The alternators’ saga

It seems that overnight segments are not friends with us. We departed from Sandy Hook, NJ one morning with the intention of making it by the next day to Lewes, DE, some 130 nautical miles away.

After clearing most of the heavy traffic to and from New York City we pointed south and got ready to raise the main sail. A loose rope out of nowhere fell to my feet. Uh-oh. It was a section of the lazy jack that untied itself. Not a biggie, but it was a sign that the gods were not with us that day, and it meant I had to climb up two thirds of the mast with the boat rolling to the waves to put it back where it belonged. My breakfast did remain in its place, thank you very much.

One hour before dusk I decided to turn on the port engine, since we where not making good progress against the wind, and even less so with the winds getting lighter. Beeeeeep!!! Alarms galore in the engine panel, with a familiar pattern. Oh, no, not again! I shut the engine and went down to the engine room: yes, again. The alternator was loose.

Since the alternators are seemingly becoming the villain of these adventures, please allow me some technical explanations to clear their honor. We have wonderful engines that run fine, and high-quality alternators that run fine. The only problem is that the engines are Yanmar and the alternators are Mastervolt (a better match to our Mastervolt lithium batteries than the original Yanmar alternators)… and they don’t seem to want to stay together. The second attempt was a specially manufactured bracket that just broke in two pieces.

An  alternator is not a critical part of an engine: it just recharges the batteries. However, the belt that drives the alternator in these engines also drives the coolant pump: a loose alternator means a loose belt, which means no coolant circulation, which leads to overheating, which destroys the engine. So the port engine was out of commission.

And given that the starboard engine had an identical bracket holding the alternator, it was at risk too, thus we decided not to use it and reserve it for our landfall. However, at the pace we were sailing we would have needed an extra full day to get to our scheduled destination. We changed course to Atlantic City, NJ, where we arrived the following afternoon, me overheating with flu symptoms.

We’re now in this otherworldly marina surrounded by golden casinos that saw better times, waiting for new, stronger brackets to fix the alternators (as in fix them so that they don’t move), while also waiting for my fever to subside. Multitasking at its best.

Oh, and Leslie decided to skip the wait and the viruses, and, understandably, abandoned ship. It was a pleasure and a relief to have the extra hands and experience of an adult making sure two kids with more sailing dreams than practice would not sink a brand-new boat. Now we’re on our own. We’ll follow Captain Ralph’s advice: go slow and aim for the cheapest boat.