Aptly, being just a quarter of a mile from Bradwells’ decommission nuclear power station, Kudu’s power problems have been resolved.
Firstly a chap called Alan, a stranger the moment before I stepped over his dinghy on the pontoon and said hello, offered me a lift into a not so nearby town where I bought a new battery, upping Kudu’s capacity to a more acceptable 170ah. He then went on to lend me a spare tiller pilot incase mine gave up on me, as did his when he sailed single handed to the Azores, and a drogue chute, which is like a small parachute and is trailed behind the boat to slow it down and keep it under controller in very strong winds. I hope I don’t need to take it out the bag, but it’s nice having it onboard.
Secondly, on the same day, I had a surprise visit from a chap I’d been speaking to on the internet. I had never met him before, but he had taken an interest in my journey, and been offering me help over Skype. He knew of my power problems, and the broken charge controller, and had taken the time to ring the manufacturer of the controller, obtain a schematic, diagnose the likely problem, order a new MOSFET from RS Components, and then drive here, from Surrey, which is no small distance. He then set to work with a soldering iron and a rather clever MOSTFET testing device, correctly identified the broken component, and replaced it with the 35 pence chip he’s brought with him. I now not only have a working charge controller, but a loan of charts to see me all the way up to scotland, an AIS receiver which will allow me to see nearby ships and their course on my chart plotter, and a spare VHF radio.
Yesterday evening, Alan popped along with a Rutland 503 wind generator, so I now have 40 watts of solar panels and a wind turbine. I’ll be selling power to the national grid at this rate!
I spent yesterday covered in fibre glass resin as I glassed in a piece of plywood I found in my stern locker, in order to create a base to fit the new battery. I then decided Kudu’s wiring was pretty poor, so ripped the lot out and rewired the switch panels and battery connections with proper terminal ends and fuses in the correct places. What surprised me was… everything still works :p