Sailing to Somes Sound & Replacing the Alternator

We made a fairly prompt start from Bar Harbour on the morning of Tuesday 18 September because we wanted to fill up with water before heading off to Somes Sound.  That evolution worked smoothly but in the process we realised that, once again, our engine-driven alternator was not working correctly. After engine start, instead of putting out 30-40 Amps to recharge the batteries, it was only pushing out about 3 Amps.  Clearly, all was not well.  So, we dragged the DuoGen behind us both when we were sailing and when we were motoring as we headed around to Somes Sound but we knew that we would need to work on the alternator on arrival.

Some of the holiday ‘cottages’ at the bottom end of the Somes Sound

And there’s a large day keelboat fleet. International One Designs?

We had an uneventful sail and motor around to Somes Sound.  At the southern end of the Sound, outside Northeast and Southwest Harbours there are lots of enormous ‘cottages’, second homes for the summer season, and a large number of the local day keelboat fleet (International One Designs, we think) were still out on their moorings though, doubtless, soon to be lifted out for the winter.

The bottom end of Somes Sound is quite narrow so we arrived at the beginning of the rising tide so as not to have to fight a strong tidal flow through the constriction.

Inside the Sound, which is actually a flooded mini-fjord, there are more large ‘cottages’ some of which were evidently still in use as we motored past, though many had their jetties in winter mode, with pontoons and walkways stored away.

BV anchored in Somes Sound

At the top end of Somes Sound is Somes Harbour, a large pool, well-protected from virtually every direction. When we arrived we found there to be far fewer moorings than we had expected and we easily found ourselves a suitable place to anchor.  The following day we saw the workboat out lifting moorings, which probably explained why there was so much space in the pool.

Changing the alternator

The new alternator fitted and looking the part, but was it working?

Once we were settled at anchor, we got down to work on the alternator.  The one that had stopped working was the original one fitted to the engine.  After over 4000hrs service it’s not surprising that it had given up the ghost. It certainly didn’t owe us anything so we decided to replace it with the spare we had on board (having first done a series of tests to check that it was actually a failure of the alternator rather than, say, a wiring problem).  However, the new alternator is more powerful than the old one and, crucially, has slightly different connections, so we needed to be careful to get the wiring correct. Once we’d fitted it we fired up the engine but, with the batteries nearly fully charged, it only put out about 3 Amps.  It was impossible to know whether or not we had solved the problem without waiting until the next morning when the batteries would be depleted by the fridge working overnight.

Sunset in Somes Harbour

So we tidied up after all the work on the engine and then relaxed in the cockpit in the last of the day’s sunlight, enjoying views across the anchorage over a glass of wine.

Lovely evening colours

The evening colours were delightful and the great thing about the cooler evenings is that the mosquitoes no longer come out in force to ruin things!

As we watched the sun set, fog started rolling in up the Sound.  We had planned to do some hiking the next day so rather hoped that the fog did not linger.

Somes Sound, Maine, USA