Week #70 - "We Sailed our Boat!"
1/9/2025
Chris – “Kilowatts”
A quick google search says that the average American household consumes 29-30 Kilowatts of electricity in a day. We are living on Solar Power, right now, and while our boat has more solar potential than most boats (more solar power, and more batteries to store the power in), our best day yields only about 5 kilowatts of power… and our best day is in the Summer, on a cloudless day. It has been rainy, overcast, and often DENSLY foggy here lately. And, with the combination of the short winter days, and the low angle of the Sun in the sky, we have only been making 2-2.5 kilowatts of power per day. I don’t know if you are a “math-person,” but 2 ½ is substantially less than 29. We have less “house” to power, but there are 7 of us, and we do use electricity. Sailboats often have generators on board, that can be run to “top-up” the batteries, to keep up when the sun is not cooperating… except our battery charger is not working for some reason, so we cannot do that. We can run our generator, and use the power produced by the generator while it is running, but we can’t store that power in our battery bank for later. We have been running our generator for 1-2 hours per day, during school-time, providing power for charging computers, phones, battery-powered lights (we use those a lot), and for powering our new Starlink internet! Yeah, we have internet on the boat now! It is pretty sweet, but with power shortages, we only run the internet for a couple hours, while the generator is on, because we are saving the power for REFRIGERATION! Turns out, some foods like to be kept cool, so, while all the other systems on the boat are deemed non-essential, we keep the refrigeration running, as much as we dare. Even with these power saving methods, we feel like we are not quite keeping up, but we are close. Boats are all about redundancy; every system that is essential to keeping the sailors aboard safe, normally have backups. If you are out in the middle of the ocean, and a system goes down, you don’t want to have to call the Coast Guard to come rescue you; you want to have a backup that will see you through until you get back to shore to make repairs. So, in addition to the generator, many sailboats, ours included, have a large, powerful alternator attached to their engine. These alternators are another way that boats can charge their “house” batteries, and boost the boat’s power system on solar-deficient days… except ours is not working right now… I have been suspicious that the mess of disconnected/ cut wires in the engine room might be the culprit, and it turns out I was right… go figure. The alternator is connected to a mini-computer board (called a voltage regulator) that is supposed to manage the system, and keep the alternator from OVER-charging the batteries, and I have had a really hard time wrapping my head around how things were supposed to be hooked up. I have always worked with my hands, and most things that needed fixing around our house were accomplished with sweat equity, and DIY ingenuity, but there were always two things that scared me, and that I would normally seek out help with. The two things I struggled with were mechanic’s work, and electrical work, so I feel like it is ironic that the majority of what I have had to deal with on this boat have been rebuilding the engine, and solving electrical mysteries. This boat has a good deal of electrical mysteries.
This week, I feel like I am finally starting to make some progress with the alternator, though. I am not “out of the woods” yet, but I think I am starting to see where I am heading at least. I spent most of Wednesday, in the engine room (AGAIN), with my multi-meter, sorting through the loose wires, and reading the manuals for my alternator, and my voltage regulator. Thursday, the voltage regulator finally came to life when I turned the key on, the alternator voltage reading went from zero volts to 12 volts, and finally, when I started the engine, my starting battery showed that the alternator is charging! But, at this point, it is only charging the engine starting battery, not the house batteries that run the refrigerators. Now, I need to figure out how to make it charge the house batteries too, but these are steps in the right direction, and I am feeling encouraged. At least I now know that the alternator and voltage regulator work; I just have to figure out how to get it wired correctly.
The next thing to tackle will be how to charge our “house/ refrigerator” batteries with the generator, and to figure out how to attach our wind generators (the boat came with two, but they have not been connected yet).
In the meantime, we are learning to count our power consumption. We are learning to do with less power. We are looking at ways to be more efficient. I feel like such a good tree hugger… except when I am running my generator to make power/ surf the internet. It is amazing how having a low quantity of something that normally feels so “on-tap,” makes you realize how you take things for granted, or how you consume things without even meaning to. I am looking forward to having more power than we need, once we get all our systems working well, but in the meantime, we are also taking an inventory on our thoughtless consumption, and trying to learn to do better. I picture going back to land someday, and having my electric/ water/ fuel/ “stuff-I-don’t-need” bills cut in half, because I am a different type of consumer… but we will see if I will really change that much. Modern conveniences are … pretty convenient, after all.
Today (Friday), we finally shook off the anchor mud, and went out boating. Pulling the anchor went really smoothly… huge relief. The engine ran well… huge relief. One sail went up super smoothly… huge relief. The main sail struggled, so we abandoned putting it up, and decided to evaluate what the issue is on another day. We came back and re-anchored… pretty smoothly. HUGE relief. All-in-all, I am very encouraged, and ready to try it again soon.
Hope you all have a great week. How is the New Year treating you so far?
~Chris
Crystal - “Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can’t Lose! (who knows the quote?)”
Practically, I feel like there’s not much to report. We are still anchored in St Marys, at our first anchor drop. We have been spending our days doing school, trying to troubleshoot a list of issues, and just generally figuring out how to do this weird life. Days and weeks seem utterly made up at this point. I can’t believe we’ve been out here for 3 weeks. Yesterday, we went to the boatyard to work through some things we relegated to “later” that have been sitting in our trailer. I thought maybe going back would be kind of nostalgic or something. It was not. I am really grateful that we are on the water but we are all feeling like we’re not quite “doing it” yet either. We feel stuck. There are things that need to be better and more established before we feel safe venturing very far. Letting go of a vehicle sounds like a huge, scary leap. As I mentioned there’s a pretty good list of issues that need troubleshooting. The stuckness we are feeling comes from those needs being very much in front of us and the answers and resources being somewhere just out of sight.
This week, God was talking to me about Isaiah 30:21 NLT
“Your own ears will hear him. Right behind you a voice will say, “This is the way you should go,” whether to the right or to the left.”
It’s not the first time- He said go and as you go, I’ll tell you where. It creates tension in my chest.
This morning, when I walked out onto the deck to turn on propane, to make coffee, fog was so thick I could only make out the outline of a neighboring boat, a handful of lights from the shore and some very murky anchor lights looming. Usually there are streetlights and a park full of lamp posts. I could barely see our own bow from the stern. It was wild. We had said we were finally going to pull anchor and go somewhere, just to move today. The weather looked good. Plans are hard to adhere to when you’re depending on so many variables. After making the coffee I sat down and read….
Proverbs 4:23-27
GNT
Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts. Never say anything that isn’t true. Have nothing to do with lies and misleading words. Look straight ahead with honest confidence; don’t hang your head in shame. Plan carefully what you do, and whatever you do will turn out right. Avoid evil and walk straight ahead. Don’t go one step off the right way.
Proverbs 4:26-27 NKJV
Ponder the path of your feet, And let all your ways be established. Do not turn to the right or the left; Remove your foot from evil.
Proverbs 4:23 NLT
Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
I felt challenged and encouraged to trust. To know that His promises are yes and Amen. He brought us here, not to leave us at anchor. There are so many things that could easily trip us up and hold us down. I imagine it a bit like a tightwire- he has a path laid, and there are obstacles everywhere, dangerous caverns, dark holes, angry pits of ravenous gnawing things….but if we keep your eyes up, they shrink out of importance. We just walk. Walking that same tight wire like it were an open field.
I saw a meme that said pessimists see the glass half empty, optimists see it half full. Sailors add two shots of rum, two ice cubes and say “cheers!”
In a funny way, I think it’s related- we need to learn to make plans carefully, with honest confidence, knowing that sometimes the glass is going to be full of fog. Obviously, I’m still working through things. But, cheers, anyway!
Proverbs 4:23 KJVAAE
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
This version is unique, in that most translations talk about the heart being the wellspring of life; with a connotation of good things overflowing. KJVAAE highlights the outpour that can come from allowing lesser things to take up residence in our heart- “all the issues” . May God expose the lesser things and fill me up with thoughts that are true, straight, careful and honestly confident. And may it all be drenched in love.
~Crystal
Ellis - “Hobbies and Free-time”
Besides work, we’ve all adopted different hobbies and activities to fill our free time. Oli, Conrad, and Posy do tons of drawing and painting. Mom does some art too but any chance she gets she’ll be doing deadlifts or pushups in random places. If Jasper isn’t actively required for anything, he’s usually reading a book somewhere. Dad does a bit of music here and there but he keeps himself pretty busy with work most of the time. I do a lot of music. And as a sort of unspoken game, we all try to get as many other people to do our own favorite hobby with them. Mom makes the rest of the kids do a CrossFit workout every morning for “PE” and I’ve been tagging along. I’ve been trying to do some drawing here and there for Oli’s sake—mostly as a consolation because, as of the new semester, Mom added a music class to their school load. It’s been fun so far, me and Dad sort of co-teach. Right now we’re learning “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing", by Jack Johnson. Mom and Posy are learning ukulele, Conrad and Oli both had a little experience with guitar so that’s where they started but Oli has since moved on to cello and he’s enjoying and doing much better with that. Dad and I have been playing guitar as well. I also recently got a cornet (basically a small trumpet for those who don’t know) for my upcoming 20th from my grandparents and we’ve all been giving that a crack, which has resulted in a lot of loud ridiculous noises coming from the back rooms… fun stuff!
~Ellis
Conrad - “Ready, set …”
It has been a pretty slow week so far. I know it has been a bit stressful for some people, but for me it has been pretty restful. We have been working on reinforcing the deck around the windlass so that we can have some peace of mind with our next anchoring. Unfortunately, the first time we tried painting the braces the paint didn’t cure so we had to scrape it off and try again with some new stuff. Once that is done drying and gets installed we will try moving again. So far we still haven’t gotten our sails up, but once the front of the boat is ready we will test them out.
Honestly the first time we move the boat we are probably going to pick one of the calmest days we can. Not really for chill sailing but for the pulling up anchor and for the re-anchoring. We don’t actually know how hard it is going to be to hoist the anchor manually. The chain and anchor are pretty heavy and we aren’t expecting to be able to hoist it very quickly. Also, after our first time we would like to drop anchor in favorable conditions too. When we first anchored after getting splashed a couple of weeks ago it was pretty windy and the unfamiliar current was running in the opposite direction with a pretty strong current. It was a confusing and noisy setting, and when we tested the hold of the anchor by putting the boat into reverse and backing down on it, the chain started slipping out of the teeth of the windlass. The deck around the windlass was not ready for the jerking pressure of the chain, and started bending up a concerning amount. Since then we have all been a little gun-shy towards pulling anchor, but we are planning some chill sailing soon.
Thanks for reading!
~Conrad
Oliver - “70 Blogs!”
For a long time, I liked painting, and playing board games, while Ellis liked personal fitness, and playing music. I was the art guy, he was the music guy. But just recently, we have started to learn each other’s skills. I have been doing many more workouts and even playing around on the cello. Ellis has been drawing almost every day, he still hates playing boardgames, but I will get him eventually. Even though I’ve been doing all that other stuff, I’ve still been doing some painting. I got some new acrylics for Christmas this year, so I am trying to get good at acrylics. Unfortunately, I decided to start with portraits… my first attempt looked like Conrad got sunburnt while holding his breath upside-down. I got pretty frustrated, and I didn’t even finish that one yet. But I watched some videos with Mom, and my second try is a little better. I think we are mostly adjusted to life at anchor in the river, so we are probably going to go sailing soonish. The bad news is, we found an air-leak in our brand-new dinghy. But the good news is, they are going to send us a new one. The third times the charm… right? Thanks for reading, have a great week!
~Oliver
Jasper - “Segnahc (But Backwards)”
This past week we started our second and last semester for the year. But this semester has brought a bunch of new challenges, some are fun, mental things, but others are things that we will have to adapt to. Some of the fun things are like: our new guitar lessons, or poetry writing, and some less fun challenges are: Algebra, and power. But we overcame them each one by one. Our Granny got us a Starlink (basically boat WIFI) for Christmas, so we got that set up, but to power it we still have to run our gas powered generator. Algebra is pretty hard, but I’m working through it slowly, bit, by bit. School is back to its normal length but it’s fun, so I don’t mind.
Before now, I have never really wanted to learn an instrument. But this semester we are doing a new school project, learning an instrument!! Everyday just before bed time we practice the song of the week on one of the types of instruments we have (we have ukuleles, guitars, a cello, and newly, a coronet). The song we practice changes each week, for instance this week we are practicing a song called “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing,” by Jack Johnson. I am doing pretty well, I think, but I’m still having trouble with the bridge. Well, that’s all that I’ve got for this week, see you next time!
~Jasper
Posy - “My thoughts”
So we are anchored and all that, but the tide is very strong. So we make about two, or more, circles with our boat every day. And there’s like fifteen boats in the anchorage, and they all seem to want to cuddle close to us. On Wednesday, a boat went into our range of swinging, but they said they would leave with the boat before night. But, the people just left the boat sitting there ,and they left, and weren’t planning to come back. Luckily enough, they drifted off a good bit. The knowledge that God’s got us is more than enough to make me a little bit braver. I’m hanging on to something that seems so small, but is actually bigger than the whole universe. God created the earth and he saved earth multiple times! And through all the hard times me and my family have been through, he has been faithful, so I’m not scared. This feels like a very short blog, but it moved me. Have an amazing weekend.
~Posy