Like every motor vehicle, Sulina has a comprehensive electrical system, which needs to be understood.
No, let me start again...
Sulina's electrics are like gobbledygook, quite uniquely incomprehensible! Maybe that's unfair. The original boat builder probably had a plan. But over the years, a number of do-it-yourselfers have put their ideas into play to create what the Germans call
'a cable salad'. Some would call it 'spaghetti junction' or perhaps just 'chaos'.
We encountered this electrical chaos straight after buying the boat when she was still called 'en noe....'. Yes, precisely... 'now what'?? It took awhile to figure out how to turn on lights, nothing was labelled, and we were often surprised and bewildered.
Our boat has two battery systems, one starter battery comes alive when you turn the key, and the other battery is for usage inside the boat for the radio, GPS, lights, inverter, etc. But each 'battery' is actually two massive batteries (each twice the size of a normal car battery) because the whole system is 24 volts, not 12 volts. In addition we carry two extra batteries, just in case.
They live down in the depths of the engine room. To get to them, you have to remove the carpet, the heavy sound-insulating mats, the wooden floor panels and the lightweight sound-insulating mats.
Now no battery can work for too long unless it gets charged, and that is controlled by the generator. The Germans have a beautiful name for it; they say 'Lichtmaschine', the light machine. It generates electrical power from the running of the diesel motor and thus charges up the batteries. But which one?
In a motor with 2 electrical systems like ours, this should be controlled by diodes (the black contraption with cooling fins and three nuts in a row in this photo). Alternatively, there is a more modern device called an automatic battery separation relay.
Altogether, there are a lot of things that can go wrong.
In a way, the problem with the charging had shown its face last year already, with inconsistent performance as we drove 700 kilometers from the north of Germany down to Straßburg. But the crunch came this year when we were about to drive out of the lock at Faulbach just before Wertheim. Johannes turned the key to restart the engine and it ALMOST didn't start! The starter battery wasn't charging and as we lay in the Wertheim Yacht Club, he tried again. This time, it didn't start at all.
We stretched a long extension cable over to the clubhouse and recharged the batteries by mains electricity, but of course this was no solution. It wouldn't be possible to travel to Budapest like this, limping from one electrical socket to the next. We would have to tackle Sulina's electrics.
We were tied on to the Jupiter, whose skipper seemed experienced and we told him of our troubles. He made a number of suggestions of what it could be, even including faulty batteries. Having found this realm of the electrics mysterious and challenging, we needed to find people whose advice we could trust, as we made our own observations and struggled to understand it all.
In Laudenbach, we knew that there was a boat mechanic so we went there, hoping for assistance. Alas, they no longer serviced boats, only cars, but the mechanic was willing to 'take a look'. He checked out the batteries and the generator and decided it must be a problem with the regulator of the generator and that we would have to replace that part. Such a little thing, could that be the solution?
In Würzburg we tried to find this spare part, but the fact that it was for a 24 volt motor, and an old model at that, meant that it was unavailable. But we found one online and made arrangements with the harbourmaster at Bamberg to have the part delivered to him. Once there, we changed the regulator and tried the motor again with high hopes, but unfortunately, nothing had changed. The batteries were still not charging. Unexpectedly, a little motor boat pulled in behind us. The skipper was a car mechanic from Reutlingen, so once again, we had the benefit of someone's experience and knowledge. He explained a test we could do to assess whether the generator itself was defective. That sounded very serious, but clearly something was wrong. Out of our depths, we had really no option but to go with the sensible advice we were given. Gradually, we ourselves were learning more and more about Sulina's electrics, but we still depended on others. We did the test; it seemed clear that the generator was defective and would have to be replaced. This whole grueling operation, taking the generator out and then putting it back in took us about 6 hours.
We spent virtually a whole day searching Bamberg for a replacement generator. We went to auto mechanics, scrapyards, truck service, shops, all over the place. We were offered two possibilities, one for over 200 euros but we would have to wait for a few days and another for 1600 euros. Since we were starting to feel a bit insecure about the advice we'd been given, we decided to get one which we found on internet, second hand out of a truck for 45 euros. Then we wouldn't have lost so much money in case this was also the wrong solution after all. It would be delivered to Haidhof in a few days.
Then serendipity came into our lives in a wonderful way. We were staying at a little marina in Herzogenaurach and were invited to attend their summer festival. Despite corona, they were having a barbeque with live music and maybe 100 people were there. A family group of 3 people came to sit by us and we chatted about all sorts of things until we discovered that the son was a mechanic. Not only that, he was an ex-Waldorf pupil. We dared tell him our tale of woe and he promised to take a look at our boat the next morning.
With circumspection and a calm manner, he assessed the problem, found us a short term solution for charging the batteries, and suggested that we order and install an automatic battery separating relay to replace the battery separating diodes that no longer worked. So we had that sent to Haidhof as well.
It arrived, packed with a bit of coronavirus humour, a roll of toilet paper wishing us good health. We installed the relay and since then, the batteries have been charging as they are meant to. Thank you everybody who helped! Budapest, here we come!
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