Wandering Lark

Ok great thanks maybe I'll replace witht he same then... A good friend heartily recomended Whale is all ace thank you - I havent found one for as little as £90 - more like £120 would love to know your supplier good tip about the leak detector, its so easy to miss

Thanks, yes one of the considerations is that I'll probably change the location - the last one want properly fitted/ seccured in place anyway so this is less of a concern as long as it fits into the space I have for it under a cupboard.

I could however, this is just what was installed when I got the boat, and its failed, so I'm after a bit of advice about what a good product is and a bit of knowledge about what to consider, as I dont know about them and I dont know if the previous owner did either.

Hi All I need to replace my water pump as its defunct. I had a Jabsco parmax 3 (I tried replacing all the seals etc. but it still leaks and I think I just have to admit I'm not a water pump engineer/ something unfixable is wrong) I'm looking at getting a whale watermaster... I dont know exactly what the criteria I should be looking for. It will supply 2 sinks, shower and primes a smallish calorifier. any advice welcome I was looking at something like this: https://www.marinechandlery.com/whale-watermaster-automatic-pressure-pump Thanks Oliver

Hi All, So the problem resolved iself for a long while, but has now come back - I fiddled with the plug at the back of the alternator and sometimes that made the charging lamp go out, but sometimes not... I suspect there is a loose or shoddy connection somewhere and I am going to try wiring up with ring connectors to the bolts a the back of the alternator. here is a picturte of the back of the alternator and also the block that has the wires in. Its impossible to trace the wires back at the other end as they go into a tube - its would be a fair amount of work to unravel all of that so if I can do without that would be better. If anyone could let me know what goes where on the alternator that would be brilliant. Thanks. Oliver

Hi All, Appologies for the dissapearing act - I got extremely busy with work and had to stop focusing on this. I have though reffitted the alternator and weirdly everything worked again! So I suspect that the fault was with the connections in the plug at the back of the alternator. Today I jimmied the alternator arround to adjust the belt tension and the problem returned, then when I switched off the engine, jimmied the plug and wires about, restarted the engine, the problem resolved. So hopefully thats the issue -I'm going to do some reading as I dont know what B+ etc refer to, then run through Tony's suggestions to try and isolate the problem propperly and then attempt to make the connections more seccure as you suggest above with eye terminals. But in the meantime I seem to be able to charge the batteries so the immediet problem is resolved... Now to try and work out why the engine is running so hot...(its one thing after another at the moment) Thanks again, I'll let you know how I get on as I keep tinkering with this issue. Oliver

Hi All - I havent refitted the alternator yet - bit pressed for time at the mo, but once I do I'll try the hand turning tip. In the meantime here are photos of the lamp and here are photos of the plug end of the alternator and the block that would normally be plugged into it. Also clearer photos of the lables.

the fella at the alrernator repair place said it was a 70 amp alternator - if thats helpful information.

HI All - thanks for staying on the trail - I took some photos the other day so here they are - I'm not sure if they show what you are asking for so let me know if not and I'll take more this evening. Thats frustrating that the Alternator may be burned out dispire the bench test saying its not - I thought I had ruled that out - I know he didnt visually inspect anything just put it into his machine and checked the readouts. The search continues. O My boat was built in the mid to late 80's so indeed it is fairly old-ish. this last picture is taken from above the switch showing whats inside the cabinet behind it.

Thanks for all your help. I just took my alternator to a workshop here where they bench tested it and the alternator is totally fine. It turns out they supplied it only 1.5 years ago - I wonder if the previous owner had trouble that they never bottomed out. From here what do you think our next steps should be? Tracing all the wiring and looking for corroded contacts? Replacing the starter battery? We are still limping by with solar and ultra low battery electrical usage so any help much appreciated!

Hi Tony, Thanks for replying 1. So I think I have said idle when I mean something else - I just mean that the prop wasn't engaged, I had the engine running at fairly high revs (I dont have a rev counter so dont know exacly). We have a water cooled kubota (we have skin tanks) 2. Ah ok, then yes we mush have one - I will see if I can work out where and what the charge splitter is when I'm back at the boat and try to take some photos. Could such a short develop? As I dont think its always had this problem. 3. I will check the tension - do you have any advice how I tell if it is correct? the belt seems in good order to me. Thanks again, I'll try and investigate what our system is in more detail.

Hi we have a sticky problem with our batteries – I’ve very much bottomed out my very limited knowledge and understanding, so looking for advice and recommendations. [TL:DR] Batteries not charging from the engine, new batteres didn't solve, engine sluggish to start, no raised charging voltage with enging running, maybe alternator broken? Here’s the more detailed version: Our set up had a single alternator on our diesel engine, 1 starter battery, 3x 130 AH sealed lead leisure batteries in parallel, a solar system, a relatively recently installed 240v inverter. I don’t really know anything about how it is all wired up and as far as I can tel we have no “battery charger” – everything is just wired into the alternator I think. We are live aboard continuous cruisers and we use little power – no fridge or tv or anything heavy. But sometimes we use laptops off the inverter. Here’s what happened: Our leisure batteries dropped to about 11v (because it’s our first autumn and we didn’t monitor them enough or know how low they could go) They stopped holding charge and didn’t seem to be charging from running the engine (at one point they reached 11.8v from around 3 hours running the engine in idle then dropped back to 11.2 within a couple of hours). During this time we had no problem getting poer out of them – all lights and water pump and so on seemed just fine. We figured we had fried them though and so we have replaced them (with 2 x 90 ah AGM batteries). These read 12.5 v on the volt meter when we installed them The Starter battery shows 12.2v on a voltmeter. When I start up the engine the voltage on the dial in our control panel (next to the throttle) drops to 11.5v then kicks back up to about 12v ish and stays there (it used to go up to about 14.5v). The yellow charging light beside out ignition never goes out (which it used to when we revved high) – it flickers at low revs and is steady at full revs. The engine is much more sluggish to start than it used to be – though the weather is colder now… Using the volt meter with the engine running I now get 12.2 volts on all batteries, starter and leisure. Weirdly the voltage of my leisure batteries started to drop…. I turned off the engine! Without the engine running the voltmeter and solar controller both now showed about 12.3v for the leisure batteries. Yesterday with a bit of sun the solar charged up our leisure batteries so the voltage displayed on the solar controller showed 13v. I think our alternator is NOT charging anything, and maybe charge is draining into the system somehow… but I don’t know electrics really at all… I don’t know what to do next… and I’m pretty worried we are going to fry our new expensive batteries because we can’t charge them. We are using as little power as we can get away with and hoping we can get it fixed sooooon… any and all help, advice and recommendations super welcome! Hppy to supply any extra info or photos that might help.

Thanks, Thats great advice - I know the current owners have insurance but I expect they have held the policy since before the survey was taken out. Oliver

Thanks Tony. The surveyor mentions that the blisters appear to reach the structural matrix, as when they scrapped them fibre bundles came out and the spike could be pushed into the stucture. the blisters were 10-12 cm. does that sound like bad news or just something that is bound to happen and not so much of a big deal? Thanks Oliver

Hi I'm hoping someone might have some experience of older fiberglass boats and might not mind advising me. I'm looking at buying a wilds Caribean 39 from 1969 as a live aboard - it will be my first boat :) Its in need of some TLC, and I'm very up for giving that. My one concern is the fiberglass in the hull and deck and if its going to become a catastrophic problem fairly soon. Obviously its 50 years old and some wear is inevitable. I've seen a recent survey and there is blistering below the waterline indicative of osmosis and the deck is a little soft, which the surveyor identifies as a problem with the core material. In its favour I think the fiberglass in these boats was originally over-specced as the material wasn't well understood. I've read that osmosis and blistering might not really be a problem, though eventually leads to delmaniation which is a problem I have a few questions - Does anyone have experience of gel coating - professionally or DIY - the surveyor recomended that with in the next "couple of years" - does anyone know roughly how much that might cost? Is it neccessary for the boat to be out of the water for months to dry? - Is the fiberglass at that age reaching the end of its life - would it be worth spending time on the repairs or will new problems keep cropping up Any help or advice arround this would be really apreciated. thanks Oliver