First Overnight Anchorage
A couple of months ago we finally got to take SVRO out for an overnight trip. We left Friday after work and headed south along the San Joaquin River. The wind was blowing maybe 3 knots so we weren’t able to sail, but the motor was running fine. Our batteries were at about 80% when we left the dock. By the time we anchored they were at 93%. We made dinner and basically called it a night.
The next day Rich wanted to head up to Madeville to see if there was a spot for us to anchor. He started the engine; a few minutes later we heard the engine make a weird surging sound, but then continued to run fine. About that time Rich noticed the tachometer was not working, but all the other engine gauges were normal.
Once again the wind was too light to sail, and the sloughs and rivers are pretty narrow, so we motored east and north. A bit later we noticed that the batteries weren’t getting a charge; instead there seemed to be higher than normal amps being drawn from the batteries. Continuing to motor up to Mandeville, once we got there realized there were already a lot of boats anchored and rafted up.
Heading back south we ended up right where we had anchored the night before. We pulled out the Honda generator and after some fiddling around, got the batteries charged up for the night. Overall it was a nice weekend anchored on the river.
Alternator Autopsy
When we returned to the dock Rich tore into the alternator. You can see what he found in the video below. We knew upgrading the alternator was probably something we were going to do eventually. We just didn’t realize it was going to be so soon. As is pretty typical for us, what should have been a pretty easy swap out, ended up taking weeks to complete.
