The Cape Dory Board

NarragansettSailor wrote:Looks like the same article that I referenced in my initial post.

Actually two different articles that share some of the same images..

Quote: "One mooring pendant or two?" I don't know but I suspect the owner of the Island Packet below was pretty darn happy he had two pendants. The boat survived the storm on the second pendant.. You may want to peruse the article below, an article the town of Falmouth, ME sends out to eve...

Dextron III is all you need. What is most important in these gears is frequent, at least yearly, fluid changes. Any metallic contamination goes to work on the thrust washers and ruins them prematurely. The color of the fluid in your gear should closely match what comes out of the bottle, if you expe...

Yes, though i have the simpler SI ACR, and since I also have a shore power charger, it have a relay to shut off the ground from the ACR when the charger is fired up to disable the ACR. The relay went bad and kept the ACR ground from connecting so I evidently drew a ground some other way and that ca...

How were you lubricating the water lubed cutlass bearing? Dry rubber on a dry shaft = not good....

#1 Charge both batteries to 100% SOC preferably in parallel / BOTH so they are at the same SOC. #2 Stop charging & disconnect the batteries from the vessel, charger & each other #3 Let them sit for a week or so (depends upon temp) then test the open circuit resting voltage of each battery. #...

On a more serious note, have you determined how much energy it takes to charge your tablet? I am considering the possibility of coming out of the stone age and having one on board. The laptop I have is old and I need to have it plugged in to actually use the thing. While I have been able to find wi...

Water heaters should always be physically drained & then bypassed by connecting the cold water inlet to the hot water outlet hose.. Trying to dilute the contents of the tank with pink propylene glycol would take 20 gallons or more to get to a safe burst protection level. I see split water heater...

Again what brand of batteries are we talking about? They will have an optimal absorption and float voltage. Just because a charger says AGM does NOT make it good for your AGM batteries. The Charles chargers were mentioned and I don't know a single AGM battery that will be charged in a healthy manner...

Andy: Thanks for the info and advise. I will look at Charles chargers and Kyocera solar panels. Charles is done producing marine chargers and I never was a fan of their three position "dip switch" based rather dumb so-called "smart" kitchen-timer chargers. What you are looking f...

We actually called the battery maker, Odyssey, who said a top up and disconnect was fine, even in Maine. Please listen to them!!! Beg, borrow or steal a small generator or get a long extension cord and portable charger if you have to, and top them up at 14.7V for no less than about 4 hours. If they...

Each day we would run the engine up to full rpm for 20 minutes to keep the internal engine clean. We again have more smoke residue on the transom. Any time you are trying to push your boat up and over her bow wave, beyond her natural hull speed, you will create a smokey exhaust and put soot on the ...

Clean and check or replace all terminations between the engine and panel. The Universal/Westerbeke "trailer plugs", usually one at the engine end and one at the panel end, are NOTORIOUS for failing, creating high resistance and physically melting. In a few cases they have even started fire...

Good thoughts all. I am looking for a way to keep my new autopilot control head from temporarily turning off when I start the motor while it is on. So preventing brown outs essentially. My other electronics do not shut off. Not really wanting to add another battery aboard. I had read the manual for...

One of the issues I am trying to figure out is how to properly size a solar panel so that it is large enough (strong enough) to fully top off the batteries but then not too large or too strong that it "fries" the batteries. After being fully charged batteries need a float voltage of 13.2V...