After a 56-hour trip at sea, we finally returned to Brunswick Landing Marina (AKA The Hotel California) with a long list of repair jobs ahead of us, including replacing both the hot water heater and inverter. The trip was tiring but thankfully uneventful. We decided 48 hours or less is better travel time for us. We were both exhausted by the time we arrived.
Our wind vane stopped working on the voyage. Not a huge issue during the day but a real pain at night when we had the canvas closed (it was chilly!) and couldn’t see which way the vane was pointing in the dark. We have since learned that Raymarine has issues with these wind vanes. Ours is still under warranty and will need replaced.
Our priority repairs in Brunswick included replacing the hot water heater and the inverter. The hot water heater was leaking, causing our water pump to run all the time. The leak was coming from underneath the tank, of course. It also wouldn’t heat water when the engine was running, so time to replace it. Our challenge came when we couldn’t find another 220-volt heater that would fit in the space. We are blessed with great friends who came through for us, changing out the circuit breaker for us.
Our next project was changing out the inverter. Our inverter provides us with AC current when we are at anchor or out to sea. It also charges the battery when we are at a dock or using the generator, moving that AC power into our DC batteries. Unfortunately, it kept tripping every time we started the generator. That resulted in a job of pulling all the cushions from the table to access the reset button. What a pain!
The new inverter is working great and thankfully was no trouble changing out. We were lucky enough to be able to “plug and play” with that one. We still need a new battery monitor as the new inverter control only monitors input into the batteries and not output coming from them. On the to-do list…for now we patched up both of them until we can get another solution!
I love our boat life and travels but I sure wish we could catch a break with all this boat work! In a conversation with friends yesterday I heard the same sentiment from them. I think it goes along with owning a boat. The more you use it, the more problems you discover. Staying on top of them all seems to be the challenge, especially when you are trying to travel and work along the way.
