We had a good weekend in Essex, CT with the Seven Seas Cruising Association (SSCA). There was rather too much classroom type stuff for us – and it focused on the US East coast and Caribbean/Bahamas, rather than straying further afield – but we met some interesting folk and had Mike and Jane stay aboard Toodle-oo! with us.

Unfortunately we found out that our generator based charging system is NOT operational and after various email messages back to New England Boatworks, it’s decided we should return to have the large capacitor in the generator replaced – and if that doesn’t work, we’ll swap out the charger for a different make…

This made for a rather boring delivery type event back to Portsmouth – 11 hours mostly under engine…

Today, instead of having NEB replace the capacitor, I had to do it because they’re short staffed. – sounds easy, but involves taking the generator off it’s mountings in order to get to the bloody thing! So I rigged a block and tackle to the boom and used the winch to raise the boom – and the generator… In the end the capacitor is good so it was a wasted effort. New charger is on it’s way… Then I noticed the bilge pump was not operating – so spent the rest of the afternoon in the bilge installing a new one and it’s switch!

Meanwhile… shortly before we left for Essex,  I took our VW GTi to the dealership to fix something that wasn’t broken(!), then drove the 3 miles to Carmax to sell it. In those 3 miles the engine light came on – the turbocharger needs replacing! So that’s what Laurie was doing all day today! We just don’t seem to be able to catch a break!

Tomorrow will be hectic – picking up the car, selling car, finding a way to get home(!), replacing chargers and testing them out – along with a whole slew of other things we’re supposed to be doing – like getting ready for the OCC’s Southern New England Cruise that we’re leading!!!!

This is harder than work by a long stretch!