As boaters we pride ourselves on being relatively, but not obsessively frugal with power. We have a wind turbine and a small solar panel, and aside from an occasional flirtation with my DVD collection of The Dukes Of Hazzard, we watch relatively little TV. (Amazing considering the time, effort and money that went into running an 8mm x 30m insulated copper extension cable from the one car-lighter socket at the front of the boat to the TV at the back of the boat!)

But despite our frugality with power, it’s still been a shock to our energy demands being without our domestic alternator. It had been intermittently on the blink for some time, and finally our engineer chose to disconnect it altogether because it’s running very hot and there’s a real risk it could catch fire. Fair enough. Better safe than sorry (and other fitting idioms). Meanwhile we’re waiting for a replacement… making us A. need a short heavy-gauge cable with croc clips to connect the starter battery to the domestic bank so the starter-alternator can, from time to time, be used to give the batteries a boost; and B. become more dependent on our sources of renewable energy.

So, there’s a recently defunct wind turbine on the roof. Defunct because the previous owner who installed it, mounted it in such a way that the electrical cable which runs through the mounting pole and through a hole drilled in the roof, gets dented and eventually severed every time the turbine is raised or lowered. So I thought a bit of DIY might render said turbine workable once more, and we’d boost our ailing batteries with a bit of wind power.

It turned out to be an epic weekend-long job. The better half was at work (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing when electrics are concerned) so it was down to me to dismantle the wind turbine, run new cabling through the mounting pole, then dismantle the ceiling in the stern cabin to access the severed cabling that passes through the roof and replace that too. Time consuming but do-able. Do-able if, and only if, you have some more cable with which to replace it.

But who needs 3m of new cable? Not I! Ever thrifty, I decided to patch in an extra foot of cable to extend what was already there. Marvelous idea! Now to find some cable…. What do we have that has a wide-gauge 12v cable that might not be in use at the moment…? Aha! The TV extension lead! So I went inside, got the kitchen scissors and chopped the plug off the extension cable, hacked 12” of red and black cable from the ends and wired the plug back on. Perfect crime. And it still just about reaches the socket.

So using some connector blocks I patched the 12” of red and black cable into the existing turbine cable, bolted the turbine head back on the pole, turned the air blue as I finally managed to feed the cable through the pole and out the other end, then promptly felt chuffed with myself that plenty of cable was hanging out the bottom of the pole. Perfect. Now to tackle the ceiling cabling...

In the stern cabin, I undid the numerous screws that hold the ceiling battening in place till I could pull the plastic ceiling down low enough to see where the cable fed through the hole in the roof towards the regulator. Cunningly I’d tied a length of string to the cable where it pokes out of the roof, so when I pulled the cable from the inside, the string retraced the path of the cable, (thus allowing any new cable to be tied on to said string, and pulled back through the hole in the roof). Clever, smug, but clever. Right… now I need to extend this half of the cable. But who needs another 4m of new cable? Not I! Ever thrifty, I decided to patch in an extra foot of cable to extend what was already there. What do we have that has a wide gauge 12v cable that might not be in use at the moment…? Aha! The TV extension lead! So I went to the front cabin, got the kitchen scissors and chopped the plug off the extension cable, hacked 12” of red and black cable from the ends and wired the plug back on. Perfect crime. And it still just about reaches the socket (if you pull it quite tight)

So using some connector blocks I patched the 12” of red and black cable into the existing ceiling cable, tied it to the end of the string, climbed on the roof, pulled the string, turned the air blue when the end of the cable got stuck in the hole in the roof, then promptly felt chuffed with myself when it finally popped through. Perfect.

I now had a turbine with a cable sticking out of it’s pole, and a roof with a cable sticking out of it’s hole. More connecting block and the circuit was rigged up beautifully. Perfect.

Now to raise the turbine and test it out. Not an easy job on your tod as it’s very top heavy and you need someone near the top holding it vertical while someone at the bottom hooks the supporting guy-ropes in place. Time to flag down a passer-by. Or two to be precise:

The most Neanderthal fourteen year-old Hoodies to grace a towpath, were lolloping along like a pair of diseased and scabies-steeped Great Danes, smoking, with their white hooded tops zipped up to their chin like snorkel-parkers. Not the kind of lads I’d like to encounter on a dark night, however on a sunny Sunday afternoon and when needs must…

“Excuse me fellers” I called in my most casual street dude voice.

“Urgh!” came the response.

“If I winch this windmill up on the roof, would you chaps mind hooking this cable onto that bracket for me?”

“Fucking yeah!” came the enthusiastic response.

And bless their Calvin Classics, they were a great help. And were very polite, and offered more help if I needed it. Blimey! It just goes to show that the barriers of monosyllabic language, knuckles dragging tramlines through the towpath gravel and indeed appearances can be deceptive.

Anyway, they sloped off on their Cro-magnon way and I proceeded to fasten the port and starboard guy-ropes. Lastly tackling the foreward guy-rope, only to find it didn’t reach the bracket. Odd, I thought, it used to reach.

It was then that I realized I had inadvertently bolted the mounting pole on the roof the wrong way round – 180 degrees wrong to be precise, so the aft cable was slack and the fore cable too short. B*ggeration! Not so smug now.

It took another hour to detach the steel guy-ropes and reattach them the right way round. But in the end, I found myself with a fully-working wind turbine. Thank Gawd for that!

Okay… what next? Oh yes, I need a short length of heavy gauge cable with croc clips at the ends with which to connect the starter and domestic batteries, for additional charging power. I knew I had a couple of spare croc clips somewhere. Now to find some cable…. What do we have that has a wide-gauge 12v cable that might not be in use at the moment…? Aha! The TV extension lead. So I went inside, got the kitchen scissors and chopped the plug off the extension cable, hacked 12” of red and black cable from the ends and wired the plug back on. Perfect crime…

Oh…

Does anyone know where I can buy some 8mm red and black insulated copper cable… just enough to reach a socket….? I'm getting Dukes of Hazzard withdrawal effects...