Learning all about a Greenline

So we're still in Grado (by design) learning more about the boat.  All good to know but sometimes it would be nice to not need to know.

We now know (ok we think we know) that the reason why the shower doesn't work properly is because the shower tap doesn't allow us to adjust the pressure and the temperature separately. ie. The more pressure you want (so that the pump doesn't cut in and out) the hotter the water is.  If only the tap was like the kitchen and bathroom sink then we'd be right.  That's now on the list of things to fix.

We now know that it rains a lot in Italy at this time of the year.

We now know that if for some reason you turn off the 12 volt system and then turn it on without 'rebooting' the 48 volt system then you will not be able to use the electric motor. Easy enough to do and yes it is written in the manual but in really small print.

We also now know that this red light on the engine is a bad thing.

Because it means that the fuse in here is blown.

And that means that the diesel engine doesn't work AND the electric motor doesn't work either. Good to know!

And we think that the cause of the fuse blowing is the fact that the bow thruster battery had an internal fault. We've fixed that and we'll know tomorrow if we've solved the problem.

On a lighter note we have received the registration papers so we're looking forward to getting out of the marina :)

Voting in Milan

On Friday we hired a car from here in Grado and drove to Milan which is the closest place for us to be able to vote. Yes we could have done a postal vote but it was a 10 day wait for the mail to get to us and then we needed to find another Australian citizen to witness and then 10 days to return. 

Anyway, a 4 hour drive and then we stayed the night before heading back the next day. Hopefully the clown we voted for does a good job for the next 3 years. 

Turned out that the Alpine Troops were celebrating their centenary over the weekend.

 Pretty cool looking car park.

Been a bit of a shi**y week

The joys of owning a second hand boat. There's often a bunch of things that you don't know about.  Like how well the previous owner did the maintenance of things like the holding tank.

Early in the week we discovered we had a blocked holding tank and after a fair bit of work we have managed to clear the blockage and but some acid down there to break down the calcium build up.  All good now but my next job is to clear out the grey water holding tank.

Adding a bunch of photos to a single blog post

Wanted to try something and it looks like it works. (The new thing I wanted to try was just linking to all the photos that have been taken on a single day and showing them all without needed to select each one individually) 

These are all taken on Monday last week (5th May) and show just how cold it was on Sunday. Snow on the mountains in May is pretty much unheard of. Anyway, we've worked out how the heater works.

The last video at the end is the view while having coffee in Grado at about 11 am.

Sun Chi

So we did that. By that I mean on our way out of Netherlands last year we sold Ardella. We had already seen Sun Chi and knew that that was the boat for us if it was still available when we had sold and so by about mid to late October after we had got home to Australia we settled on Sun Chi.

Then came the long wait while we were working in Australia knowing that this new toy was on the other side of the world that we couldn't play with.

Anyway, cutting the long story short we arrived back in Rome on Tuesday the 16th April. We picked up a hire car and stayed the night about 15 minutes away from the airport. Next day on the Wednesday we drove up to Gorizia, had dinner and went to bed early.

On the Thursday we met Grega at the marina to see how he was going with the maintenance work before we were scheduled to go back in the water on the Friday. There wasn't a lot that we could do so we went off to Ikea to pick up a bunch of things that we knew we would need and then again went back to the hotel for another early night.

Friday we where scheduled to go back in the water at midday and we running about 15 minutes behind schedule. When we got back in the water Grega went down into the bilge to check that there was no leaks and unfortunately there was! One of the 'thru-hull' fittings had a flaw in the casting and a therefore a tiny leak. This meant pull it (the boat) back out again and another couple of hours on dry land while he pulled the fitting out and replaced it and let the sealant cure again.  By 4.30pm we were in the water and no leaks.

So plans are made to change aren't they?

If you were paying attention earlier you would have noticed that we haven't exactly followed our planned route.  What can I say, we're flexible, really flexible. This is the actual route we have taken.  

Anyway, a conversation a couple of weeks ago led to a discussion about what are the things we want to do over the next 5 and 10 years and for me having an electric boat (or diesel electric hybrid) has always been up there if and when we can afford it. We decided to take the boat up to Lelystad and see the distributor for Greenline boats in Lelystad. Suffice to say, we like what we see.

Cutting a long story short, we've decided that we will sell Ardella and get a second hand Greenline 33 that has an electric engine that can do 4 knots on the canals (which is about the speed limit anyway) and a diesel engine that can do 12 knots which would be fantastic for the more open waterways.  In addition to being ideal for here in Europe it is also a boat that we could easily bring back to Australia (on a container ship) and use on the east coast of Australia.  Pretty much, any where on the east coast of Australia we could use the electric motor within the bays and rivers and then use the diesel engine to get between the bays and rivers.

All things electrical

Well, it's now been a couple of weeks since we replaced that pesky battery and the voltage regulator.  I'm happy to say that with a new battery and the regulator keeping things properly charged when the engine is running things are looking brighter in the cabin :)

We're on our 4th day here in this canalside stop and haven't run the engine in that time.  Weather has been a bit hit and miss with sun / clouds / rain and the batteries are still at 97%.  Nothing to complain about there. When the solar is running at full tilt it puts about 15 amps into the batteries.

Getting the 60kg battery in and out was a bit of a challenge but not insurmountable.  4" square hardwood lying around with a couple of stainless fittings and some spare rope and I had a really usable pulley system.

Raising and lowering the battery one stair at a time means that it's always under control.

And eventually it makes it here.

And this is the voltage regulator that was only charging at a maximum of 13.8 volts.

The regulator has now been replaced with one that gets the voltage up to 14.5 volts.  The end result is that instead of us arriving at a marina and plugging in the power and immediately charging the batteries, when we get there and plug in the batteries are already charged. 

Taking out the garbage

So we've been seeing these bins and never knew how they got emptied until the other day. Some of them are for general public use others are for residents and you need to use a card to get the thing to open so you can drop in the rubbish.

And this is what it looks like underneath.

And we all know what happens to the rubbish in Netherlands.

Utrecht

On our way in to Utrecht (coming from north to south) on the Vecht river.  These guys on the houseboats really have the life.

We were able to go all the way through town however there's nowhere to stop and I really had my work cut out. All of the bridges are 'only just' and we had the canvas cover down. Oh yeah, and it started to rain just as we went through the first bridge.
Anyway, we got through the whole series of bridges (about 20 from memory) and found a spot where we could tie up for 6 hours and then went for a walk in to town. We saw one of these buses on the way in and I managed to get a photo and video on the way back.

Lunch

After a big walk in the morning I figured we were ok for a drink with lunch.  This is just outside of Gouda (famous for the cheese of course) at one of those spots where we can park for free for 3 days.