A warm, sunny day, but with a cooling breeze, occasionally touching twenty knots.
I painted the cockpit this morning before the wind came up and made preparations to paint the deck tomorrow.
I also chased gremlins in the solar charging system. Yesterday I discovered that another Aurinco panel has failed. Today I discovered that yet still another Aurinco panel has failed. These were the long narrow ones on the foredeck. Perfection is difficult to achieve, but Aurinco has done it. Of the six Aurinco panels on GANNET’s deck when I left San Diego three years ago, all six have failed.
This is no longer a problem. Two 25 watt replacement Aurinco panels are working and with the two 50 watt Solbian panels, GANNET still has 150 watts of solar charging. I even have a third Aurinco as a spare stowed below. I checked and it is still functioning.
The timing is actually good. I removed the offending panels prior to painting the deck tomorrow.
My iPhone 6 arrived in Durban DOA. I had it in my carry-on messenger bag and it was working when I left Evanston. It is still under AppleCare, but you don’t just schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar in South Africa. I still have my iPhone 7 plus and three other chartplotting devices on board.
Last evening I attempted to turn on the two Megabooms speakers to listen to music and found one of them to be dead. No response. No charging. Odd because it worked the night before and was just sitting in its usual place in the Great Cabin in between.
I may be able to buy a replacement online here. I’ll know tomorrow. One Megaboom or Boom 2 is fine, but two in stereo are excellent.
I’m about to settle for music on one.
