Back to Gibraltar

Understandably we had left Blue Velvet in a bit of a rush when we went back to arrange Nicky’s Mum’s funeral. We had removed the battery charger, as well as the regulator which controls the other battery charging options, and we had not really left her secure enough nor had the sails removed in preparation for winter weather because we were supposed to be sailing. We had expected to return to BV weeks ago and there was still with no sign of the Exchange of Contracts for our house sale. Timings were just not working out for us and so with BV starting to become a niggling concern we had booked tickets to fly back to Gibraltar for a week to get her ready for winter.

Winter is the last thing in everyone’s minds in Gibraltar. The ongoing tension with Spain over sovereignty of ‘the Rock’ and long delays crossing ‘the Frontier’ meant we were grateful that we had chosen to leave BV in Gibraltar rather than over the border in the Spanish marina. Daily crossings of ‘the Frontier’ would have been tedious. As it was the clear blue skies and plus 27 degrees Celcius weather seemed to dissolve the frustrations of the slow progression of our house sale.

The new battery charger fitted

The warm temperatures do however make working below in the machinery space extremely humid. Our priority is to refit the battery charger, which had been replaced under warranty because the old unit had overheated when at low charging levels. The new charger was wired in and, after quickly topping up the batteries, it went into its float charge mode, which is where we had had the problems with the previous unit. We were delighted to see that the new unit works as it should, with the cooling fan switching on and off when required.

I had also removed the regulator for the Duogen and the solar panels to get it checked out. The fact that it came back from the manufacturer with a report saying that it is working perfectly suggested that a slight anomaly with the way the batteries are charging with the solar panels may be down to a weakening engine start battery bank. For now it is a case of refit the regulator and keep monitoring the charging currents. That said, Gibraltar is a good place to get things like replacement batteries and so we will have to do a bit of exploring and find potential suppliers should we decided that we need a new battery before next season.

With the Duogen and solar panel regulator wired and fitted back into position, our attention turned to the generator. It had started to leak cooling water when running with no obvious sign of a source. Back in the UK I had done a lot of searching online to try to trace the cooling circuits for the electrical generation section with some success. There is a rubber pipe which runs under the engine and generator with connections at the oil cooler and to the bottom of the electrical generator. We hoped that it would just be a case of tightening up a connector or two on the bottom of the unit to fix the leak. Lifting the 90kg of generator to get to it will be a bit awkward though so a little more research was required.

The leaky generator and tell-tale indications of water in the electrical generation area on the RH picture    

Our leak theory was confirmed as viable when we visited the Southampton Boatshow. Our particular generator is no longer marketed but it is effectively a Paguro one but with a different label. Therefore, when we were at the boatshow, we found the Paguro Generators stand and received some excellent advice there and, as a result, we were very optimistic. Leaks inside the electrical generation area are, apparently, rare. Rather than try to sell us a new unit at several thousand pounds, we were sold some new rubber engine mounts and went away with clear instructions on how to wash away the salt deposits, check the connections and replace the engine mounts which had probably sagged with age and caused pinching and rubbing of the cooling water pipe and its connections. A very honest and extremely helpful service from the MD of the UK distributors of Paguro generators; thank you!

Beer and BBQ whilst it rains in the UK    

Now back onboard BV though, things do not look quite so optimistic. Water getting into the electrical generation unit is bad news if it has been going on for a while we had been told. The breather hole on the side of the unit had tell-tale marks of corrosion and lifting paint showing that salt cooling water was definitely getting to where it should not be. When we turned the starter motor over it spun freely but the centrifugally operated cog would not engage with the flywheel; a further indication that salt water had got into this area and caused corrosion. The paint on the bottom of the generator had started to lift and there were indications of corrosion on the aluminium crank-case as a result. To top it all there are now witness mark on the stainless steel exhaust suggesting we are about to get a pin hole leak there too. The whole unit needs a complete strip down on a workbench, repaint and probably a new exhaust and electrical generation unit attaching to the diesel engine.

Not good news but hey, it is about 25 degrees Celsius with clear blue skies, the Cobb BBQ is lit and warming up, we have cans of beer in our hands and the Radio 4 news was telling us it is raining everywhere back in England. Cruising is, apparently, fabled to be just fixing your yacht in nice places. I think we can safely say that we are experiencing and living that stereotypical existence!