Fused

Over the few days since our marina departure we'd motor sailed a bit plus put on the generator to keep our batteries charged. This would normally have been enough to keep the everything topped up nicely but something was not quite right. Our DC voltage meter was frequently dipping below 12.00v. The Bloke was getting worked up first checking what, if any, Amps were being delivered and that 240v was showing on the AC dial when the generator was operating. We were able to deduce that the engine was pushing in Amps but the generator although providing 240v to our AC circuit was not delivering charge to the batteries. OK- that's a new scenario for us. Inspecting the Dolphin regulator under our bunk didn't give much info either as it was indicating that the batteries were in float mode when clearly they were not!

    

Instruments how they might look if everything was in order

Time to pull out the manuals and investigate more thoroughly! The trouble shooting section suggested a possible cause - blown fuses! Here we go. Let's tear the boat apart...again! We needed a better look at this. The Bloke had pulled out one fuse but the other was properly fried and fell apart in his fingers. The " F" box was on standby on red alert. How could this have happened?

Looking at the Regulator/Smart Charger

The power went down on our side of the marina jetty just 5 minutes before we're were about to disconnect the AC power. The Bloke had been growling about how much more time did I need. I was just heating some soup. Guys in one of those adventure-on-a-shoestring vessels, were experimenting with their shore power fittings, trying different wires in different holes! Suddenly no power. The whole side of our jetty went out we later learned. We just raised our eyes, muttered something like "bloody dickheads, you can just pick 'em" and thought no more about it. No more that is, until a few days later when our generator wasn't putting any Amps in. 

 

The fuses were fried. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200. We were headed back to Port Moselle and directly for that lovely chandlery for some 30Amp spade fuses (plus some more sanitation hose). We hoped like mad that the fuses were the only part of our smart charger that got fried. We were suddenly feeling unusually religious. 

Luckily some pliers made it possible to remove the remaining fuse part

Did their job and melted

A quick trip around the bay to check with neighbouring boats if they had any 30Amp fuses was unproductive so a trip back to Noumea was unavoidable. We could still charge the batteries but only through the motor. We could still use 240v power delivered from the generator, we just couldn't charge the batteries with the generator. Nothing stays broken long on this boat 

The blister pack of fuses contained only 1 x30 Amp fuse per pack so we are now well stocked with extras of other sizes.

We made the best of a bad situation and collected everyone's garbage to take back to the marina. A little courtesy among cruisers. We also had a shopping list of items that people had run out of: baguettes, bread, croissants, pate and prawns. We would return with this bounty once we'd resolved the regulator issue. 

We noticed that the culprit boat was still in the marina but conspicuously without a shore power cable! Yes' Coup du Soleil' (aluminium hull with red canvas work) - Merci Beaucoup and all to you!!

The episode does have a happy ending. The new fuses worked and the generator is once again able to do it's job. Thanks to the fuses our whole electrical system didn't get fried. Phew. That was a near thing.