Still cold...

Time: 2021/07/19 02:02:58
Latitude: 47-10.59N
Longitude: 164-16.30W
Speed: 5.0
Course: 32T
Wind_Speed: 12
Wind_Dir: SSW
Barometer: 1035
Air_Temp: 14C
Wave_Dir: SSW
Comment: Spinnaker is up again as of about 1000 local. Winds are predicted to be light through to tomorrow afternoon so we should be good to fly it for a little while. Nice to be sailing again. Fog has lifted somewhat, clouds remain and visibility is still less than 10 NM. It is still colder than we would like but we are managing.


There is nothing quite like getting up for my watch at midnight and seeing D with his head buried in the battery box. Still wiping the sleep out of my eyes and having a pity party for how cold it is, the flashing from the battery monitoring system (BMS) catches my eye. Oh no...this is not good. The BMS is responsible for monitoring the charging and discharging of our house battery bank. This is not the first time the BMS has given us problems. During the Pacific crossing, the BMS shut down our batteries due to wrong information the BMS was producing. Fortunately D was able to find a bypass to ensure that we still were able to use our battery bank. This time the issue is the BMS has stopped reading the sense boards that are attached to the lithium batteries and in turn we are getting very wrong voltage and temperature readings from the 20 lithium cells that we rely on to power everything on this boat. Basically if the BMS was to be believed, the batteries were well and truly dead with negative voltage and below freezing temperatures. So just like a computer when all else fails, power it off and turn it back on, that is sort of what D had to do. He disconnected the sense boards and then one group of cells at a time, he reconnected them and miraculously it fixed the problem. The batteries themselves are rockstars and are not the problem. The problem is the BMS that we bought to monitor the charging of the cells, basically it is a piece of $hit. Our conclusion for this most recent mishap is perhaps the BMS was expressing its displeasue about the cold.

On the plus side, we have some systems on the boat that are loving the cold!!! We have had the fridge/freezer turned off all day today and everything is still frozen solid. Yesterday, we had to turn it off when we discovered the fridge was actually freezing what little is left of our fresh produce. I had no idea this fridge could actually be so efficient even without a lick of insulation on this thing. Then there is our watermaker!! We have never had such low TDS readings, which is the number that tells us how much salt is in the fresh water the watermaker is producing. Apparently tropical waters are not to our watermaker's taste.

As for me, I am not loving the cold. I have so many blankets on my bed that it is hard to turn over they are so heavy, and my darn feet are still cold!! Even D was trying to map out a route today that took us through Alaska as quickly as possible to try to get us south to warmer temps. We are trying to be hopeful that once we are closer to land it will feel warmer. I have no doubt once we see the amazing scenery and wildlife that Alaska has to offer, we will change our tune. But for now, surrounded by nothing but grey skies and grey water, it is hard to be enthusiastic about the cold.