If I were asked what I was doing this weekend I would have to reply as the great Tiger Blooded Charlie Sheen, “Duh Winning”. Many of the things I’ve been doing to the boat have taken me longer than I would like. Most of the time this is because the boat is 3 hours away, I start something, realize I need something else to complete the project and have to wait for the next time I can make the 3 hour trip to the boat. The past couple weekends weren’t any different.
We purchased the WEN 56200i generator, marinized it and took it to the boat. That’s when I found out more about AC power and how the Reverse Polarity indicator works on Starjewel. It reads the difference between the hot and neutral wires and throws a fault when it’s hooked up to a generator with a floating ground like the WEN 56200i. Many boaters use these small generators on boats, and without this indicator they don’t notice. Other’s that have the light on just ignore it. I decided to do a little more research.
==All below is only my solutions and I am not an electrician by any means. Research the systems yourself and decide how much risk you want to take.==
I decided to use some suggestions from the interwebz and create a jumper plug that would connect the neutral and ground systems for the generator. When this jumper plug is used the boat thinks it is connected to a shore power system. Apparently this indicator is just a notification and doesn’t affect the system itself. Many other cruisers use their portable generators all the time with no issues. I don’t like random fault lights lit up on my boat though so I wanted to take care of it the best I can. Now the generator can power the battery charger and air conditioner while we’re at anchor with no fault indicators. This makes those warm days around the outer banks that much more comfortable.
Another win was with the sails. The great couple at Hodges Street Sail did some minor repairs to make sure we have a couple more years of use out of them. When we got them back I installed the jib and main. The jib went up without much issue, but I had a problem with the main. The first time I pulled it up I didn’t get it completely to the top leaving a wrinkle of sail near the boom. Since my singlehanding skills were not up to par, I dropped the whole sail again and had Lisa wench it up while I fed the bolt rope into the track. I was still unsuccessful and it was time to head home, so we furled the sail and saved it for the next week. When we arrived the next weekend the sail had apparently had quite enough of being all twisted up in the mast. We unfurled the sail and started to rock the furler back and forth to try and line up the two tracks. What happened? Duh, Winning happened. Apparently the tracks were just a tiny bit out of line the first two times we tried to get the sails back together, but third time’s the charm.
Now we have AC power away from shore, and two spiffy newly repaired sails. After we get Starjewel hauled and get some fancy new bottom paint, she’ll be chewing up the miles.
We purchased the WEN 56200i generator, marinized it and took it to the boat. That’s when I found out more about AC power and how the Reverse Polarity indicator works on Starjewel. It reads the difference between the hot and neutral wires and throws a fault when it’s hooked up to a generator with a floating ground like the WEN 56200i. Many boaters use these small generators on boats, and without this indicator they don’t notice. Other’s that have the light on just ignore it. I decided to do a little more research.
==All below is only my solutions and I am not an electrician by any means. Research the systems yourself and decide how much risk you want to take.==
I decided to use some suggestions from the interwebz and create a jumper plug that would connect the neutral and ground systems for the generator. When this jumper plug is used the boat thinks it is connected to a shore power system. Apparently this indicator is just a notification and doesn’t affect the system itself. Many other cruisers use their portable generators all the time with no issues. I don’t like random fault lights lit up on my boat though so I wanted to take care of it the best I can. Now the generator can power the battery charger and air conditioner while we’re at anchor with no fault indicators. This makes those warm days around the outer banks that much more comfortable.
Another win was with the sails. The great couple at Hodges Street Sail did some minor repairs to make sure we have a couple more years of use out of them. When we got them back I installed the jib and main. The jib went up without much issue, but I had a problem with the main. The first time I pulled it up I didn’t get it completely to the top leaving a wrinkle of sail near the boom. Since my singlehanding skills were not up to par, I dropped the whole sail again and had Lisa wench it up while I fed the bolt rope into the track. I was still unsuccessful and it was time to head home, so we furled the sail and saved it for the next week. When we arrived the next weekend the sail had apparently had quite enough of being all twisted up in the mast. We unfurled the sail and started to rock the furler back and forth to try and line up the two tracks. What happened? Duh, Winning happened. Apparently the tracks were just a tiny bit out of line the first two times we tried to get the sails back together, but third time’s the charm.
Now we have AC power away from shore, and two spiffy newly repaired sails. After we get Starjewel hauled and get some fancy new bottom paint, she’ll be chewing up the miles.