Blue Opal was scheduled to lift today at 10 am, so K and I came up the night before with bedding, replacement lithium battery (for the house bank), and a few other odds and ends. The drive up through Dublin was a right pain in the ass, with road works and long queues (due to the new restrictions on the Quays?) delaying us. Thankfully made it before the Marina staff had left for the night, and got my keycard updated to grant access for a few more weeks.
New battery went in easily, and the two older 105Ah leads were taken ashore for disposal. They were installed in 2019, and haven’t had the easiest life – we certainly had battery life issues during our three week holiday in 2021, even with solar and engine charging (but as with an earlier blog post, I’m not sure the solar was working properly). Easy replacement, and I love the threaded studs that are just a default on the battery design. Kept all the old post to bolt adapters from the lead-acid batteries just in case I ever need them again.
Since the lithium battery (LiFePo4) maintains a higher voltage by default – 13.2 versus a lead acid’s 12.8 – things like the water pump sound better and pull a lower current. It’s not a tremendously lower current, but it is noticeable to the ear. Indeed, it’s much closer to the sound when the boat is on shore power. A 24V supply would draw even less, and I’d need smaller cabling, but so much of Blue Opal’s equipment is designed around a 12V supply that it’s not worth it.
As is usual with the marina, the lift out didn’t happen at the scheduled time – things came up and distorted the schedule. Not really a problem, as I had taken the whole day off from work so I didn’t have to stress about carrying the laptop around and (not) getting work done. As the rescheduled time drew near, I fired up the engine and put the boat into ahead to make sure everything still worked properly. This is when I heard a very unpleasant grinding / thudding from the prop shaft, and promptly put the engine back into neutral.
Once one of the yard folk showed up to help me navigate into the hoist, I had him shift the engine into ahead while I watched the prop shaft from the companionway. There was no major wobble or bounce, nor water ingress, despite the noise. Looking at the shaft from the finger dock, it became apparent that I really couldn’t see the propeller – lots of gunk on it.
We slowly motored around to the hoist (with the noise diminishing as we went along), and were out of the water for a power wash by 1230 or so. I’d left the damn ladder at home (didn’t put it on the checklist), so K and I went to Fernhill for a few hours before returning the car, and the marina put Blue Opal into a cradle.