JANUARY 28, 2016
Phyllis and
I returned to our yacht “Solstice” on January 15th, 2016. We had left Thailand on September 24th
and flew back to the States to visit family and friends. The SW Monsoon and consequent rainy season
was not favorable for starting the Northern Route to South Africa via Andaman
Islands > Sri Lanka > Maldives > Chagos > Seychelles > Comorros?
> Madagascar > Richards Bay, SA > Cape Town for Christmas.
We left the
boat needing only anti-fouling paint to be applied before launching. This was done and the boat launched at 0900
hrs on January 21st. There
were no problems encountered and we moved into Berth A-14 at Boat Lagoon. Once we were safely tied up in the wet berth,
we started to prepare the boat for Sea Trials.
The remaining items to be addressed were: 1) Change the Seafrost Engine Driven
Refrigeration from R-12 freon to the newer 134A freon.
2) Install
three new 200 Ahr 8D Ritar Batteries.
3) Have Canvas Creations put on the new Dodger
& Bimini which had been made before we left.
4) Trouble shoot an oil leak which was coming
from the Raw Water Pump. This turned out
to be a Beta UK factory issue: they
forgot to plug a hole that had been occupied by a threaded stud. This was easily solved by removing the Raw
Water Pump and threading in a stainless
steel Allen head bolt with Locktite 242 to hold it in place.
Sea Trials
took place on January 28th from 1212-1342 hrs. We had a pilot onboard and the general
contractor, Wiwat Tachagulpongkon, along with the Beta Representative, Gary
Gilbert. It is rare that a Sea Trial is
conducted without a few problems but that is exactly what happened. The Beta 50 diesel was run out according to
Beta’s recommendations: 15 minutes at one third throttle; 15 minutes at two
thirds throttle; 15 minutes “full out” at 2800 rpms. The MaxProp pitch and blade angle settings
had been calculated by Fred Hutchins, the CEO of MaxProp, and were perfect: 12-1/2 degrees pitch with a 20 degree blade
angle. Kudos go to him and his expertise
in calculating the pitch for various engines and their gearboxes. We ran the engine at the max 2800 rpms and
never saw a hint of exhaust smoke. The
throttle maxed out at 2890 and still no smoke.
No undue vibrations were felt in the drive train. It doesn’t get any better than that.
So after
being on-the-hard for almost a year, the
difficulties encountered in modifying the engine beds and installing a new
engine, the end result is a most satisfactory job overall. Now we can get ready to move back aboard and
resume the cruising life.
