I’ve been having a problem with the battery status for quite a while now and couldn’t figure out the problem. The Xantrex battery monitor has been consistently showing less availability than the bank actually has. Usually battery monitors will err in the other direction, showing more remaining capacity than the bank has; this is usually due to some electrical loads bypassing the monitor’s shunt and similar causes, but in my case the monitor would show 100Ah less than what I actually had, causing me to run the generator when I really didn’t need to and wonder why the batteries were charging with such a low current when they should have been charging with a high one.
I had asked online and I believe that the solution is that my Peukert’s setting of 1.25 was incorrect and should read 1.08; this could account for the discrepancy. Unfortunately, I then needed to charge the battery bank to 100% in order to synchronize the actual battery state and the monitor setting, which meant I needed to run the generator almost 5 hours! (I don’t think I’ve ever run it so long in one session before). Since generators do best when run under load, and the last 3 hours of charging were done under a very light load, I tried to use as much energy as possible, putting water in the now empty freezer and firing that up, making water until the tanks were full and then washing down the decks in order to use some of that water.
I did go ashore to pick up a couple of items at the store and was hit with some serious sticker shock – 250g of roast beef, a block of butter, some peanuts, a small Gouda cheese, a loaf of white bread and some wasabi set me back over $44. At least the roast beef was very tasty and the wasabi was a replacement for the horseradish that the store didn’t carry. I am looking forward to provisioning in St. Martin, where the prices are a bit more humane.
Towards sunset I thought I’d get some of the rust from the stanchions in the cockpit area, where I hadn’t yet done any polishing, and had barely started when Toddy (who, along with Susan, I’ve known for a couple of years and who is an instructor at the Rob Swain Sailing School) dropped by and invited me over to Contessa, a large ketch, for a sundowner and I couldn’t refuse so headed out to their position in the anchorage, one usually occupied by Mangele, Michael Beans’ boat. Mangele is currently on the hard for repairs, so that spot was open and is certainly more protected than my rather exposed position in the anchorage.
After too many drinks I dinghied back to the boat, decided to forego the Friday night Jumbies at Leverick and made a small dinner aboard. The night outside was too pretty to spend below decks or in the cockpit reading, so I switched off the lights and gazed at the stars until it was time to sleep, albeit the music from ashore was still rather loud despite the distance.
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