Words from the Bilge

Well – here are some words from the bilge, or wherever I might be found, head down, calling for another tool, swearing because I just pulled another sliver into my hand or cut my self on a sharp edge, on Next Life. Let the fun begin.

I must say that I am lucky for having made contact with Gonzalo on the Cruiser’s Forum last November. Gonzalo pulled in with his L450 onto the same dock 3 days ago, coming from La Rochelle, where his boat was put in the water.

First, he introduced us an experienced catamaran skipper, who joined us on our sea trials and spent the whole day checking Next Life over. He found a few minor things to fix, and also told us which common problems to look out for.

Second, Gonzalo speaks the language and is very good in organizing things. Without him I would still be chasing parts.

Third, he is a really fun guy to have around and he is very helpful.

What have I done so far:

The boat is 120V. Everything here is 220V. So getting our basic electrical and also propane needs covered meant executing some magic.

First – I was smart enough to bring several cigarette-lighter USB adaptors. Charging our iPhones and iPads is not a problem. Just plug the adaptor into any one of the 8 cigarette lighter plugs Next Life and it works. Thank god for those smokers. No smoking on this vessel though.

Second, I brought 4 inverters – from a measly 50W all the way to 400W. The small ones are great for running our 120V laptop chargers. The middle one takes care of charging our battery-powered vacuum. The large one – after I jury-rigged it directly to the board battery with no fuse in between, will, with hissing and moaning, just barely manage to charge the Makita batteries for my very important power tools. Plugged into a cigarette lighter the large inverter trips the breaker in 5 seconds flat. Now the cables are getting a wee bit warm, but it is cold here at night.

Third – did I say our boat is 120V? Yep – I did. Shore power is 220V.  How to charge those big boat batteries then? We use all those before mentioned inverters to make sure they are getting a work out? Never mind the fridges requiring good clean electrons for storing our 20 varieties of excellent French cheeses. I disconnected the boat charger from the central control panel – and after some electrical open-heart surgery – directly connected it (jury-rigged is a better word for it) to the bare ends of a 220V shore power cord. The charger does not mind, as it is multi voltage all the way from 90 to 260V. The only problem is that the cable now is a foot trap as the cord runs diagonal through the boat - from the dock through a window in the port forward cabin, down the hallway, up the stairs, past the galley, beside the dining room table, down the stairs on the starboard side, to the aft cabin, into the access to the electrical room up to the back of the electrical panel next to the dining room table. Getting lost? Me too.

Our batteries are getting charged. That is all that counts.

Fourth - What about that all-important morning beverage from the newly purchased hi-tec cappuccino maker you might ask, and warming our cold butts too. It gets down to about freezing at night. This second foot trap is even better than the other one. While the main trunk runs parallel to the battery charger cable, this one consist not of one cable, but of three connected ones, with branches running off it at the various points to feed:

A: The heater in Silke’s cabin.

B: The aforementioned utterly important coffee maker.

C: The heater in my cabin.

Foot trap galore

Fifth – We need to cook; very occasionally though. There are so many good restaurants in walking distance, that we hardly have to, but just in case…

Propane filling station

In France you cannot fill propane bottles. Period. You can only rent them. We have an empty one though. Never mind that this one would not fit anyway. We were also told that there is only Butane, no Propane. Luckily, we did find a place with Propane. I just rented a filled bottle, any odd bottle. There must be at least 6 different suppliers, and most offer Propane and Butane. Some bottles are small, others are big, some are metal, others are fiberglass, some appear to be plastic. So now we have a full rented bottle of Propane and a small empty bottle of Propane that came with the boat. What to do? First buy a French connector hose for the big bottle and find out it is the wrong one. Back to another store and get the right one. Then, Gonzalo spots a little place that says in French – “plumbing, heating, electrical, air conditioning”. Well, they must have something that can match a French Butane-Propane hose to a North American Propane boat-bottle connector hose. Nope. But hey, what about I cut those beautiful, never-used, hoses, buy a brass connector, a few hose clamps, and Bob is my uncle? The next thing you would see is a big bottle of Propane lying slanted on the cockpit table, with the two pieces of connected hose leading in a nice downward slope to the North American Propane bottle, with the Propane slowly but surely dripping down that hose filling the small bottle. Yahoo – now we can cook.

Sixth – for a while I had our 120V Honda portable generator connected to our shore power inlet. That gave us true 120V throughout the boat. A great way to operate the water-heater element. Alas, the generator was only hooked up for a few hours. As now I started number seven.

Seventh - While most of the things before are temporary to have us survive, this one is going to be a permanent installation. A 3000 Watt Multi-Plus inverter. Finding a place for this heavy beast took the better part of two hours. Under the starboard aft bed it goes. Then ripping the 120V cable from the shore power breaker and running it through the engine room bulkhead was almost easy. Now I just need more 120V cable to hook it back up to the shore power breaker, but stores are closed. So no generator power for now. Also no hook up to the batteries, as stores are closed and the 12V-400A cables need to be specially manufactured.  But for good measure, it took Silke and myself over 2 hours to snake the remote control cable through an about 1 m section of the boat. We each have at least a dozen scrapes, cuts, splinters to show for it. Never mind the bruises and pulled muscles.

Eight -  The solar panels. Gonzalo started on that project today. A major undertaking that no company here wanted to do. I, as so often, have this special idea and nothing else will do. Gonzalo and I spent all day buying parts (a few stores where magically open until 12:30 (noon) today). The wee started drilling holes, tapping threads, and scratching our heads about how to do the next step. Everything going well, we might have the panels up tomorrow evening. They will however not be electrically connected yet. That will be another day. I also have to finish the big inverter installation in between.

I might have missed a few small things, but this is enough for the few days we have been here.