Wednesday January 25th, 2017
Yesterday, I fixed the wind generator. We had a wind event on the weekend and I was pretty sure that it might have burned out in the 40 kt wind gusts. The generator should be able to protect itself in winds much greater than that but stuff breaks. The symptoms; it would spin up and just when it should take off it would apply the breaks and stop.
I got the manual out and did all the diagnostics. The bitch is, you have to climb up to the thing with one foot on the main boom, one foot on a rope ladder, one arm around the mizzen and work with whatever appendages aren’t in use already. Everything checked out, it should work. I opened a Yuengling and leaned back and watched the wind generator. My dad is a problem solver, my son is a problem solver and I was/am a problem solver. But sometimes some problems take longer than others. My bottle of beer was running out just as an observation lead to recognition.
My wind generator has a tether on it’s tail to keep it from swinging enough to chop up the main topping lift. The generator only moves about 60 degrees. When the generator flipped all the way to the starboard side the brake cut in. Port side it worked, one wiggle to starboard and it stopped. The brushes must be dirty or something is keeping them from connecting to the slip rings on the starboard side. Back up the mizzen and I turned the base about 90° on the shaft. Presto change, it worked fine. Reward Yuengling. Add to the ‘LIST’ new bearings and brushes for the base of the wind turbine. Attaboy!!
I refinished another 10 feet of the cap rail on the port side. I now have 10 feet with two coats and a new 10 feet with one coat. Just 90 more feet and the bowsprit to do…JEEZUZ
Then we went over to Mangos and Pizza night. Karen did a great job and we made it back to the boat just after boater midnight.