Port Jefferson Long Island – in the Dark

We left Point Judith just before sunrise.

Along the way the sun came up in the East and since we were heading due West it was directly on our stern.

The boat was running great and it was time to drop the throttle to the pins and see what she’ll run at. I had hoped that she would reach WOT of 2800 but alas we only hit 2700. Proof that the boat is running a bit heavy and we may need to re-pitch the prop in the Spring. I almost did it this Fall but with the moving the ballast around I figured she may run a bit different at WoT (Wide Open Throttle).

Along the way we got a “low voltage” alarm at the helm and after troubleshooting it it turned out to be the VSR (Voltage Sensititive Relay) that was not working properly. When you have a boat with 3 battery banks and 2 charging methods (alternator on the diesel & shore power battery charger) you need a VSR that combine the battery banks when there is a charging source (above 13V) and something that disconects the battery bank from the others when it drops below 12V. By isolating the battery bank you prevent all the battery banks from being depleted while allowing a single or multiple sources to charge all the battery banks at once.

Anyway.. long story short our VSR was not combining the battery banks and I could use a manual override to force the diesel alternator to charge not just the single 8D battery for the diesel but also the Qnty 3 8D AGM (Acid Gas Mat) house batteries.

By the way. I just replaced those batteries at 160lbs a piece. I needed to be a bit younger. I’m not as strong as I was….

W02L02 (Winter 02, Leg 002) looked something like this…

OK that does not include our nighttime arrival into Port Jefferson, NY (in Long Island).

Even funnier were the dogs. They get nervous when the sea starts to get rough. That said the sea state was smooth but they were just out of practice. Chief Martin Brody was a bit nervous so by sitting on his big sister makes him relax. I’m not sure Happy agrees with this …

That’s all for tonight… I’ve been following the weather and it’s forcing us to run 12 hours days into the night to stay ahead of the NorEasters that are bringing high winds and heavy seas. We just need to get South down the Jersey coast before the Gale Force Wind warnings that are so commonplace during a NE winter…

We are anchored until sunrise @6:38AM on Tuesday. Until then.. this is our view of Port Jefferson..