Second sea trial

10 nautical miles

Target today was to calibrate the navionics. This meant we needed to do two or three very slow circles. As we started off from the marina there was a significant sea mist. We don't have radar this year so we stationed John at the bow as lookout.

Then we started the slow circles. The autopilot calibrated and we hoisted sails and started off towards Cape Pila. Yes! The autopilot was now working fine and would steer course or to wind.

Next thing was to create a compass deviation chart. So we started on that under sail.

The motor was too hot to use, but it would have been easier and quicker to do this under power. We really must find something to keep the motor cool.

With 8 deep discharge batteries, plus the power controller there is not a lot of space in the engine room.

But now this was glorious sailing. We had ice-cool watermelon while we sailed along.

We started the generator to test that under way and to recharge the batteries that we had used quite a bit for the navionics calibration. That worked perfectly. Could even run the fridge freezer at the same time as recharging the batteries.

Louis needed to be back by 1pm so we turned for home. I had hoped a sail past Larnaca Nautical Club, but time would not permit.

About half a nautical mile out from the marina we started the motor, dropped the sails and I took the helm. I had the throttle at about 40% keeping it low because I know we still have this motor heating problem and when it gets too hot the controller throttles the motor back automatically and the last thing I want is to lose power while maneuvering into the berth, especially as we want to try to berth stern to this time.

At 40% throttle we had just about 2 knots of speed. Not exactly mind blowing, but adequate. We really do need more power.  I would have liked to motor up to the marina at about 4 knots and slowed to 2 and then 1 as we entered. I felt we were just chugging along, and because of the over-heating I don't really feel I trust the motor yet.

I slow down to about a knot as we turn into our area of the marina and then slow still more as we come close to our berth... turn ready to reverse... put the throttle into reverse and... nothing... the motor died. 

Because the wind was moderate we immediately started to drift towards the other boats and the slipway which would have done significant damage to our yacht and others except for the quick thinking of Tim who jumped into the water and swam to an anchor chain and we threw him a line which he secure to that chain... and we eventually managed to berth the boat in between two others not at our own berth. 

We stayed on the yacht all afternoon worried that the real owner of the berth would return. I talked a friend Chris into a tow at 5pm when the wind had dropped. Where we were it did appear to drop. When he started to tow we realised the wind had not dropped we were just in a sheltered position. We should have taken his advice and not tried it. 

With the help of a couple of Lebanese on a power boat we managed to beth between two very big power boats.  Other than damaging our brand new gangplank no other damage was sustained to our yacht... or anyone else. Thank God.

We left her there for the night.

First sea trial

11 nautical miles

The day started off with Tim and me clearing up King Malu so that when we sailed tools and other things would not fly around the cabin. Then when our crew arrived, Jacob, Louis and Sidney we got the sails ready, put on lifejackets and motored out. The motor was still getting hotter than we wanted, but it did the job. 

Up with mainsail and genoa and we started sailing. Yes... King Malu under sail again! She is a very well behaved if heavy boat. What with the fridge and freezer working it was wonderful to enjoy a glass of ice cold lemonade as we sailed.

We wanted to try to get the mizzen up, but could not because we need an extra halyard, since we had stolen the mizzen halyard for the gangplank. We tried removing the mizzen topping lift, but that was stuck firmly.

We tried the autopilot, but that went crazy taking us totally the wrong way. However, the main sheet system was brilliant, total control and very easy from the helm.

On the way back we passed the Zenobia dive boats. The wreck of the Zenobia is supposed to be one of the ten best dive sites in the world.

One of the boats was Alpha Divers, run by Chris, a friend of mine. I almost called him up on the radio, but we were having fun and he was working!

King Malu tacked nicely and so on the way back (I was skipper for the day) I decided to try a jibe. Yes, she jibed nicely too... a textbook jibe with the boat gently coming round rather than the boom bashing across.

So I positioned her right and did a final jibe and a broad reach back to the marina. The motor worked OK, but there was too much wind to reverse in, so we just put her bow to the dock. The afternoon we spent on pottering jobs.

OK, so I re-read the manual for the autopilot and in commissioning realised that the motor control was the wrong way round. Changed that and the autopilot went the right way. Costas from Raymarine came round and I found out that the reason we couldn't get the autopilot to steer to wind was that it was configured (dealer config which he changed) as a power boat not sail boat. And... the reason that we couldn't see wind and depth on the A70 was that the autopilot didn't repeat those values on the NMEA output. OK, so tomorrow we will calibrate the autopilot.

All in all a wonderful day's sail.

Batteries being installed

Yesterday I painted with epoxy the battery cage, so today was fix it in place and get the batteries wired... didn't finish, of course, but did get a long way there.

In the morning I cut some marine ply for the cage: 2cm thick marine ply!  This is so that when the batteries are in place they will not roll about and should worst come to worst and the boat ever rolls 180 degrees, the batteries will not fall out. You really don't want 200 plus kilos of batteries free running around your engine room!

But before we could fix the battery cage back in place we had to refit the motor. The flange that joined the motor to the UJ (universal joint) was re-machined on Thursday to fix two problems - firstly one of the bolts thread was chewed up and two of the others didn't look to good and secondly alignment was dependent on the bolts which was not great. So Louis re-tapped the holes for larger bolts and created a stud alignment for the flange to the UJ. Worked great.

So after the motor was back in place we bolted the battery cage in place and then started wiring and fixing the woodwork. Almost finished but not quite. Would have got further if I could have found the Stanley knife to cut the insulation off some wires, but the boat seems to have this habit of getting really untidy and then being unable to find anything. The degree if untidiness is directly proportional to the number of people working on the boat at the same time... so with Tim, me, Daniel, Ken and Louis all working on the boat on Wednesday you can see it got pretty untidy!

I started tidying again in an effort to find the Stanley knife. It should be easier now in that with the battery cage in place we won't be tripping over 8 deep discharge batteries and a fairly heft motor controller all the time.

Battery box in place

I went down really early this morning, well, 8am is really early for me, with Louis to help cut away part of the main frame for the motor and fit the bolts for the battery box. He cut off the extra bits of metal. Just as we finished that Ken rang suggesting we put the cage back in, mark it up, remove it, remove the frame and take all back to the workshop to fix. I said 'Too late, it's done'.

We then fitted the cage back in and drilled all 8 of the 8mm holes for bolts (9mm holes for 8mm bolts). Finished around 10am. It was very hot work. Need more water for the boat ;-) Louis basically felt we had to do it in situ with clamps because it will be right aligned... even though it is a 'job' (ie task) drilling all holes with electric hand drill. We left the cage in place since Dan and I can get it out and saves Louis time.

In the afternoon I paid a visit to Louis workshop: Louis has done the lathe work on the flange for the motor so that it mates perfectly with the UJ. Alignment will be easy for the future. He had retapped all the threads on the UJ to 12mm metric. He has still to widen the holes in the flange to allow for 12mm bolts (which he will do tomorrow) and he gave me two new hex bolts for the motor (different lengths, stainless steel this time) and is getting new 12mm bolts for the UJ the right length (again tomorrow).

I am hoping to get motor back in tomorrow and hope this is last time. I'm not into this 'in, out, in, out' I prefer to work with a temporary bodge while testing then put something in correctly and leave it there! With the flange re-machined I think we will be perfectly aligned with the motor.

I met Louis family while I was there - he has two sons almost exactly same age as mine, and when his wife arrived found they had celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary 2 weeks ago, whereas our 30th is this weekend.

Louis also introduced me to Savvas who does most of the electrical work here (rewinding motors, generators etc). He was very interested in what we are doing with King Malu.

Battery boxes and motor alignment

Tim, Daniel and I went down to King Malu around 5pm to look at some settings on the motor. When we arrived we found Ken and Loius had put the battery box (a significant metal structure for 8 deep discharge batteries) into the saloon. So we thought we would see if it fitted. Ken and Louis had not done this because the motor controller was in the way and would need unwiring.

Bofore fitting the battery box we wanted to test the new settings we had been emailed for the motor. Sadly they were slower than the ones the previous day. Hmmm... not going well.

So we unwired the controller and fitted, or tried to fit, the battery box. Two of the struts from the main frame for the motor and battery boxes were too long and so it would not fit. We called Ken and Louis and they came to look. Tomorrow we would need to cut away some of the main frame.

Then we looked at the alignment of the prop shaft. It looked good, but two problems were noticed. Firstly the thread of one of the bolts was screwed up and would need retapping and secondly Louis noticed that the connection from the motor flange to the universal joint could be improved for alignment, indeed, should be improved and he wished he had noticed this before. Oh well... another step forward for another day.

While this was happening Daniel was doing a turks head knot on the stern hand rail.  There is a flap in the hand rail for people to come on and off the boat. Because it has a steel catch it tends to scratch the teak varnishing. So the tucks head knot will stop it banging.

Removed the old motor

Well, the controller isn't working correctly, but we did manage to motor over to the lift out berth and lift out the old Ford motor.

Tim and I spent the morning in preparation. Included in this was removing the saloon table. That had been Daniel's suggestion to give more space. After the well built Suez Canal pilot had apparently fallen against the table when the boat was under previous ownership that table had not been the same again. Tim had tried to make it firmer, but to no avail. We decided to remove it and make it more rigid in the future.

Having removed it we then decided that for our sailing a large fixed table wasn't really what we wanted so for this year we will use a fold-up table and think about what is best for the future next year. Many of our projects involve thinking and planning and rethinking and re-planning till we get the best solution possible.

In the afternoon we (Tim, Daniel, Sydney, Jacob and me) and gathered together and created a derrick with the spinnaker pole, the main halyard and the mainsheet (which is 4:1/8:1 ratio block system) and the genoa sheets as guides. This worked extremely well and we lifted the old Ford engine to the deck.

We then motored round to the lift out bay and removed the engine. What went wrong? This was easier than we expected. Within a few minutes the old engine was sitting on the hard.

We then motored back out with the intention of checking anchoring and then returning to our berth. However... on the way out two of the fenders pulled off so we decided we should launch the tender and retrieve them.

Agggg... the wind was blowing us around and the lack of engine power (the new new motor controller is not configured correctly yet) meant we decided discretion was the better part of valour and tried to return to our berth. In reverse the motor really was a pain giving almost no power. This is partly because we have a folding propeller.

We moored for'ard to and then sent a shore party off the retrieve the fenders. They failed. They walked back and forth trying to find them.

On the way back someone said to them, 'Looking for something?' 'Yes, we lost a couple of fenders' 'These yours?' 'Yes' 'Next time I'll keep them!'

Finally took my car round and lifted the engine into the back and then drove home and lifted out into my driveway.

Successful day. Need more like these.

Motor working... sort of...

What a day. In the morning Daniel and I went down to King Malu and got the frame bedded onto the engine bearers. Then got the motor mounted onto the frame and finally lined up the motor with the prop shaft. Then back home for lunch.

After lunch Tim and I went down to the boat and wired it all up. Temporarily wired that is since we don't have the battery cage upon which the drive controller will be mounted. But the aim is to get the motor working so we can move the boat to the lift out dock and take out the old Ford engine tomorrow.

Having wired it all up we tested it and... the motor revolved at unbelievably slow speed. Everything we did seemed to make no difference. So we phoned Jacopo to try and get more information. The problem was compounded by the fact that the documentation didn't match the firmware embedded in the controller. No joy. So home for dinner...

Tim, Lauren and I then went back after dinner and went through every setting in the controller and at last the motor came to life. Not entirely sure what we did, but at least it should work for tomorrow. It was exciting to see King Malu surge forward on her moorings, rearing to go.

One irritation is that the motor controller doesn't like some connections at switch on. So we will have to put a time delay on them. Doesn't fully make sense in an electric car, but is nonsense in a boat. I wish we could disable that 'feature'.

Motor frame finished

Ken and Louis finished the frame for the motor today and checked everything lines up with the drive shaft correctly. So at 6pm I took it home and painted it with epoxy primer.

Then late when I couldn't sleep I got up and finished the throttle control. That now works correctly too.

My original design didn't have the extra drain resistor for the transistor relay driver or the resistor on the output of the throttle control. But with those added the system worked very well indeed.

Basically the cross wired dual gang potentiometer has one fading up while the other is fading down and visa versa. By adding them through a couple of diodes, from the central off position the voltage increases in each direction.

Using a ubiquitous 741 op-amp across the two potentiometers, when the voltage on one is greater than the other the op-amp triggers state. This goes through a 2N2222 driver transistor to a relay. I could drive the controller direct, with a couple of op-amps, but using the relay isolates my circuit from the controller totally.

Simple and effective.

Tomorrow if all goes well the battery frame will be finished.

Motor in place... temporarily

Yes, it had it's first fitting today... like a fitting for a suit or a dress. And yes, there are adjustments to be made. But not with needle and thread, but welding torch and milling machine.

Ken and Louis got the side plates and end plate ready for the first fitting and sadly, the side plates were very slightly wrong. However, as the english phrase does 'a miss is as good as a mile' so the plates were taken off back to the workshop for re-machining.

The plan had been to fit the motor, then remove it to have it epoxy painted. My feeling after today is that when its fitted we leave it there and epoxy paint what we can in situ.

Tomorrow should be the next fitting.

We found out over the weekend that the manufacturer of the drive controller had different firmware installed to what the manual specified. This means the wig-wag controller (their language) or the Morse controller (sailing language) will not work. Great. Not! So I sat down over the weekend and designed some basic electronics to overcome the problem. Amazing what you can do with a 741 op-amp.

Yesterday we negotiated with the company that supplied the motor to send us a programmer by express air freight so that we can re-program the controller to work correctly with the new electronic throttle that I designed. We now have a tracking number so that we know its on its way.

Motor arrived

Exciting day. The motor arrived.

I had been watching the tracking of the item with TNT and so knew online when it had arrived in Cyprus and called TNT to arrange for Tim and me to pick it up.

We went down to the TNT depot in Larnaca only to find that although they had the controller there, they had left the motor with another company for delivery because it was so heavy. So we went down to the other company with a TNT rep to pick it up. On the way back home TNT phoned us to say the package had arrived (we knew) but that one of the packages was missing (we knew it was somewhere else) and that they would try to find it (we told them we already had it).

Heavy beast the motor. Lighter than the old diesel though.