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Monthly Archives: March 2016

Inverter Gremlins

Irrational Xantrex Inverter Display

Irrational Xantrex 2512 Inverter Display

One of the minor annoyances listed as a deficiency on the survey was the control panel for the Xantrex Inverter. As Matt Harris so eloquently put it, “the inverter remote control panel display readout is irrational.” Indeed it was and apparently always has been (see photo).

According to the previous owner, the inverter works perfectly, but the display has always been scrambled and no one had been able to fix it. Hmmmm.

I read through a bunch of Xantrex manuals, which are guaranteed to put you right to sleep, no matter how restless you might be. Apparently, the particular model number of the Inverter on Yes Please doesn’t actually exist (P2512M), and a scrambled display is often the result of communication faults between the inverter and display. The solution, hit the reset button (reset to factory defaults).

Non-srambled Xantrex display after the reset

Non-srambled Xantrex display after the reset

Granted, hitting a button that resets to factory defaults is a little scary, since you can’t tell what those factory defaults are, but the button was pushed, the display reset and who would have guessed, problem solved. Now I can at least see what the darn thing is doing!

First Night Out

Yes Please on her first buoy at Hope Island.

Yes Please on her first buoy at Hope Island.

We spent our first night out on Yes Please after a quick trip to Hope Island. It has probably been about 7 years since I’ve been able to pick up and use a mooring buoy (previous boats were too big) and I was delighted at how easy it was.

It was Sherri’s first attempt at snagging a buoy and she accomplished it like a pro, easy and smooth despite the strong currents. We set up a short bridle, turned off the engines and did what boats do, relaxed and enjoyed the quiet. Over the course of our two nights out on the boat, we tested all the systems we hadn’t used yet and were extremely pleased how well everything worked. The stove cooked, the diesel furnace warmed us up, the davit was easy, the dingy started right up, the generator quietly gurgled and we had a wonderful time.

Sherri Ernsberger worshipping the sun at Hope Island.

First mate, Sherri Ernsberger, worshipping the sun on the last day of Winter, at Hope Island.

I was especially pleased with how well the batteries performed. They are ten year old AGM’s that I am planning on replacing soon, but held their charge overnight with only a 0.1 volt drop, even with lots of lights, the fridge, pumps and iphone chargers running all night. Excellent!!

We slept like babies and did NOT want to head back to civilization on Sunday morning.

Name Change

Yes Please, new boat name, is applied to transom.

Yes Please, new boat name, is applied to transom.

The sun briefly appeared on Friday, so I stopped by the boat at lunch time to remove the remaining vinyl from the transom and clean up the goo with some Acetone. After work, Sherri and I positioned the new graphics on the stern and began peeling and rubbing the new boat name into position.

The larger Yes Please name went onto the transom pretty easily, which was surprising given it was three layers of vinyl. The home port graphics were a little trickier (Olympia, WA) due to the small letters. I’ll have to replace the “O” in Olympia at some point, but I am pleased with the results.

After the hard (not) work of renaming the boat, we braved the Fourth Ave Tavern to watch Andrew Landers and the Strugglesville Band. The music was magnificent and that part of Olympia is always entertaining, to say the least.

Bed Time

Queen sized bed with 3 inch memory gel topper.

Queen sized bed with 3 inch memory gel topper.

Our first night on Yes Please was a little restless because the mattress was thin and a little on the hard side. A quick trip to Costco for a 3″ memory foam topper along with a down mattress pad/cover and we were off to very sound sleep.

The memory foam was a little difficult to work with as it had to be shaped around the odd corners of the mattress. Sherri took a new serrated knife to the foam and it turned out really well. The fleece sheets also made the bed super comfy and toasty warm.

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Raymarine electronics

Raymarine Electronics at the helm of Yes Please.

Raymarine Electronics at the helm of Yes Please.

I have never been a big fan of Raymarine Electronics. Almost all of the charter boats that I have operated came equipped with them, so I am familiar with how they work. I also see them on a lot of local boats, so am guessing it is a popular brand.

Yes Please came equipped with Raymarine Electronics, so it was time to re-program the AIS unit with the new boat name (formerly Maverick) and to troubleshoot a very annoying alarm that constantly pops up that the “connection to the DSM module has been lost”. The first order of business was to find the modules, then figure out how to access them. It took a bit of hard pulling on the Autopilot, and eventually the dash popped off and I was able to see how things were hooked up.

DSM and Sea Talk modules

DSM and Sea Talk modules

My mini-usb cable turned out to be a little too short, which necessitated holding the laptop with one hand while typing with the other. Eventually, I was able to re-program the AIS unit with the new “Yes Please” boat name and then updated the AIS firmware to the latest version. This was very easy to do using the ProAIS software and USB drivers. I was also glad the laptop batteries were in good shape, since I forgot the power cable. DOH!

Next, I updated the E120 chart plotter to the latest version of firmware, which helped with troubleshooting the Raymarine SeaTalk network issues. Then I began to investigate the dropping DSM module error that constantly appears.

AIS module well hidden below the helm.

AIS module well hidden below the helm.

It turns out that the Raymarine Depth Sounder Module (DSM300) was the victim of very poor engineering. The Ray supplied power cable is too thin (insufficient gauge) to handle the 8 amps of load required. As a result, when the DSM pings, it attempts to draw 8 Amps of current through the too thin wire, which drops the voltage below the unit’s minimum voltage set point (obviously set too high), so the unit drops out and restarts. Wow, engineering has fallen a long way since Raytheon invented the Magnetron (radar) during WWII!

Yes Please, our new boat

Grand Banks Eastbay 39 Sx

Grand Banks Eastbay 39 sx

We picked up our new boat in Seattle and cruised home to Olympia. There were gale warnings in the Marine Forecast, so we used the extra speed to our advantage to get home just as the big winds arrived. It was a pleasant cruise at about 16 knots that would have taken us an entire day in the old 7 knot trawler.

Our new boat, named Yes Please, is a 2007 Grand Banks Eastbay 39 sx.

The Galley area of Yes Please

The Galley area of Yes Please

She sports a pair of Cummins QSC8.3 liter engines that put out 490 HP each. The interior is laid out perfectly for a cruising couple, with no wasted space and not a lot of extra storage, which I am hoping keeps down the clutter. The new boat is a perfect weekend boat, which will also work well for multi-week trips up to the islands.