First Year Issues

It is as axiomatic as the Second Law of Thermodynamics (can be translated as Murphy’s Law) that all boats have issues. Clearly some boats have more issues than others. I have had some that were nightmares from the day I got them until the day I (happily) waved good bye as they motored away. Others were just a bit more than an armed truce – some times I won, most of the time, they won. After one long season of cruising, it is only fair to put Iron Lady on the scale and see how she weighed in.

First, a comment. With any new boat, it is VERY wise to stick close to help while putting some time on, learning systems and quirks and dealing with infant mortality issues. With New Zealand being such a wonderful cruising ground, that really isn’t much of a hardship and we were really glad to have Circa close at hand when we had issues or questions. The South Pacific Islands or far at sea are no place to be when debugging the boat.

A second comment. Like any long distance passage maker, Iron Lady is a very sophisticated vessel. When you think about it, you are running your own little world – you are the power company, transportation company, water and sewer authority, appliance repair man, mechanic, HVAC technician, electrician, weatherman, cleaning person, cook, pilot and navigator all in your own 64 foot world (and lots of loved ones are depending on you). Iron Lady’s strength is in her robust systems, redundancy and prolific spares – far better then any other vessel I have owned. The other part of the equation is good training (which Steve and Todd provide). But it cannot be overemphasized, running a vessel like this is a full time learning process and it doesn’t end with the initial training.

To make this more sensible, I will break this in to parts – before leaving NZ and after leaving NZ and work upon our return to NZ after our first season of cruising. I won’t dwell much on the small issues as they were frequently operator error or just everyday things that you deal with. First – NZ.

• Air Con – we had one Primetime pump that was extremely noisy. While it didn’t fail, Circa replaced it with an onboard spare and ordered a replacement for us. This was an infant mortality issue.

• Galley Freezer – the controller for the compressor failed after we had packed the freezer for our trip to the islands. Rolf, Circa’s electrician arranged for us to put all of our frozen goods in his freezer at home. Circa had repair people come up from Auckland to sort the issues out. Took a few goes, but all was resolved within 2 days. Another infant mortality issue.

• Oil Change Pump – pump failed during the initial oil changes. No spare was available, but we did have a manual pump aboard and the Reverso is now replaced. Again, infant mortality.

• Deck Cleats – On our boat, Circa used a smaller wall thickness on the tubing and it was not up to par. We popped several of them – one in a particularly hair raising docking in gale force winds. Design issue and has been resolved with better/stronger cleats that serve multiple purposes better.

• Auto Pilot – the upper helm station went out in confined quarters and put the boat in to a hard starboard turn. Using bow thruster and reverse gear, I got the boat turned and stopped in time. Cause was determined to be a faulty upper helm station controller – probably failed due to water intrusion. The autopilot has been an ongoing issue – more on this later.

After leaving NZ.

• Kabola Boiler – the control module failed and a spare was sent to us in Fiji. We were not using the Kabola for heating the boat (we were in the tropics) but it was supplying domestic hot water. The electric heating elements in the domestic hot water tank were used instead. This was a wiring issue that has been resolved and will not be an ongoing problem.

• Genset Raw Water Pump – We have been experiencing premature pump impeller failures at anywhere from 50 to 200 hours. Other 64’s have had similar issues. We have switched to a better impeller and will have to see how well it does. Ongoing issue.

• Refrigerator Thermocouple Failure – The thermocouple simply failed and we resorted to running the compressor manually to get by. It was neither simple or foolproof keeping the temperature at safe levels so we also reduced the quantity of perishables we kept in the refer. Another infant mortality issue.

• DC Inverter Buss Fuse Failure – The fuse between the inverter/charges and the main DC bus was a 300 Amp fuse. The inverters at full output can draw 300 amps from the battery bank. This was simply a case where a larger fuse was needed. We had no 400 amp fuses aboard so after we blew and replaced the 300 amp with one of two 300 amp spares we had, we were very careful to watch our current draw when using the inverters. Circa sent us 400 amp spares which corrected the issue and it has not been a problem since.

• DC Charging System Failure – While in Fiji underway between destinations, we lost our entire 24V DC electrical system. Fortunately, with a big battery bank and a generator to power the inverter/chargers, we had options to keep the batteries up including the 12 V DC system for starting and powering the electronic controls on the John Deere and genset (these batteries are a separate bank and get their charging from a 24 to 12 volt converter tied to the main battery bank or a small 110 V AC charger). Things got a bit more exciting when we fired up the genset and it went down due to a raw water impeller failure (remember Mr. Murphy?).

Turns out the cause of the whole affair was an uncrimped connection on a large cable tying the big Electrodyne alternators to the main DC buss. When the resistance went high at the connection, there was a massive spike and cascade failure that blew the field fuses, zapstop protection devices on the alternators, and the 400 amp fuse feeding the buss. Hard to believe the bad connection made it as long as it did. Fortunately, all of the protective devices worked and there was no fire although the cable was pretty well fried.

After a bunch of diagnostic work,it was determined that the alternators were fine (they were saved but he zapstops) and the rectifier diodes were all OK. The sole casualty was one of the rectifier assembly cooling fans which died from an overload.

• Auto Pilot – We also had ongoing autopilot problems.

Between the DC system issue, the failed refer thermocouple and autopilot issues, in concert with Circa, it was decided that the best course of action would be for Circa to put together a repair package and have one of their technicians bring everything to Fiji to effect repairs. Deon Ogden came up and spent four days aboard helping to sort things out. The DC cable was repaired and replaced, the alternator Zapstops were replaced, the rectifier assemblies were thoroughly tested and the dead fan was replaced, the thermocouple for the refer was replaced and various autopilot components were also replaced. In addition, we spent time fine tuning the inverter/chargers and worked thru a number of smaller issues as well.

Back at Circa in NZ after our first season of cruising:

• There has been a condensation problem behind the salon cushions backing on the refer box. This has caused some discoloration on the cushions as well. Circa will be installing a layer of insulation in this area to correct the problem. They will also be replacing some of the cushion fabric. Turns out that we hate the color of the ultra suede we selected – it turned out to have a pink cast when installed. As a result, since Circa had to do about 1/3 of the cushions anyway, we bit the bullet and did everything. Lesson learned – get a large swatch of your choice preferably from the dye lot you will be receiving.

• Some of the garage locker support hardware was coming loose – Circa will be reinforcing them.

• Some of the Flexco floor tile in the salon was off color – Circa will be replacing areas of it. Replace the salon carpet. A black non skid backing that had been applied keeps marking the Flexco tile.

• Finally, a short list of small items. Improve FM radio reception, fix the security system so it can armed/disarmed a bit further from the boat, add turnbuckles to the port lifelines, replace some corroded hardware in the aft head, fix a very tiny coolant leak on the JD that has been eluding us, replace existing nuts on the steering gear with nylocks, and a few more items of the same ilk.

The final major item on our list is the autopilot. Unfortunately, we have just not been able to get it to operate properly on a consistent basis despite having replaced just about every major component. The plan at this juncture is to retain the pump sets which have not been an issue and replace all of the other components with a different brand of autopilot. This work will be completed by the time we return in January.

A couple of points in closing. Any new boat is going to have issues. Comparatively, we did not have a lot, most were infant mortality and most were not a big deal. The other point I would make is that when we did have an big issue, take note of how Circa responded even when it meant they had to fly to Fiji from New Zealand to help. Says a lot about the boat, its philosophy, its systems and the whole FPB team.