will be able to drop the mast are here (mm 450) and Demopolis (mm 213.2). Hmmmmmm….. highest risk between mm 357.5 and 213.2 – another 144 high risk miles? This will be a captain AND crew decision, and ultimately, may have little or NOTHING to do with vertical clearance and probabilities of success, but more to do with peace of mind for the next 450 miles. If we get rain, and no place to anchor or tie up (not unheard of down there) and can’t proceed, what do we do? Circle the boat for a few days in traffic until the water level goes down? INPOSRACTIBLE (possible, not practical).
Concerning our engine exhaust system back pressure issue, more and more it’s pointing to pressure created from our exhaust “pipe” now being below the waterline. Prior to this trip, it was not. Now with full tankage of fuel and water which alone adds almost 4,000 pounds (300 gallons of water at 8.34 lbs per gallon, and 200 gallons of diesel at approximately 7.3 lb per gallon). This doesn’t include other cruising load weight that we’ve added such as davits, dinghy, outboard motor, radar mast at the transom, canned goods, beverages, spare parts, bicycles, etc.
Terry, the Aqua mechanic working with us is checking on whether this is an issue or not. After removing our exhaust hoses and inspecting our manifold and water lift muffler (“this hose ain’t your problem, Cap’n), he found that carbon build-up, which usually only happens when you have REALLY the wrong prop causing unnatural loading on the engine, is also definitely NOT an issue for us right now, thankfully, as we’re told THAT would have been an expensive problem (yeah!!).
Looking up into the exhaust elbow after Terry removed the hose, he declared that it was very clean:
Inside the hoses, where we thought we might see some delamination that would look like a blister inside (and restrict flow, building up pressure at higher RPMs) did not appear to be the case, although Terry agreed that it was definitely time to replace these hoses to prevent leaks of smoke and steam and water into the engine room:
Likewise, the inside of the water lift muffler looked even better:
Yesterday after removing hoses and our fiberglass exhaust elbow, he took the elbow with him and plans to drill and tap a secure fitting so he can attach a back pressure measuring device (standard on some other newer boats). Then, armed with what the acceptable range of back pressure is for this engine, we can create a solution. One step at a time. Might have to raise our exhaust port out through the hull, or maybe a permanent “pee valve” to relieve the pressure above the water line as a normal thing (would also be easier to see of the engine’s water pump is truly pumping water, something we need to check each time we start the engine anyway.
Yesterday, we also worked with Mark, one of Aqua’s electronics guys with respect to our inverter / charger /alternator / regulator concerns. He tested our batteries with his instrumentation and no surprise that they are just fine, but as he said, first things first. Then after discussing what we’re concerned about, and after Mark spent some time on the boat, and after he consulted with some additional experts in his telephone network, the concensus is that we may only have an instrumentation calibration issue. After taking some action to test this theory, they might just be right!
Mark suggested I put our battery switch on “both” (both banks selected) and then just keep charging both banks for a LONG time, which will also equalize their charge out across the two banks. I did, and after several hours (gulp) for the first time, we saw the interface display drop to FLOAT! (trickle charge) which I hadn’t seen for a long time. I always feared over charging (and boiling off electrolyte, not to mention overheating and damaging batteries), but he said, “Y’all will smell it first, so let ‘er rip!”. So I did. The display told me I was significantly overcharging the batteries, but let it go. Finally, it went to FLOAT which indicates the batteries were finally “topped off”. I then reset the settings to indicate they’re now just fully charged and NOT overcharged. So I’m hoping that’s the end of that.
The concern that we have a high output alternator driven by only one belt (not two) remains, but the concensus was that for now we’ll constrain that alternator to only output 40 amps or so, NOT the belt-squealing, water pump killing 130 amps that it’s rated for.
Additionally, Mark (and Brian, the Ford Lehman guru) were concerned that we don’t have a separate starting battery for the main engine on Sojourn. We’re simply using our house batteries for house AND engine starting. Although Brian did acknowleddge that if we were to accidentally discharge our batteries, we still do have the redundant backup of the generator which has it’s own starting battery that can be used to charge the discharged house banks. Ultimately, the recommendation was that we do install a separate main engine starting battery (Group 31, 4D, etc.) with it’s own alternator and charger, along with a more automatic method of our current charging systems to appropriately direct more charge to the more discharged bank, AND to prevent a more discharged bank from drawing down a less discharged bank. At that time, we’d also add a dual pulley package to the high output alternator as the second unit on the engine. So what? Well, for now, we have a solution by only having our battery selector switch on one bank OR the other, NOT both (keep ‘em separate) while the engine is running, and by manually directing charge to the least charge bank with the battery selector switch. We can live with that for now. Always one more compromise to manage. Makes me feel more needed 
We’ve been looking all over the states of Tennessee and Mississippi for our particular favorite brand of coolant (the engine uses 4 gallons and generator 1+ gallons), but until yesterday haven’t been able to find it. We were on the verge of either renting a car to drive 40 miles to find some OR compromising for something else. Did we finally find some? Yes! 10 gallons! Where did we find it? Unbelievabley, right here in Aqua Yacht Harbor Service warehouse…. within walking distance!! Score!! I obviously bought ‘em out !! (just in case). Thanks Tom!
Well, gotta go make some phone calls, get some answers and make some decisions before Terry returns with new hoses, etc. We also hope to do a sea trial with his photo-tachometer, get our idle adjusted up a bit, and generally become more confident that we’re doing everything we can to ensure a safe and enjoyable rest of the trip.
Later, ‘gators…
