No shower, but batteries on
It was a fine pre-departure evening. Stefano was having a last hot shower on board while I was cooking for the passage. Suddenly he shouted: “stop the water pump, now!”
I switched off the pump and rushed to the bathroom (one step from the kitchen). Hot water was pulsing from below the sink and threatening to burn Stefano. The hot water pipe had burst!
After the first moment of panic, we managed to control the leak, as long as we used neither the sink, the shower, nor the electric water pump, which keeps the system under pressure. Repairing seemed doable but required to order parts, which wouldn’t be available before at least 10 days (remote places take their toll).
We decided to not delay our departure, we could do without a shower, toilet sink and hot water and use our manual water pump for the time being.
The next morning, we set sail to the island of Noss. All went well, at first. Spring had finally arrived on the Shetland islands, the sun was shining and a light wind was pushing us towards our destination.
On arrival at the anchorage, we dropped the sails and I started the engine. The tachometer remained blank… The engine was running, and clearly working (we were moving), but no RPM was showing on the screen. You must be kidding me. Not seeing the RPM wasn’t a serious problem in itself, but it suggested the alternator wasn't charging the batteries. We can do without showers, but not without charged batteries.
We spent the day at the anchorage trying to sort out the issue. We explored all the hypotheses that came to our mind. We even called a mechanic in France who spent an hour over the phone with us, for free, on Easter Monday. Nothing.
We had no choice but to head back to Lerwick, hoping that we’ll find some help there. Our morale hit bottom. Greenland suddenly felt very far away.
And then… As Stefano started the windlass to raise the anchor, I saw the RPM jumping back up. And dropping again as the windlass stopped. We repeated the sequence, with the same results. Focused on the idea that something had to be broken (boat life doesn’t really encourage optimism about systems), we had missed one possibility: nothing was wrong. Could it be that the alternator was not working simply because our new solar panel system was keeping the battery voltage higher than the alternator output?
This sounded too good to be true. It was hard to believe that both the alternator and the tachometer would stop working whenever the batteries were too full. So, we kept on towards Lerwick, but with a glimmer of optimism.
On the way back, other clues came to support our hypothesis. The weather was now overcast; the voltage of the batteries dropped. When we started the engine on arrival the tachometer and the alternator behaved as if nothing had happened. We plugged Capsula to the main power, batteries voltage jumped up and the tachometer reading dropped down to zero. Everything pointed to a no-problem solution. Or a confirmation bias. We needed an expert.
First thing the next morning, we went to the local engineering shop. They immediately sent a technician, who couldn’t help us, having never seen this before. We decided to trust our reasoning, assume all was fine and re-start our journey the following day. As we were finalizing our plans at the local coffee shop, the manager of the engineering shop, who was having lunch next to us (island effect), came to tell us that they had discussed our case and that the engineer supervisor would come to our boat this afternoon to assess the situation. We were ready to add this to our list of island attentiveness signs, except that the supervisor never came. Somehow, it was reassuring they weren’t perfect after all.
In the end, we turned to the internet for shared experience, repeated the plug/unplug test, and concluded that our hypothesis was plausible. Our “problem” was in fact a conflict between a modern smart solar panel controller and a dumb old school alternator. We should learn to trust Capsula more. The hot water pipe issue remained, though.
No shower, but batteries on. A good deal.