Saturday, August 5, 2017

Cold Beer

0800 Position 18-39S 173-59W. On a mooring off Neiafu, Vava'u, Tonga

We powered back into the mooing field in Neiafu late yesterday morning and picked up a ball off of the Aquarium Café. Rob borrowed Doc's cell phone and called the refrigeration system's manufacturer in California. It was Saturday here in Tonga but Friday in the US. The tech guy there gave him some leads to follow, and Rob went back to work. He discovered that the controllers for the compressors, which were supposed to operate on twelve volt power, were only seeing one point seven volts at the controllers. We traced the power supply wire back to the twelve volt panel and couldn't find any breaks. The terminals looked fine and were well secured. Why was there a ten volt drop from one end of the wire to the other? A short in one of the controllers could explain the voltage drop, but a short also would have tripped the breaker, and it hadn't tripped.

After another call to California, Rob decided to bypass the installed 12 volt power supply cable with a temporary cable strung across the cabin floor. Success! The fridge and freezer units, which share the same power cable, now worked. That explained why both failed at the same time, but where was the fault in the cable? More digging in the bilges followed, and Rob found that one of the wires had burned through from friction at a bulkhead where another cable had been pulled past it while being installed. Rob replaced the damaged portion of the cable, removed the jumper, and the problem was solved. It only took a day to diagnose and fix…. "Cruising"…

Our other reason for returning to civilization was to get WIFI. We went ashore late yesterday afternoon to discover that the city had been without power for most of the day. Word was it should be restored before nightfall. Civilization indeed.

As I write this the rest of the crew is ashore enjoying the Sunday morning church services. The Tongans are a very religious people with every flavor of Christianity represented in the community. They really know how to sing, and I'm told that Tongan services are quite entertaining. I'm sitting here trying to recover from a gout attack that has been coming on for a few days in the same toe joint that was bothering me previously.

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