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02/06/21 Weds. Removed the sprayhood this morning and Ana took off the stbd side of it and made a new side to fit. Refitted it all during the afternoon.
03/06/21 Thurs. Today's job was to fix the stanchion base which was damaged by Neil's anchor the other day. Emptied the nav. berth and took down the deckhead, removed the stanchion from it's base and unbolted the base from the toerail. I had to cut bolts to fit to reassemble. Oddly enough, I had a phone call from the parcel delivery shop in town saying my parcel (of stanchion bases) was ready for collection! Another all day job in the blazing sun - it's been so hot these last few weeks and with 98% humidity, life is becoming difficult and sleep at night is almost impossible.
05/06/21 Sat. Collected my parcel from town yesterday. Too hot to do anything much onboard. We have a local man, James, doing some research into the vaccines for us and he is being told the same things - no vaccines for foreigners. For the first time in years, we feel that we are not welcome in Malaysia, which is a sad state of affairs. Now the army pontoon has banned us from using the landing stage as well.
08/06/21 Tues. Still no luck with the Smartbank problem. I've changed cables, connectors, ferrules, the Smartbank itself, the solenoid. I've moved the solar panel input cable from house to engine battery and back again, I've changed the connect and disconnect voltages, I've measured continuity and resistance.......and still no change in the problem! The one fault I have found is the excessive voltage drop across the solenoid activation terminals (C1 and C2) which points to the Smartbank PCB being defective. What I can't understand is why both the old and the new Smartbank units are showing the same symptoms, they can't both have the same fault........can they?
11/06/21 Fri. The Malaysian Government have today extended MCO3, which is supposed to be 'full lockdown', for another 14 days - it now runs until the 28th June.
15/06/21 Tues. Despite 'giving up' with the Smartbank, the problem goes around and around in my head and I worry it like a dog with a bone. Each day, I think of some other thing to try or change, I think it's worked, and the next morning we are back to square one! Argggh!!
18/06/21 Fri. Enough!! I've decided the fault is in the Smartbank itself, there is a 6.7v drop across what I think is a FET (Field Effect Transistor). I am waiting to see what the manufacturers say about my thoughts and will then decide whether to replace it (again) or dump the lot and fit a DVSR in it's place. Currently, the Smartbank is disconnected and only the Smartgauge wired in to show voltage on each battery bank.
19/06/21 Sat. It's the dinghy and outboard engine's turn today - the engine cooling water seems to have decreased some, so I ran it in a bucket of fresh water and bicarbonate of soda but it doesn't seem to have cleared the water jacket. Tomorrow I will strip the pump down and inspect the impeller and pump body, we've picked up a lot of rubbish on the prop over the last few months so maybe some was sucked into the pump body. We started scraping the bottom of the dinghy, which has a lot of growth on it because we'd left it in the water for too long instead of hoisting it each night, it's going to be a several day job I think!
20/06/21 Sun. Happy Birthday to me! I stripped down the outboard motor today and found the impeller in 4 pieces with the wear plates scored - fitted a new one with new plates and reassembled the engine - all good now.
22/06/21 Tues. A day of moving boats, moved ours across to Colona II, then took Neil's boat to the marina for water. Had a haircut. Brought Neil's boat back and then moved ours back alongside him. Changed a switch on the panel as the sailing instruments were not working. Merlin engineers, (the Smartbank manufacturers) have stopped e-mailing me, so I guess I will change over to a DVSR system and do away with the Smartbank, it will mean a little rewiring and a bit of hole cutting, but so be it.
25/06/21 Fri. After several mornings of barnacle scraping, the dinghy bottom is finally cleared of the little buggers and off the deck - hanging on a halliard over the side. We went over to Zizi for coffee and cake in the evening, as it was Kim's birthday.
29/06/21 Tues. A few days of stanchion removal. It took me two days to remove the one which was bent by a courtesy boat in Mumbai, and it only came out after using a 36" stilson on it. Today I took it over to the yard to be straightened as much as possible before refitting it in it's base.
30/06/21 Weds. I got the two stanchions and bases refixed to the boat today and the guardwires are now back in place. One more to go on the stbd side, but that can wait until another day.
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