Category Archives: Boat Details

Light It Up Sparky – Alternator Issue

Sugar Shack has four alternators on board, two for each engine. The small alternator charges the starter battery and the large one charges the house batteries. One of our large, 130 amp Mastervolt alternators has “issues” and it was time to fix it. Matt had already taken it a part, cleaned the brushes, and tweaked things, but it still wasn’t working. He suspected it needed new diodes which we did not have on board. He found a place called “Marlon’s Garage” in Aruba that had good reviews for rebuilding alternators.

Matt pulled the big boy out of the engine, placed it in a plastic bag and we hefted it to Marlon’s Garage. When I say “we” I mean “he” by the way. We scouted the location earlier so we didn’t have to walk around carrying a 40 lb bag. The garage was nice, clean, and stocked with a variety of vehicles in 15-20 bays. All of the employees had really nice embroidered shirts with “Marlon’s Garage” on the back and their names on the front. Surprising since these are mechanics working around dirty cars and parts wearing these expensive shirts – but good branding!

The garage was filled with lots of treasures. The owner, a lifelong car enthusiast, had a few Ferrari’s, a porche, couple of corvettes, classic mustang, and old caddy. We later discovered that he has over 50 cars in total and he is still collecting.

We walked in and they immediately took the alternator in to be tested. They determined that we needed new diodes and possibly a new rectifier but they could easily do the repair. They asked us to check back just before 12 to see when we could pick it up. We left an $80 deposit and went on our way.

We met our friends Dave and Tanya on “Dea Latis” and headed to Price Smart to load up with some groceries. Half way through our shopping, I realized it was almost 12 so I went outside to try to call. After several failed attempts I went back inside and finished shopping. Matt kept trying but it was a bad connection. However, Matt was able to determine that our alternator would be ready before closing. We returned our fresh groceries to the boat and decided to explore the town while we waited for the repair to be completed.

Around 5p we headed back to Marlon’s Garage to pick up our alternator. All three diodes were replaced. The shop did not have a rectifier so they actually fabricated a new one for us. All for the low price of $130.

We loaded her back up into her plastic and headed back toward the dinghy dock. It was hot, with little to no breeze and we were both exhausted. A cold beverage would perk us up! We stopped in on a local bar to regroup. After we addressed our more pressing needs by cooling down and resting, we realized we were famished. We left after two rounds and stopped at a Cuban place by the marina. It was really lovely, with a band, nice ambiance, and super tasty food. 28k steps later, we crashed hard!

Matt installed the rebuilt alternator the next day and was pleasantly surprised to find that it charged at 30-40 amps while the engines were in idle. The other alternator charges at 10-15 amps at idle. Then he pushed the engine to 1500 RPM it charged at 100 amps. Whereas the other one charges at 30-40 amps at 1500 RPM. Wow, this is amazing!

He was so excited that he took the other 130 amp alternator off and said let’s go have this one checked too. We huffed back to Marlon’s, had them check it and they said it was fine. They suggested that the regulator might need to be tweaked. Humf…Matt had checked that it was still not putting out the same amps as the rebuilt one, but it was still charging the house batteries.

The good news is that both large alternators are charging the house batteries. Yeah.

Channeling Betsy Ross

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We have had a laundry list of sewing projects that we have been “meaning” to get to but haven’t had time. Maybe it is because there are so many and it is overwhelming, maybe because setting up the sewing machine is a “process” maybe because I was not 100% sure I remembered how to sew (since it has been 35+ years since I touched a sewing machine), or maybe it was just plain procrastination (and a combination of all of the above).

This week, I sucked it up and jumped right in. First let me tell you how we prepare to start a sewing project:

Matt pulls the sewing machine case out of the bilge
Pull out supplies from various storage areas: hot knife, extension cord, carpenter’s square, tape measure, scissors, blue tape, pencil, chalk, velcro, basting tape, shower curtains (for patterns) and fabric
Turn on inverter to provide electricity to sewing machine and hot knife
Set up machine

Sewing supplies

My first project(s) was to create new helm seat cushion back covers. Our current blue ones are stained, torn, falling apart and need to go.

Old helm seat back covers in blue.

Yep, we procrastinated long enough – these need to go.

So, I took the Starboard one off first, measured, double and triple checked the measurements, created a pattern, transferred the pattern to the fabric and cut into my huge 15 yard roll of Sunbrella Toast fabric.

Transferred my pattern to the fabric.

After I created my pattern on the fabric, and remeasured and cut the fabric with a hot knife to prevent loose strands. Then added basting tape to hold the hems cleanly to the fabric.

Basting tape for the hems.

Next, the female velcro was added to one side (we used velcro that had a sticky back side). Then I flipped my piece over and added the male velcro (so that when the piece is rolled they stick to each other).

Velcro applied to pattern.

Test, with just the basting tape holding the piece together, I take it outside and test to see if my measurements were correct. EEEK Gads! They are not! I had measured the circumference 7 3/4 but did not take into account an extra 1″ for the velcro overlap. Yikes. Luckily, I had not sewn anything yet so I had to go back a few steps, shorten my hem and create an overlap so that the velcro actually overlaps and sticks together. Yeah! Worked swell. Now the hard part – sewing.

I had not touched a sewing machine in over 35 years and was a little intimidated about using this one. But, Matt figure it out and walked me through a few things, tested using scrap fabric, fixed mistakes, tested again, fixed mistakes, rinse and repeat. Finally when I felt confident, I broke out the project piece and started sewing the velcro to the fabric.

Working diligently on getting the fabric, basting tape, and velcro through the machine.

Yep, I got this!

Almost done and feeling a little giddy, I start working on the last step which is sewing the end tie pulls into the left and right hems so we can pull them tight to hug the pole. Easy enough, little basting tape, hold the line in, shift the foot on the sewing machine to get a closer fit to the line and call her done!

Yep, the lines are askew, but not bad for a first project.

Finished the port helm seat cushion back cover the next day. The first one took me about 5 hours to complete from start to finish and the second one took me about 3.5 hours.

Completed port helm back cushion cover.

Super pleased with myself, I moved on to a much more complicated project – the outboard cover. I won’t bore you with a separate email on the outboard cover, just give you the highlights here.

It took me 7 times to create a pattern that worked – yep, that is 7 different patterns. Part of it was because Matt had a different idea of what he wanted for the cover than I had so once we got on the same page, we worked it out.

Since it was using two different fabrics and had many curves and uneven measurements, I taped the pattern to the cover to see if it would work before I cut my fabric.

Using a shower curtain, I created a pattern.

This is way beyond my sewing scope, but I am willing to give it a whirl. Keep in mind that this entire process is over multiple days and I have already been frustrated, recovered, frustrated, recovered, over and over.

After blood, sweat and tears (literally all three) Matt and I finished the project together. It was such a relief to have his help, logic, and different outlook and it made all the difference in the world. Let me tell you – this was a complicated project! Glad it’s done.