Inspection: Before wandering off into the sunset, we thought it a wise idea to putter through the boat and inspect, well, everything. From through hulls to wiring, plumbing to hatches, we poked and prodded it all. The result was months of redoing, fixing and generally learning about, well, everything again. Whew! Click here for some of the highlights(?) of our findings and solutions.

Underway: The First Six Months As any boater knows, the repairs don't stop after leaving the dock. Actually, they seem to multiply. Below are some of the things that ceased to walk during our first 6 months and our solutions. (Note: Sometimes the solution was to ignore the problem for a very, very long time.) Click here for the first 6 months

New Zealand Repairs Whew, made it to New Zealand. That's 9500 miles of wear and tear. Below are the latest maintenance highlights for our little floating home. (This time Richard has graciously typed up his thoughts, say Yeah) Blown Main Sail The main ripped horizontally between the first and second reef so we spent most of the last passage double reefed. We had no idea how old the main was and the local sail maker said all the stitching was shot due to UV damage. Anyway it was a timely demise, since it had always been the plan to get a new main in New Zealand. Our new main will be a proper catamaran full roach main and a bit larger than the old one. The old sail was somewhere just under 50 square meters and the new one is 60. We might see a 200 mile day yet.. Failing Batteries Ack... The old Trojan 105 (6 volt) batteries bought in Honduras were only 2.5 years old, but they just would not hold a full charge anymore. The consensus was that Central American battery suppliers get older US batteries and sell them a bit cheaper. It is likely the batteries were actually over 3 years old. The sides of the old batteries were bulging a bit and hard as a rock ( a sign of sulphated batteries) and the hydrometer showed only just above bad when "fully" charged. All of these are signs of impending new battery purchase. The local battery guy said you need to get these up to 14.7 volts at full charge to desulfate them on a regular basis. If you don't the grid basically gunks up and the battery gets a much shorter life span. So we got new batteries (same kind) and cranked up the voltage on the solar controller to 14.7 and life is much better now. Leaking Generator Don't even get me started on this! Who designs a saltwater cooled (no heat exchanger) generator? Actually Fisher Panda does... The cooling jacket on the cylinder rusted through a few months ago spraying water everywhere. We had our own personal engine room rain forest. JB weld can only hold back the flood so long then out came the water again. So, after 3 months of e-mailing and complaining (Auckland, Germany, New Zealand, etc.) I finally found someone to give me some answers and find some parts. The replacement parts (new cylinder, rings, head, etc.) will cost more than a new portable generator,but, I already have this one and really like having a generator. I hate putting hours on the engines just to charge batteries. The generator also uses much less fuel than the engines. Hopefully with these new parts the unit will be good for another 10 years or it will become a mooring at some island... Part of me wants to chuck it anyway just to save weight on the boat. I still want to meet the designer and kick him! Who designs a unit with the zinc on one side and the impellor on the other? To change the impellor you have to take it off the engine mounts, rotate the unit, have kid size fingers, and lots of luck. Dumb I say. I was reading about some new unit made in the US that is fresh water cooled and has all the main things on one side (zinc, oil fill, filter, impellor, etc.). What a neat idea. If I was in the US I might go for it, but shipping to New Zealand is not at all cheap. Radar Failure What a scary thing, you think your radar is working on a squall-filled passage only to find it can't see land when you can! Apparently the magnatron failed in the dome so nothing was being transmitted. The failure mode makes you think it is working (all the screen displays look normal and everything looks fine), but you will never see a target! I think the radar guys need to work on this issues in a major way! A simple check on how much power the unit is drawing in transmit would alert the unit to a failure. Apparently this is not done by any radar maker (that is what the repair guys say).