2012 Year in Review

I still have a few posts to do on NZ 2012, but by the time we reached Rangitoto and Auckland, we are a mere 8 hours or so from Whangarei and Circa where Iron Lady will spend her time until we return in 2013. So time for a review of issues during our 2012 adventure while circumnavigating NZ. As in my last year end review, this is unbiased reporting of issues we had and how they worked out.

I will start with the Kabola which provides hot water and heat to the boat when the big John Deere is not running. Last season the main circuit board blew out and we replaced it (courtesy of Circa getting a replacement to Fiji). Shortly into our 2012 cruise it blew out again. This time, a rigorous examination revealed some serious internal design errors. All of the power to fire the igniter and fan were routed thru a few small wire traces on the main circuit board for no reason as the power was simply passed thru to the fan and the igniter. The high amperage draw during initial firing burnt out the traces on the board over time. Deon from Circa was the hero and came up to the Bay of Islands with a fix that bypassed the errant circuits on the board and got us thru the trip. How bout that for a first class boat builder who comes to your rescue when a vendor screws up (more to come on that subject). A redesigned board from Kabola has now been installed.

We also had an at sea failure where our helm monitors kept shutting down. As we started to examine things, it became apparent that the inverter that powered them was shutting off due to an incoming over voltage condition. As we watched the 24 Volt bus, it was varying between 24 and 30 volts. The inverters were designed to turn off at around 30 volts so they were doing their job. What wasn’t doing its job was the Balmar voltage regulator on the 24 volt system. Once diagnosed, the fix was easy – replace it with the standard onboard spare (did the folks who sold you your boat supply you with one?)

We also experienced intermittent shutdowns on our basement freezer compressor. It was generally a simple matter to recycle things by turning the breaker off, waiting for about an hour, turning the breaker back on and we were back in business. There was still some risk for defrosting if we did not catch the shutdown so as we emptied the upper freezer, we moved items from the basement freezer to the upper freezer. Once empty, we simply turned off the basement freezer for the latter half of the trip. We now think that an internal parameter that monitors buss voltage may have been set incorrectly causing the shutdowns based on what it perceived to be a low voltage. While Iron lady sits on the hard at Circa, we are running the freezer to be sure.

Perhaps the biggest issue we had was with the new Comnav autopilot which was installed to replace one of the WH pilots. As you may recall, we had significant issues with the primary WH autopilot last year so the decision was made to replace it with a new Comnav system while Iron lady was back at Circa. This also required that we replace the WH pump set with a pump approved by Comnav. We had almost completed our circumnavigation of the North Island when the new pump on the Comnav pilot failed. To make a long story short, we diagnosed that the shaft between the motor and the pump had failed. As we had the back up WH pilot and the emergency steering wheel, this was not a major impediment to continuing our cruise, but Circa arranged for a replacement pump to be sent to meet us in Picton and have a mechanic they knew go thru things and install the new pump. In the process we discovered that the Comnav pump required a larger bleed line them the one the WH pump had. As such, the pump was being starved for make up fluid and that caused excessive loading which sheared the shaft. A temporary, pressurized makeup line was installed to solve the problem and the installation was tidied up by Circa after completion of our cruise.

That’s the list. Not bad based on all of my other experiences with “Holes in the Water” and, once again, you can see how Circa’s customer support really made the difference.

Next time around, I will try to cover mods we are making to Iron Lady before heading off next year.