We departed at 0730 on a flood tide, not the best idea but as time and tide wait for no man, the alternative was to sit around for 6 hours.
We motored down the harbour for the first 6 miles, taking in all the familiar sights and smells of Gladstone Harbour. At Boyne Smelter wharf enough wind had arrived to set sail and make our way down the South Channel. The nagging feeling in my head was that the usual smells around there, which are usually bauxite, or perhaps a waft of caustic, were apparently intermittently continuing. Odd! We were now upwind of all the industry , and with the light breeze on the nose, we had all the forward windows open , well and truely blowing through the cabin- thankfully.
The smell was only intermittent , and I just couldn't place it.
We had a pleasant if not speedy voyage down the harbour and cleared the channel ,called my departure into Gladstone VTS and got yet another strange waft of that something vaguely familiar smell. Just as I was asking Jo if it was my imagination, or had she been getting the odd waft of - and verbalising the words, rotten egg gas, suddenly had me diving for the battery locker, which is in the saloon.
Oh dear, yet another missed photo opportunity- a fizzing battery- and boy was it was fizzing!
When in doubt and its electrical, my motto is, call Peter, he will guide me through it, and he did. Another long distance telephone consultation, although Gladstone is much closer to Brisbane than Borneo or mainland Malaysia, where other electrical issues have been solved via the medium of skype and talking me through things.
This lesson was how to disconnect the offending failure from the battery bank and then reconnect the remaining two batteries to the system.
We turned and headed back to Gladstone- just for the record, the tide had just turned as well, so we were pushing back into again , but at least with the breeze astern.
Whilst I disconnected the battery , Jo hand steered us back towards Gladstone. Everything was off and isolated, the chart plotter, depth sounder, auto pilot . We did have the hand held VHF switched on. I loathe electricity when it doesn't work and I have to "do" something- I can't see it and it scares me, so everything was isolated so I could not possibly give myself even a 12 volt zap.
Having disconnected the fizzing battery and allowing the maximum time for any evil gases to dissipate, I eventually restarted the engines and we berthed again at 1600, in prime position- nobody else had had time to get the berth!
With 5 days until Christmas, I decided that it was unlikely that a replacement battery would be sourced in time to get us to Tin Can Bay, (TCB) so booked in to the marina until the New Year. Organised lift for Jo back to TCB, where we had left a car, and I stayed in Gladstone to try to source the battery.
Gladstone Batteries were great, they sourced an exact replacement and put me in touch with the Australian Technical manager for the brand , because of course, these weren't just any old battery- theses were apparently, judging from the price, made of "solid gold" . It shouldn't have failed it wasn't even 30 months old and they had been meticulously looked after , never allowing them to get below 12.4v. I did ask the question - "do I need to replace them all, now that one has failed". I was assured it was so odd that wouldn't be necessary (thankfully, looking at the price...) but dear reader, do keep that sentence in mind as the blog continues.
Ethan from Gladstone Batteries organised to get it shipped up from Sydney, for the first working day after the Christmas /New Year break .
I left K'Gari there and went home too, my plan to be in TCB for Christmas foiled.
No comments:
Post a Comment