A great and beautiful morning. The scenery with high mountains all around us and mirror calm sea is breathtaking. So was the breakfast, well at least eatable…Time to move on.
Start the engine and switch on the navigator equipment! The engine
started, but all electronics including the navigator equipment was alarming or
completely dead, unable to function. What had happened? I had not changed
anything, and all was working the day before. Was it too damp, a sudden
corrosion problem? Where is the volt meter? What is the battery voltage? The manouever panel volt meter showed 12V, this
should be enough.
The easiest part to measure was on the autopilot down in the aft locker.
It is possible, but not much more, to get down with your whole body into that
locker. Then slowly turn around ( in 35-40C) and find space for all limbs and
measure the voltage of the autopilot unit half-lying on your back with the
sweat running intensively over your face. 7,8V. What? And the maneuver panel in
the saloon showed 12V! Do I have a shortcut somewhere? Or is something
consuming a lot of current? After a while, with some dismounting of equipment I
found similar values all over. Ok I have to measure directly on the battery
poles – why had I not done that in the first place? Well, the maneuver display
said 12v that’s why…but now my mobile volt meter showed 7,9V…directly on the
battery poles! Is something wrong with my mobile volt meter? Then I remembered,
that there is a switch on the maneuver panel to either display the voltage of
the start engine battery or the equipment battery…The 12V displayed turned out
to be the voltage of the start engine battery. When the switch was set to the
equipment battery it displayed less then 8V….Problem found, but not solved.
The equipment batteries was completely finished for some reason. If
these kinds of batteries are discharged to a level below 11V they are ruined. I
had to replace the batteries, which are no ordinary car batteries. There are
three equipment batteries of 140 Ah each (a car battery holds around 65Ah) and
weigh around 50 kg and measure 50x20x20cm. So where could I get hold of new
ones? Well, the best option would probably to go back from where we started,
either directly to Cleopatra Marina or take a chance with the more closely
situated Lefkas Marina. We moored in the late afternoon in Lefkas Marina and we
managed to get there with hardly any electronic guidance, just like in the old
days. Well, as you tell from the pictures, we compensated the unfortunate development during the evening in Lefkas town
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