[Jeremiah's Daughter]

Glad to see Scott telling everyone about the real facts pertaining to the repairs on "Wild Eyes" and Abby's voyage. Team Abby's soulful intention is to HELP Abby. Larry is not included! His mismanaging and decision making is rookie at best. I'm sure most Abby's sponsor money was wasted on Larry's behalf... "Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked."

I wouldn't send a chimp around the world if Larry had anything to do with it. Having the proper shakedown gives a sailor a fighting chance, especially when you're doing a circumnavigation. And let's not forget your child's safety!!! But hey, he looks good on TV!! Cute for the ladies.... "so Abby you ready to sail around the world now"

Temptation is the fire that brings up the scum of the heart!

[coggs]

Nothing hidden about JD's agenda.

Thanks to Scott for the insight. Straight and to the point with no sugar coating.

If Abby makes it through the nasty weather forcast for this week OK we may have to mirror Ms Watson's effort and start a RESPECT thread. She may have fallen short on the non-stop part of the quest but the cards were stacked against her much more so than Jessica.

All that said it's still Alessandro di Benedetto who gets my utmost respect. He's crossed the equator and well on his way back to France in his 21' mini with half a mast, not to mention dragging a huge set of balls behind him.

[longy]

Re the battery problems: if, as SMS says, batt voltage is being kept around 12 - 12.4, then the AGM are suffering. They must be fully charged at least every 20 days or so. Many cruisers running this 70-80% charge profile have seen their AGM die quickly. Adding more reserve capacity without increasing charging time available can only exacerbate the problem. She needs to be able to do a long batt charge run to get batts to the top of the charge cycle.

[SMSScott]

longy, on 08 June 2010 - 04:42 PM, said:

Re the battery problems: if, as SMS says, batt voltage is being kept around 12 - 12.4, then the AGM are suffering. They must be fully charged at least every 20 days or so. Many cruisers running this 70-80% charge profile have seen their AGM die quickly. Adding more reserve capacity without increasing charging time available can only exacerbate the problem. She needs to be able to do a long batt charge run to get batts to the top of the charge cycle.

I am well aware of the need to 100% recharge AGM batteries that is why i fully charged them twice or three times in Cape Town. in Abby's case at sea it is just not practical to fully recharge them just takes too many engine hours to get that last 20% to 30%. That last 20% to 30% will take just about as long with 400 Ah of batteries as it will with 800 Ah of batteries with our setup.

If she can keep them a little higher like i have suggested they have a better chance of getting close to top off during daylight hours. but now without the wind generators it a bit harder.She does occasionally get up to 12.5 to 12.6 or so and that is with load on the batteries.

I have been using LifeLine AGM batteries for more than 15 years and most all of my customers get 4-5 even 8 to 12 years good use out of them but in Abby's case we are not looking for longevity. They only need to last 6-8 months under the abuse we are giving them.

In Wild Eyes and Abby's case the benefits outweigh the drawbacks IMHO.

For now she is concentrating on getting through some pretty rough weather right now she is prepared and all is going well as last i heard.

Scott

[Tom Ray]

CruiserJim, on 08 June 2010 - 02:10 PM, said:

Thanks to U20guy2 and jonsailor for your insights on the sprit. I guess another way to describe what happened might be "a wave hit it and the front fell off!" :rolleyes:

Is that unusual?

[SMSScott]

SMSScott, on 08 June 2010 - 05:32 AM, said:

We now get 165 amps from the alternators and 14.5 volts. There is now probably about 60-70 hours on the belts and this setup (this include about 60 hour's testing and charging the batteries full several times in Cape Town) Abby has reported it is still working much better then before.

It seamed a bit long to me when i wrote it down, the 60 hours of testing i quickly calculated from the limited engine hour meter log i can reference. After looking at dates and log hours more closely and thinking about how we never added fuel till we toped of the reported 30 gal tank before she left. It must have been more like 30 to 40 hours of testing so probably 50 to 65 hours on the belts and setup by this time.

Scott

[Poole Bouy]

Tom Ray, on 08 June 2010 - 09:04 PM, said:

CruiserJim, on 08 June 2010 - 02:10 PM, said:

Thanks to U20guy2 and jonsailor for your insights on the sprit. I guess another way to describe what happened might be "a wave hit it and the front fell off!" :rolleyes:

Is that unusual?

It pretty much never happens, these boats are built to very rigorous standards you know.

[Bare pole]

coggs, on 08 June 2010 - 04:41 PM, said:

Nothing hidden about JD's agenda.

Thanks to Scott for the insight. Straight and to the point with no sugar coating.

If Abby makes it through the nasty weather forcast for this week OK we may have to mirror Ms Watson's effort and start a RESPECT thread. She may have fallen short on the non-stop part of the quest but the cards were stacked against her much more so than Jessica.

All that said it's still Alessandro di Benedetto who gets my utmost respect. He's crossed the equator and well on his way back to France in his 21' mini with half a mast, not to mention dragging a huge set of balls behind him.

Vamos Alessandro !!!!!!!!

[jerryj2me]

Scott:

Thank you for the details.
You have earned my respect.

We all do understand that you are
"working with what you got" and making the best of it.

The belts on the engine could be reworked in a
manner similar to what they do on some trucks - the double
sheave and two v-belts, or a set of special pulleys and a wider cog belt.

The torque load with all the alternator loads must be pretty bloody high.
Adjusting the alternator field settings down to reduce the alternator torque
loads makes sense, although its a compromise. After all you are throwing
away some of the generating capability in order to save the belts.

as for the vibration? You got an alignment problem,
something out of round or a something out of balance?


thanks,
jerry

[Estar]

Ouch, this coming tomorrow.

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I don't have an accurate position for her but it is somewhere over that island (the Kerguelen Islands) . Hopefully her routers have moved her well north of 40S (perhaps 35-37S).

[jonsailor]

jerryj2me, on 09 June 2010 - 02:15 PM, said:

Scott:

Thank you for the details.
You have earned my respect.

We all do understand that you are
"working with what you got" and making the best of it.

The belts on the engine could be reworked in a
manner similar to what they do on some trucks - the double
sheave and two v-belts, or a set of special pulleys and a wider cog belt.

The torque load with all the alternator loads must be pretty bloody high.
Adjusting the alternator field settings down to reduce the alternator torque
loads makes sense, although its a compromise. After all you are throwing
away some of the generating capability in order to save the belts.

as for the vibration? You got an alignment problem,
something out of round or a something out of balance?


thanks,
jerry

you cannot believe the loads that these big alternators cause until you see it running, especially if they are doctored to hit 14.4 Volts.

It actually stalls the engine if you run both while cold. Some of our single handed yachts, we either have a manual switch or a time delay before they kick in so the engine can get going.
Double belts we found were not a good idea as they wear and stretch different and do not share the load well enough. Maybe a square tooth belt like a Harley drive belt would be the go, I've never tried that.
Most of the vibration is due to not enough rigidity in the steel mounting structure. Being a race yacht, we tend to not go too overboard and there is always a room problem.
Biggest problem is the user of these boats. Both girls live on all the electronics and never put the phone down. None would survive or make it without a sat phone.
I did a 5,200 mile 2 handed race to Osaka on 39 ltrs of fuel. Sure we only used the pilot 21% of the time but there sure is a lot more discipline to be had.
Media chews up a lot and I suppose they all need the sponsors onboard.

[longy]

I'm starting to see a fair bit of retro fit pulleys available for automotive flat serpentine belts. Normal V belts can supply up to 5 HP per belt. Any idea what serpentine belts can supply? With a swap over to these flat belts, you should be able to get a better set-up: more pulley wrap, less alignment issues (only one belt), more HP transferred, auto belt tensioning.

[jerryj2me]

longy, on 09 June 2010 - 10:21 PM, said:

I'm starting to see a fair bit of retro fit pulleys available for automotive flat serpentine belts. Normal V belts can supply up to 5 HP per belt. Any idea what serpentine belts can supply? With a swap over to these flat belts, you should be able to get a better set-up: more pulley wrap, less alignment issues (only one belt), more HP transferred, auto belt tensioning.

http://www.gates.com...location_id=560

see the picture at the top of the page -
belts are available for whats is globally
described as "industrial power transfer"
in all kinds of forms and flavors.

I don't like the double v belt approach either,
for the reasons others have stated.

This is a 2 piston diesel (correct me if I am wrong)
and the torque of the engine as a function of
crank angle is going to have a lot of variance.
More pistons, flatter rotational torque. My premise is
if all else is well, that's the vibration issue,
couple with the heavy alternator load.

50 knots of wind in the forecast - Hope the weather routing keeps
her out of it and she prepares properly.

Hopefully no more sleeping with a lot of sail area up.
Maybe that lesson got learned from the last go around with this?

[U20guy2]

Just how reliant is she on the electrics? Could she find home if it were all go to crap? Pretty sure nearly anyone could sail around the world with an auto pilot - weather ie nav service telling them where to go via sat phone. Though anyone with even some minor ocean experience knows crap breaks - stuff just stops working and sometimes its just you - a set of sails and a tiller. Maybe if your smart a couple of small hand held back up GPS units to pull some position points along the way.

No doubt She's done alot and learned alot but in no way or form was this trip well thought out or prepared for. Would her journey have continued if more experienced sailors had not stepped in and helped solve problems? Most PAC Cup Sailors discover these sorts of issues in the months leading up to their 2000 mile off shore race when they do the Coastal Cup and other local ocean events. Apparently the rush to make it happen took priority over the poor kid actually learning and knowing this stuff her self before she went.

[svgrace]

U20guy2, on 09 June 2010 - 11:08 PM, said:

Just how reliant is she on the electrics? Could she find home if it were all go to crap? Pretty sure nearly anyone could sail around the world with an auto pilot - weather ie nav service telling them where to go via sat phone. Though anyone with even some minor ocean experience knows crap breaks - stuff just stops working and sometimes its just you - a set of sails and a tiller. Maybe if your smart a couple of small hand held back up GPS units to pull some position points along the way.

No doubt She's done alot and learned alot but in no way or form was this trip well thought out or prepared for. Would her journey have continued if more experienced sailors had not stepped in and helped solve problems? Most PAC Cup Sailors discover these sorts of issues in the months leading up to their 2000 mile off shore race when they do the Coastal Cup and other local ocean events. Apparently the rush to make it happen took priority over the poor kid actually learning and knowing this stuff her self before she went.

+1 - Best of luck to Abby.

[Estar]

jerryj2me, on 09 June 2010 - 10:58 PM, said:

50 knots of wind in the forecast - Hope the weather routing keeps
her out of it and she prepares properly.

The website positions seem to put her roughly at 43S. That a real trade-off between making speed in between the lows vs getting hammered by the lows.

But for today that puts her in a very windy spot. I am a bit surprised the routing did not aggressively push her north for this low, they have been so conservative in the past.

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[tama_manu]

Estar, on 10 June 2010 - 03:02 PM, said:

I am a bit surprised the routing did not aggressively push her north for this low, they have been so conservative in the past.

While we don't know actual positions, from a rough point of view it looks to me like she made it to the Kerguelens within the outer time estimated on her web site. This is a first for her trip. I don't know if it is routing or sailing, or more likely both, but she is moving along faster in any case. I enjoyed it when Born2Sail put positions in his Nav software - though for that one he had them. I would not want to add any pressure on this teen girl to push the boat though.

[shamrock22]

http://www.petethomasoutdoors.com/

Anybody know anything about her EPIRB going off?

[gorge runner]

shamrock22, on 10 June 2010 - 05:15 PM, said:

http://www.petethomasoutdoors.com/

Anybody know anything about her EPIRB going off?

Just saw this on ABCNews

[U20guy2]

gorge runner, on 10 June 2010 - 05:21 PM, said:

shamrock22, on 10 June 2010 - 05:15 PM, said:

http://www.petethomasoutdoors.com/

Anybody know anything about her EPIRB going off?

Just saw this on ABCNews

Shit - Shit!!!!
I hope they find her Ok- for the parents sake for sure!

All the experienced sailors kept saying this thing was madness.

[Silverbullet]

shamrock22, on 10 June 2010 - 05:15 PM, said:

http://www.petethomasoutdoors.com/

Anybody know anything about her EPIRB going off?

Aw shit. Not good.

[shamrock22]

Re read and it sounds like she has 2 going off right now plus no comms via sat phone.

[U20guy2]

shamrock22, on 10 June 2010 - 05:30 PM, said:

Re read and it sounds like she has 2 going off right now plus no comms via sat phone.

Primary - and personal maybe?
Given they were on the sat phone with her prior to the EPIRB I'd guess that we are only getting a very small part of the story that lead up to this. Guessing they were on the phone with her to coach her through a major fix or how to get the boat mellowed out in the conditions she was in?

[razorback]

ESPN reporting on it now too.

2 EPIRBs chirping is definitely not a good sign. Maybe she's in a raft. C'mon little girl, hang on till somebody gets to you.

Edit: The ABCnews link said she had manually activated 2 EPIRBs and that an auto had not fired. What are the chances of that being an accurate report? If true, it'd seem to be a hopeful sign (e.g. she was conscious and working the problem)

This post has been edited by razorback: 10 June 2010 - 05:41 PM

[DryArmour]

razorback, on 10 June 2010 - 05:35 PM, said:

ESPN reporting on it now too.

2 EPIRBs chirping is definitely not a good sign. Maybe she's in a raft. C'mon little girl, hang on till somebody gets to you.

Is topping the news here in LA on the Radio.

Can someone give me the latest for her LAT LON and I will go have a look at the Wx.