Late Onset

We are northbound in the Atlantic, approaching Minots Ledge and the turn toward Boston Harbor. It's been a miserable morning, and even though we've been underway for six hours already, it's just now calm enough to type. We have three hours to go as I begin typing.

Passing Minots Ledge Light with Boston in the background.

The big news is that we have our mail, finally. Saturday morning I checked with UPS first thing, because the tracking was basically closed as "delivered" and I could get no updates. But they told me it was back at the distribution center and would be on the truck later in the day. We had a quiet day at home after Friday's big push. I cleaned up a few things and did some chart work.

When I checked back in the afternoon they told me it had been delivered. By this time I had missed the window to take the bus to go retrieve it, and it was too late to make an e-bike trip before dinner. Besides that, my Amazon packages had not yet been delivered to the locker another mile down the road, and so I just figured to take the e-bike in the morning (the bus does not run on Sunday). We tendered ashore for dinner at Quahog Republic, across the street from the dock. It was windy on the patio but they have very little inside seating.

Onset harbor from atop Wickets Island, with Vector center-frame.

While we were at dinner the Amazon delivery notice came. A quick check of the weather for the morning, however, revealed it would be raining, possibly well into the afternoon. Thus it was that I dropped Louise back at Vector, loaded up the e-bike, and returned ashore for the errand extravaganza. I stopped at the Amazon hub counter in a liquor/convenience store for my two packages, grabbed our mail from CVS, who could not scan it because the label had been redone, and stopped into Home Deport, Stop and Shop, and the Onset Market for a few items before heading back. I arrived back home just after sunset.

Our friends Bob and Dori aboard Liberdade, whom we had just seen in Newport, also arrived in Onset Saturday evening, and Sunday after lunch, when the rain had stopped, I dropped by their dock to say hello, and to have a look at the FlopStopper system they use for roll remediation at anchor. After looking it over, we ordered one for ourselves to see if it will help. On my way back I stopped at Wickets Island, climbed the spiffy new staircase to the top, and took in the expansive views over the harbor. At dinner time we walked to the Stonebridge Bar & Grill, adjacent to the eponymous bridge. After returning home we paid out more chain and buttoned the boat up for a forecast storm that ended up being a non-event.

One of Liberdade's FlopStoppers.

Even though I had been to the store Saturday evening, I had missed a few items in my haste to return in daylight, and so yesterday I took the bus back out to the shopping center, where I picked up a few groceries, and some nice porter at the adjacent liquor store. I also found a 28mm socket at Auto Zone that neither Home Deport nor Harbor Freight had when I looked on Saturday. In addition to all the stores I've already mentioned, a Dollar Tree and a Tractor Supply are also easily accessible from the bus stop.

I was back home in plenty of time to clean up for an early dinner with Dori and Bob. We met them at the Bay Room at the Onset Hotel, where at 3:30 they were still serving the more casual lunch menu. It was nice catching up; they will be staying in Onset for a while while they explore Cape Cod by car. We decked the tender when we returned home, in anticipation of an early start this morning.

This spray/stream attachment that supplies all our drinking water was one of my Amazon orders. It replaces a nearly identical one that developed "pipe slime" in the hose, likely because the filter just ahead of it removes the chlorine from the water. 

Given that our mail arrived in Onset literally the day after we did, the only reason for the extra two nights is that we've been waiting on decent seas to cross Cape Cod Bay. The forecast said that would be today, and so we weighed anchor at 6:30 to catch the last of the favorable tide on the canal. We had a nice push, whizzing through the canal at the speed limit, with the motor yacht Grace of Tides a half mile astern of us as our only company. The canal portion of the cruise was lovely.

As soon as we passed the jetties, however, we found ourselves in three foot seas on three seconds, rather than the 1.5' seas on four seconds that had been forecast. While those numbers may sound close, they are a world apart in terms of how the boat moves. Generally our rule of thumb is that the wave period in seconds must be no less than twice the wave height in feet for us to venture out.

Passing Mass Maritime in the canal.

That faced us with a dilemma: bash through it, in hopes it would get better further offshore, or later in the morning, or on a slightly different heading, or turn around and run the nine miles back to Onset for another night. The trouble with the first option is things may never improve, and the whole while you are just getting further from shelter, and the trouble with the second is that it can be Ground Hog Day until the forecast is both acceptable and correct.

I tacked around through several different headings and reduced RPM to smooth out the ride, and Louise took some meds to make things a little more comfortable. We opted to soldier through, reserving Plymouth Harbor, two hours away, as a bail-out. By the time we reached the Plymouth turn things had become just barely tolerable, and as I finish typing we've passed Minots Ledge Light and are just an hour or so from protected waters. We will probably end up somewhere near Hull tonight, after a very long day.

Our mail went walkabout in Newport.

We are anchored at a familiar spot in Onset Bay (map), just off the Cape Cod Canal and near the hamlet of that name in the town of East Wareham, Massachusetts. I had hoped to get this post done, or at least started, on our way out of Newport, but we were in fog the whole day and I could not divert my eyes. I was able to get a bit of it done yesterday on the short cruise here from New Bedford.

This souvenir shop in Newport speaks for the entire town, methinks.

We had a very quiet and calm night in New London after my last post, with just the sounds of the trains. I know that bothers a lot of people, but we rather like them. On Tuesday morning I tendered ashore and walked up the hill to Fiddleheads, a coop grocer that had most of what we needed but was on the pricey side for non-members. I walked back along State Street, taking in a bit more of the town.

State Street, looking downhill to the waterfront.

It was another scorcher of a day and we ran the gen on and off all day to keep cool. I aligned the engine yet one more time, and hammered out a post on the electrical changes I've been working on. A big thunderstorm system was bearing down on us, and we hemmed and hawed about going ashore for dinner, but we got a break between rain showers and figured we could just squeeze it in if we went to the closest joint. That was The Social Bar + Kitchen, which had an impressive array of drafts and decent food. After dinner the storm risk had dropped and we strolled back the longer way past the train station.

An impressive array of draft handles at Social. I can understand why they can't be using the branded ones. Look closely to see how they indicate the ones that have "kicked."

Wednesday morning we went ashore for a quick errand run to get gas for the dingy and beer at the nearby C-store. It was another no-go day for crossing out of Long Island Sound, but we briefly contemplated going as far as Fisher Island to stage for the crossing. We can get ashore at the yacht club there and walk to the lone restaurant on this reclusive island, but ultimately we decided we were very comfortable in New London and just stayed put, heading back ashore for dinner at Mi Casa, which had acceptable if not remarkable Mexican fare.

Construction has begun on the new USCG Museum next to the train depot in New London.

Thursday turned out to be The Day for making the crossing, and we decked the tender and weighed early. That put us against the flood but it was not too bad. The swell picked up once we were past the protection of Fisher Island, but again not too bad, and we were at our preferred anchorage in Newport Harbor, near Ida Lewis Rock, by 4:30. The anchorage was packed, with really no room for us to squeeze in, especially with storm winds coming, so we circled north of Goat Island and dropped the hook in the more spacious Anchorage 3 (map) instead.

Vector-on-Thames.

With a near-weekend arrival I had made dinner reservations, which now of course were at the wrong end of the harbor. We dinghied back under the bridge and all the way to the Maritime Center to have a shorter walk to @ The Deck, on Waites Wharf, the only casual joint I was able to book. There are lots of better choices in Newport.

This enormous jack-up rig for building offshore wind farms dominated our view across the State Pier, itself full of wind turbine parts.

You can draw a straight line over open water from Anchorage 3 all the way to Bermuda, and when the wind clocked around just before bedtime we started to roll at our natural period. I can sleep through that, but Louise can not, and she had a miserable night. We were still rolling in the morning, and with Ida Lewis likely still full, we called the harbormaster to see if they could fit us on a mooring in the calmer part of the harbor. One had just opened up, so we weighed anchor and followed them in to a ball (map). They really pack them in here and it felt like a tight fit to us, even though the harbormaster said it was a 65' ball.

Passing Latimer Reef Lighthouse, north of Fisher Island. This calm would soon yield to big Atlantic rollers.

The short run was just enough to heat the engine up for the oil change I was planning to do anyway, and so after lunch I went down to the engine room to get started. Somehow I had neglected to restock the oil filter after the last change, and I ended up doing the whole change without it. I drained the old filter and put it back on in case we needed to start up quickly, and called the local Napa, who said they could have one first thing in the morning.

Our view from Anchorage 3. We assume the red, white, and blue lighting was leftover from July 4.

At 3:30 we met good friend Bruce at the recently reconstructed Elm Street dock, which, ironically, is adjacent to Anchorage 3 and thus we crossed the harbor and went under the bridge in the other direction. He whisked us off to Jamestown, being the consummate tour guide en route, where we were joined at their house by Dorsey and the inimitable Scotties Maisie and Ollie, fresh from the groomer. After settling the dogs in, the four of us piled into Dorsey's very racy car and headed off to Pasquales for dinner. This is apparently one of their go-to places, and a single thick-crust pizza and a couple of salads fed all four of us.

Get thee to a …

It was a great evening and really nice to catch up with them, as well as to get some dog love. Dorsey dropped us back at the dock. The rest of our evening was calm and quiet, even when Louise turned in. But by the time I was heading to bed another slight swell was making its way even into this part of the harbor, and a short time later Louise retreated to the saloon, where she could sleep athwartships on some cushions.

We kept passing this $100M superyacht, Sherpa, a Feadship built as a "shadow yacht." Military styling extends to a number stenciled on the bow and an unfaired hull.

That had her well-positioned to hear the 4:45am Mayday call about a boat on fire in the mooring field. After putting eyes on it some half-dozen moorings away, she came down and roused me in case we needed to beat a hasty retreat. I was glad I had put the used oil filter back in place, and I made a quick check of the engine room before coming upstairs. By the time I had everything ready to go, put clothes on, and headed up to the boat deck to try to snap a photo, the fireboat was already on scene. Evidently the occupants, a couple with a dog, had self-evacuated by dinghy and called 911 when the fire broke out around 4:30.

Yacht fire as seen from our boat deck,

We were never in any danger either from the fire or from the very toxic smoke that burning boats produce, and after the fire was mostly out and our cortisol levels had come down some, I went back to bed. After lunch I had a short walk in town, and Bruce was kind enough to meet me at the dock to take me to NAPA for my filter, and also swung me by the Amazon locker and Walmart for a few items. I was back home just before dinner

Zooming in just a moment later the fireboat is already on scene.

While I was out and about, Louise was able to make dinner reservations at Stoneacre Brasserie. A place that leans toward French cuisine is never my first choice, but we needed reservations on a busy summer weekend, and it was decent, with a nice patio in full shade. After dinner I installed the new oil filter, after topping it up with fresh oil. Louise jury-rigged the bed with some extra cushions in case she again needed to sleep athwartships.

New NAPA filter, left, is clearly different from the old Wix filter, right. Wix had been supplying NAPA, but it seems Baldwin is the new supplier, even though NAPA's part numbers derive from Wix.

We have a big trip to California coming up in less than three weeks, and I spent a good part of Sunday working on travel reservations. We already had flights, and we've got a marina for the boat, but I needed to start nailing down hotels, cars, transfers, and the rest of it. In the afternoon I took another walk around town, and Bruce again picked us up at the Elm street dock to whisk us off to the house for a home-cooked meal. Dorsey and Bruce outdid themselves and we had such a good time that it was after dark by the time Dorsey dropped us back at the dock. We expected to be leaving on Tuesday and so we said our goodbyes.

Enjoying dinner with Dorsey and Bruce on their lovely deck. Bruce and I finished that Pinot Noir with no help from the ladies.

Our friends Dori and Bob aboard Liberdade had arrived to the harbor Sunday afternoon, taking a ball not far from ours, and Monday after some more travel planning we made arrangements to meet them for an early dinner in town. It ended up being six of us, plus Cali the dog, at Diego's, including their friends Ann and Bob aboard Changing Course. We had a great time catching up and making new friends.

Aquasition is a $15M, 142' superyacht just two moorings away from us. She charters for $150k/week, and yet she's using this ratty 10' dinghy here in the harbor, because 10' dinghies dock free, but their big tender would be $0.50/ft/hr. This is the only time that our tender was nicer than the superyacht tender next to it.

Tuesday our mail was scheduled to arrive sometime between 10:45 and 12:45 at the UPS Access Point at the Staples, a short ways from town. I originally planned to get it via either e-bike or public transit, depending on actual arrival time, so we could leave the harbor by 1:30 with enough time to make our next port, with weather deteriorating over the next few days. Bruce generously offered to pick me up and drive me to Staples instead. As long as we were getting the mail there, I also had some more Amazon items sent to the locker, but those were already a day late and unlikely to be delivered in time.

Bannister's Wharf. This is the crowd early in the day.

All well and good, but that delivery window came and went with no actual delivery. In the meantime, we had to clear off the mooring by 11 and so we dropped lines and headed over to the anchorage by Ida Lewis, where a very nice space had opened up right next to the yacht club (map). Good for the afternoon, or longer if we ended up having to stay. After the delivery window closed we got an exception notice from UPS about a delay, and so stay we did, as these sorts of exceptions never end up delivered on the same day.

This shot out the pilothouse window shows how close we anchored to the Ida Lewis Yacht Club, built atop the eponymous rock.

I ended up spending the afternoon walking to the Ace Hardware and the Stop and Shop to pick up some things that I would have grabbed on the way out to Staples, a trip that was starting to look unlikely. We walked to Sardella's for dinner, hearty Italian fare with a nice bock on tap, a local institution. We had a few rolls at bedtime and ended up employing the athwartship sleeping strategy, although in hindsight I think they were wakes from a couple of large ships leaving the bay.

The bar at Sardella's, from our table.

Wednesday morning, with no further updates on our tracking, I persisted until I reached a live person at UPS, who admitted the package was lost and we would have to file a claim to open an investigation. UPS always imagines these are merchandise, but in this case it was a 90-day supply of prescription medications, the same ones we had so much trouble getting filled, and my paperwork from Douglas County, Nevada to officiate our niece's wedding.

This painting, perhaps 3' tall, adorns the men's room at Stoneacre Brasserie. I checked with Louise, who reported no beefcake decor in the ladies' room.

Our window to cross the open water from the mouth of Narraganset Bay to the relative protection of Buzzards Bay was rapidly closing. We already missed the good part of the window Tuesday afternoon, and if we did not leave by mid-day Wednesday we'd likely be pinned down for another few days. While we now had a good spot in the anchorage instead of a $57/night mooring, the prospect of losing so much of our buffer leading up to our flight was daunting, and with the likelihood UPS would find our package before the end of the day nearly zero, we reluctantly weighed anchor and got underway, resolving to have UPS do the right thing if and when they ever found it, or rent a car if need be and drive back to Newport.

Sunset over Conanicut Island from our anchorage near Ida Lewis.

The timing of this last-minute escape was such that we pushed against max flood to get out of the harbor, and I hugged the shore in the coves to stay out of the worst of it. As we came around Rams Head we could see fog starting to envelop the Castle Hill Lighthouse, and by the time we rounded Brenton Point we were fully engulfed and running the fog horn. The fog was with us all the way into Buzzards Bay and we had all eyes scanning the fog bank and the radar scope. We managed to pass several center consoles fishing in the thick of it close aboard.

Approaching Castle Hill Light, just starting to be enveloped in fog.

Fog or no fog, these were the best sea conditions for the foreseeable future, and we pressed on to New Bedford, where we popped out of the fog bank as we made our way north toward the hurricane barrier. It was a bit of a lumpy ride until we were in the lee north of the Elizabeth Islands. I would have preferred to press on to Mattapoisett, but with winds S-SW, we did not feel it would be calm enough. There is no anchorage north of the barrier in New Bedford, so I booked another mooring. Underway I had managed to get a copy of my paperwork from Douglas County emailed to me by the county clerk, and Louise was able to re-order her prescriptions through a different mail-order pharmacy. 

Approaching the hurricane gates. The bosun has her mooring lines and boat pole ready on deck.

After making our way through the hurricane barrier we headed to the mooring field, where they put us on the same ball we had the last time we did this (map). With four footers forecast on Buzzards Bay for Thursday, we had booked the ball for two nights. We tendered over to where the dinghy dock was supposed to be, but found only ladders on the main pier, so that's what we used. We walked straight to our old standby, Moby Dick Brewing, just a block from the waterfront. On a short stroll around town after dinner, we discovered they'd relocated the dinghy dock to the north side of the state pier from its former spot to the south.

The new dinghy dock is this first float on the police dock.

Thursday morning we awoke to the news that the package had been found and was out for delivery. I spent hours on the phone with UPS and our mail service trying to get it stopped and re-routed to our next stop in Onset, and by the time I was done that was arranged. I called the Staples to let them know they should not accept it if UPS tried to deliver it anyway. I found another Staples in Fairhaven to take my Amazon returns, near a grocery store for the items I could not find in New London, all an easy bus ride away.

This two-story rooster sculpture outside the YMCA appears mostly made of flotsam. Note the buoy in the wattle.

After lunch I headed to New Bedford to buy a discounted bus ticket (ID required) only to learn that the county buses are free until next year sometime, a fact omitted from the agency web site. That meant I could have caught the bus on the Fairhaven side and saved myself a half hour, but as long as I was here I just boarded at the depot in New Bedford. Walking through town I found the main drag and a couple of side streets closed off for some kind of festival.

I spotted this similar chicken mural elsewhere in town on my bus ride.

As long as I was out and about I stopped off for a haircut and browsed Harbor Freight looking for some tools I need to continue with the engine alignment, but it was a long afternoon. And, of course, I was on the bus when I got the text saying that, notwithstanding an agreement to the contrary, UPS had delivered our package back in Newport. I really wanted to be back in front of my computer before I called them back for the next steps.

It's classic cars all the way down.

When I finally made it back home I found Louise a miserable wreck. The wind shift had sent some sort of allergen our way and she was hit hard, with antihistamines providing only marginal relief. She was in no shape to go out, so I dinghied over to the boat ramp in Fairhaven and picked up takeout at Wah May after stopping at the town pharmacy for more Loratadine. After dinner I went back to New Bedford to stroll what turned out to be a classic car show. I also brought my growler, hoping to fill it at Moby Dick, but I learned that MA does not allow them to fill any growlers but their own.

They drew a good crowd on a nice evening.

Yesterday morning again started out with phone calls to UPS. They could not answer why it was delivered when they said it would not be, but they thought they could retrieve it and move it along to East Wareham, where we are now. With that handled I headed back ashore via the massive fueling dock at SeaFuels to fill the tender. I grabbed a breakfast sandwich at Mirasol's Cafe Express right by the dinghy dock before hoofing it to the package store in search of beer, but I came away empty-handed. We decked the tender to make our 11am checkout.

Miss Teen New Bedford and Miss New Bedford greeting some admirers.

With some time to kill before the tide was favorable in Buzzards Bay and the canal, we stopped at the marina dock to fill our water tank and offload trash and recycling. They were very pleasant and the marina facilities have been renovated since our last visit. We shoved off the dock and headed for the canal a little after noon.

If you recognize this, you're old like me.

We had the hook down here by 4pm and last night we tendered to the town dock and walked up the hill to Marc Anthony's, an old-time pizza joint that only takes cash and hands you your draft beer in a plastic cup. We scored one of the few four-tops; most of the room is filled with long community tables. The pizza is very good and it has become one of our go-to places here.

I counted two stages and four DJs around the show, just barely out of earshot of each other. This band was playing The Twist when I passed.

We can't get any more online status for our package, but my call with UPS this morning suggests it's back at the distribution center and will be on its way here shortly. We're camped out right here in Onset until it arrives, and then we need good weather to cross Cape Cod and Massachusetts Bays to make it to Boston Harbor. We're happy to be here, where we have all-around protection, a few eateries and stores, and both the anchorage and the dinghy dock are free.

Customs are not my bag, but this billiard-mobile cracked me up. Not a regulation table, but still. No idea how they level it.

Electrical bypass.

Since mentioning it in my last two posts, several people have reached out for more information about the electrical "upgrade" that I've been working on. Rather than send the fairly detailed answer to everyone individually, I am just going to write it up here. This post will contain nothing else, so anyone not interested in electrical details can just skip it; I will return to our regular travelogue in the next post.

As a background, Vector has an isolation transformer, added by her last owner whilst upgrading the shore power system to 50-amp, 240-volt from its original dual 30-amp, 120-volt inlets. Vestiges of the original dual-30 configuration persist in the layout of the main panel at the helm, which is now actually a subpanel.

New breaker "panel" for the secondary inlet. The J-box below it will get a non-metallic cover; the stainless one was all I had in my parts bin.

The isolation transformer, which turned out to have been incorrectly wired and thus not doing its job, is principally to protect the boat from galvanic corrosion when connected to shore power. The way that corrosion happens is that the boat's underwater metals, including the anodes for the cathodic protection system, the propeller and running gear, and the hull itself, once connected to the shore grounding system, can suddenly become the "protective anode" for anything on shore, such as dock pilings, and anything else connected to it, such as other boats with poor cathodic protection.

The isolation transformer solves this problem by severing the ground connection to the shore altogether. The boat serves as its own ground for the onboard electrical system, which is isolated from the shore ground, hence the name. The other way to solve this problem is to use a device called a galvanic isolator, which goes in between the boat's ground and the shore ground and prevents the flow of current unless the voltage difference between the two rises above about 1.4 volts. That does happen sometimes, in what is often referred to as a "hot marina" — the isolation transformer does not have this problem.

Gratuitous photo of the transfer switch that connects the main panel to the isolation transformer, which only works on 240vac input. I wrote this project up in a Facebook post and not here on the blog.

One consequence of an isolation transformer on a 50-amp boat is that not only does the ground not connect to the shore, but neither does the neutral. Only the two hot legs are connected; the isolation transformer secondary has a center tap and the boat's own neutral is generated there, where it is also bonded to the boat's ground. This makes for a very safe system, but it means that the boat's 120-volt (nominal) system is always exactly half of the input voltage.

This means that we must connect our 50-amp shore cable to a 240-volt (nominal) supply. Nothing will work at all if we tried to use one of those adapters that are especially common in the RV world, but can also be found in the boat world, which connects both hot legs together to a single 120-volt hot and passes the neutral through on a 30-amp plug. The isolation transformer sees that as zero volts. We do have an adapter that lets us use two 30-amp receptacles together, so long as they are on two different legs of power.

Another consequence of this arrangement is that when we find a marina that uses commercial three-phase power instead of split-phase, we have low voltage throughout the boat. While the hot-to-neutral voltage on such as system is 120 volts, and boats with conventional split-phase power input arrangements will see that on all their 120-volt circuits, the phase-to-phase voltage is just 208 volts, rather than the 240 of split-phase, and thus all our circuits now see just half that, or 104 volts. It takes a really, really long time to toast a bagel, and all our lights are dim.

A few years back, to cope with the inability to use any shore outlet with only 120 volts, I resurrected parts of the old dual 30-amp shore system. I reinstalled a 30-amp inlet on the aft deck, where there was a an abandoned 30-amp line down to the engine room, and I set this up as an alternate input directly to our inverter-charger, which is also a 30-amp device. To deal with the galvanic issue I used a galvanic isolator, two of which were also abandoned under the helm. And to make it seamless, I installed a 30-amp, 3PDT relay that automatically switches the inverter over to this alternate 30-amp input whenever it is live.

The enclosure for the 3PDT transfer relay. This has been in place for nearly a dozen years.

We've used this numerous times and it has mostly worked well when we've needed it. But the way the inverter is wired to not just one, but two hot legs on its normal feed (from the generator or the 50-amp shore cord) meant that the "max shore amps" setting on the inverter control could not account for the loads to back the charger off correctly. Let me take a moment to explain that. The explanation is lengthy, but it is fundamental to the changes I've just made.

The galvanic isolator is under this mass of wiring for the voltage converter. Two exposed screw terminals are on the left side.

Our Magnum MS4024 inverter-charger, while basically a single-phase, 30-amp device, nevertheless actually has a split-phase input and output, which means there are two hots in and two hots out. One of those feeds the charger and any loads on Hot 1, and the other, Hot 2, is just a pass-through, until the input power goes away and the inverter starts inverting. Then both Hot 1 and Hot 2 are connected to the single 30-amp inverter output.

This is the wiring diagram for the transfer relay. The light blue lines are the neutral, which must always be switched along with the hots.

We have both inputs connected, but only Hot 2 is connected to the output. When shore or generator power is available, we thus have a full 30 amps available to the charger on one leg, and a full 30 amps for loads on the output on the other leg. In order to make the inverter work on a single 30-amp leg of shore power, the relay that switches the input simply connects both Hot 1 and Hot 2 to the single available leg.

Everything works, but now the loads are connected directly to the input power, bypassing the inverter logic, and thus the inverter control has no way to see how much load there is and back off the charge rate to fit it all within a given number of amps. In order to do that, the output would have to be wired to the Hot 1 output. I had to stare at the schematics for power-input mode and inverting mode for a very long time to understand this, so don't feel bad if I've lost you along the way. You can see those diagrams for yourself here; the relevant diagrams are figures 3-1 and 3-2 on pages 42 and 43.

I want to take a moment here to say that I really, really like this dual-input single-output feature, so much so that when the inverter crapped out a year ago, I bought the exact same model to replace it, after first evaluating everything else on the market including Victron models. So changing this arrangement by, for example, switching to single-input single-output wiring was not a desired option.

Connection diagram for the new setup, with arrows to show flow. Innards of 3PDT box are detailed in a separate diagram above. The SPDT is actually inside the inverter enclosure and is straightforward.

With the output bypassing the inverter logic this way when single-leg shore power was connected, I could not set the "max shore amps" to 30 when on 30-amp power, or else we would trip the shore breaker as the charger came in on top of the loads. I had to take a guess at our total load, and set the max amps to the difference between that and 30, less some safety factor. Often I was setting input to as little as five amps, which is just enough to keep the batteries from depleting but not enough to charge them.

We actually have a second battery charger connected to the house batteries, a non-programmable charger good for about 30 amps DC and drawing maybe 8 amps at 120vac. It's there as a backup for the inverter/charger if needed, and normally it runs as supplemental to it when were are running the generator. To avoid the problems with tripping the shore breaker on 20- or 15-amp shore outlets, instead of using the arrangement I have already described to connect the inverter/charger directly to this shore power, we've taken to just running an extension cord out of the boat and plugging this auxiliary charger into it directly, and letting the inverter just run the 120vac loads from the batteries.

With all that as background, I am working on two separate projects to improve things. The first, now completed and pictured above, was to simply split that 30-amp shore inlet line, which previously went directly to the relay ahead of the inverter, into two circuits — one for the inverter relay as before, and a second for a power outlet to run the auxiliary charger. No fancy relay here; I will just move that charger's standard plug from one outlet to the other when needed.

This duplex receptacle has one outlet on the regular shore/gen system, and the other on the aft deck feed. There is no danger or real downside to "forgetting" to move the plug so no need for automation.

This lets us do what we've already been doing, but without having to prop the back door of the engine room open to run the extension cord out of the boat. There's no way to lock up the boat with that arrangement, which has given us pause to use that method when we have to leave the boat someplace. Also, it bypasses the galvanic isolator. Of course, you can't just parallel a 15-amp outlet to a 30-amp circuit, so using the single 30-amp inlet line for this meant adding a small electrical panel with separate breakers for the 30-amp circuit to the inverter and the 15-amp circuit to the charger outlet. They are not intended to ever be used simultaneously.

New MCBs in their enclosure. 16a at left goes to charger outlet, 32a at right goes to the inverter transfer relay.

I did not have the room for full-size NEMA electrical panels or even some of the Blue Sea stuff, spendy as it is. I opted to go with the European-style "MCB" items, which meant a 16a and a 32a because those are the closest available ratings. They make a miniature enclosure for a pair of these, really intended for a single RCD or two-pole breaker. Bridging the input side between the two breakers was a tight squeeze, and there was not enough room at the other end of the enclosure to make all the neutral and ground connections, so I had to add another J-box below it.

J-box for making the ground an neutral connections. Ground comes in from the isolator. You can see the two hots going up to the breaker enclosure. The Wago connectors accept up to 10 AWG.

You may recall I said I used a galvanic isolator on this bypass arrangement, and previously the ground wires to and from the isolator ran from the J-box where the bypass relay is located. With this new arrangement I had to move those wires over to the new breaker box.

This new arrangement facilitates using 15-amp circuits when that's all that is available, but it does not solve the 30-amp problem, and for that I have sourced a 30-amp DPDT relay that will be mounted inside the inverter enclosure in the wiring junction area. This relay will switch the output from Hot 2 to Hot 1 whenever the bypass relay that switches the inputs is active. The big 30-amp, 3PDT power relay that switches the inputs actually has a 12VDC coil, due simply to that configuration being the only one readily available when I built it. A small transformer supplies the 12v when the input is hot, and I've run that same 12v signal over to the new relay, which also has a 12vdc coil.

This is the relay that will move the loads from the bypass side to the controlled side of the inverter output. It will go inside the wiring box to the bottom right. 12vdc control wires are hanging loose. If you look carefully you can see there is nothing at all connected to Hot 2 Out right now.

This final piece of the project is waiting on, of all things, more AWG 12-10 quick-connect crimp terminals (the ones with the yellow barrels). I'm out of plain ones and the fully-insulated ones don't fit the wells on the relay. Previously I was delayed by getting all the way as far as making neutral and ground connections, only to find my giant supply of Wago lever-lock connectors only went as large as 12 AWG. It's always something.

Once this is complete, with charger management working correctly on a single 30-amp circuit, we will most likely opt for 30-amp power instead of 50-amp in marinas that use three-phase power when we do not need either the big air conditioners or the clothes dryer. And we have a marina stay coming up where 50-amp power is $50 per night, whereas 30-amp is just $25 per night, so we will take advantage of it then, too.

Connecticut river cruise to Hartford.

We are anchored in the Thames River at New London, Connecticut (map), after a pleasant five day cruise up the Connecticut River, stopping in Old Saybrook, Essex, Middletown, and Hartford. The weather has mostly been great and we enjoyed the entire cruise.

Vector anchored in Hartford.

Wednesday, after pushing against the flood all afternoon on the sound, we arrived to the Saybrook jetties and then had it behind us, for a nice push up the first few miles of river. We arrived to Saybrook Shoal around 5:30 and dropped the hook outside the buoy line (map), close to the entrance to Old Saybrook Harbor.

Approaching the jetties and the Saybrook Jetty Light, the symbol of the town. Older Saybrook Lighthouse is in the background.

We splashed the tender and putted at low speed all the way down the harbor to the town dinghy dock. As we strolled toward our planned dinner venue, Jack Rabbits, we noticed people setting up their folding chairs in the city park for some kind of concert. Jack Rabbits is basically a bar with a few food items, and their specialty is hot dogs, so that's what we had. They were very good. On our way back the music had started in the park, a pleasant-sounding duo.

Old Saybrook clock. People are gathered in the park for the music.

We had dropped the hook in this spot because it was the end of the day and it was convenient to town. There are a pair of no-wake buoys bracketing the channel, presumably to keep big channel wakes from rolling down into the harbor, but they seem to be mostly ignored. It was pretty miserable in the morning when the traffic started, and it would have been more so had we not awoken to pea-soup fog, which apparently extended all the way across the sound. I started the fog bell as soon as I got up.

Approaching the Old Lyme Draw. This carries the Amtrak Northeast Corridor over the river and is closed quite a bit.

We had arrived to the river at exactly the wrong time in the tide cycle, with the ebb starting in the morning and running through late afternoon. We waited until after lunch to weigh anchor so that we would at least be past the max and on the descending side of the ebb, figuring on a short day to about Portland/Middletown, with an early start on the last of the flood in the morning. Just after leaving the anchorage our odometer roller over the 55,000 nautical mile mark.

Approaching the East Haddam swing bridge. To its right is the Goodspeed Opera House.

We were against the ebb all day, and between that and the freshet it was more than I had counted on and we had to run at a higher RPM to make the hourly opening of the swing bridge at East Haddam, The river was an absolute zoo until we got north of Essex, when it became quiet and even bucolic. As densely populated as Connecticut is, we found ourselves cruising through lush green forest almost the entire way.

Much of the river looked just like this. It was beautiful.

Weather alerts came in all afternoon about a fierce storm that would hit us right at dinner time, and we figured we'd be stuck on the boat for the evening. But at 4:30, as we set the hook in the Portland anchorage just across from Middletown's Harbor Park (map), the forecast and radar had pushed the arrival back to 6:15. We figured we had just enough time to go ashore for dinner if we ate at the place right on the dock, Tate's.

South Church, Middletown.

We were very happy to find the Harbor Park courtesy dock open and unrestricted, if only half as long as depicted in the satellite images. This river is very hard on infrastructure during the spring floods. Tate's was actually quite good, if a bit pricey, with several nice drafts, and on a beautiful evening we ate on the patio. The first drops of rain started to hit us on the very short tender ride home, and we were inside and secure when the storm hit.

Middletown has a real downtown, and mostly going concerns. The hardware store, which I could have used, was closed for the holiday.

The storm was heavy and fast-moving. We had 30 knots of wind and lots of rain, and we manned the anchor watch until the worst had passed. By 8pm it was all over and the sky was clear, while the temperature had dropped 20°. Knowing we had an early start in the morning, I went back ashore to explore the town a bit. I found a vibrant main street with over two dozen eateries and lots of shops, with only a couple of empty storefronts for lease. I did not have time to walk the Wesleyan campus, but my overall impression was that we could easily spend a few days here.

I liked how the fire station was lit. Hard to see in this photo.

We weighed anchor first thing in the morning to catch the end of the flood, which was overwhelmed by the freshet. No surprise, considering how much rain fell in the region. It was an easy three hours to Hartford, and the river was quite lovely the whole way. Considering it was a holiday and the weather was beautiful, there was surprisingly almost no traffic.

It's always something. This section of wire rope, with clamps, came up on our anchor.

We dropped the hook mid-river south of the Founders Bridge (map), just past the end of the federal channel. There would have been enough depth for us to continue past Founders or even the Bulkeley Bridge, but swing room would have been more limited and it would have been further from the dock. After that the river becomes too shallow for Vector, the shoals shift constantly, and the NOAA charts end. Fortunately, the whole river is no-wake through the entire city.

Vector anchored in the Connecticut, as seen from Hartford's Mortensen Riverfront Plaza.

After lunch we splashed the tender and headed off to explore. We went upriver to sound the area between the bridges and just north of the Bulkeley Bridge in case we needed to move up there for whatever reason, and we spotted the dock at the Riverside Park boathouse, one of our landing options. We then landed at the floating dock at Mortensen Riverfront Plaza, where we had seen pleasure boats docked in several promotional photos of the city. The sign on the dock was fairly welcoming, outlining the rules and prohibiting overnight docking.

Seems straightforward.

At the top of the gangway, however, was a locked gate. It was easy to bypass, and there were no restrictive signs on either side. Fortunately, one of the employees of "Riverfront Recapture," the agency that runs the river parks, was passing by on a maintenance cart and I flagged him down. He was the consummate ambassador for the city, giving us some information and explaining how to get to town. When I asked about calling someone for permission to dock, he was certain we would not reach anyone on July 4th. He explained the gate was generally only opened for park events, but allowed that we would probably not be ticketed or even asked to move, and sounded almost apologetic.

This pedestrian suspension bridge connects Mortensen Plaza to one surrounding the Nassau Financial Group building.

We headed back to Vector to regroup, and a short while later I landed at this same dock stag to explore the town. While I was tying up the police marine patrol went flying by me with lights blazing, and they hardly gave me a second glance. Downtown was an eerie experience on July 4th; it's essentially all major business, with insurance topping the list, and very little residential. Consequently, every restaurant and most shops were shuttered for the holiday. There was no traffic and I crossed streets willy-nilly with impunity, as if in one of those post-apocalyptic films where there are no humans left. It did make for a very fast walking tour.

The old State House. The gates were closed for the holiday.

The waterfront is completely separated from the city by I-91, and the only connection from the long skinny waterfront park to downtown is a pedestrian overcrossing that is part of a large, elevated plaza connected to the Connecticut Science Center. Pedestrian bridges connect this to the convention center to the south, or a business plaza to the west, and this is where I came down to street level.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum. Inadvertently this was also the best shot I had of the century-old Travelers Tower as well, even with the street lamp in the way.

I had a nice walk past the Old State House, through Bushnell park and past its antique carousel, past the new state house, through Union Station, back through the central business district, and finally through the UConn Hartford campus before returning to Mortensen Plaza by way of the Marriott. On my entire walk I found just two restaurants open, and at dinner time we returned ashore to Bears Smokehouse, an upscale BBQ place adjacent to UConn with an impressive array of draft handles and excellent BBQ. We sat in the bar, the only full-service area; the main dining room is cafeteria-style.

The White Oak Leaf Throne of Bushnell Park, a dead offspring of the Charter Oak, was carved into interactive art by a local artist. 

Hartford did not have any official fireworks on the 4th, saving that instead for the finale of the big Hartford Bonanza festival in Bushnell Park on Saturday. But there were plenty of amateur fireworks we could see from the boat, including some fairly impressive ones. The pops and explosions had died to a dull roar by bedtime. It was actually a very quiet and low-drama 4th.

I had to press my phone to the window glass to snap this photo of the carousel.

When we first arrived we had thought we might spend two days. But we were a little put off by having to bypass the locked gate to get ashore, no matter how welcoming the park staff sounded. The Bonanza did not call us, and I had seen most of what I came to see on Friday. We decided to forgo the second night here in favor of spending another night in Middletown instead.

Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch.

Even with the freshet behind us, I wanted to wait until the ebb to get underway. Saturday morning I made another pass at dialing in the engine alignment, then dinghied down to Charter Oak Landing, another dinghy dock option, finding it also closed due to ramp damage. I then crossed over to the Great River Park, across the river on the East Hartford side. That had a lovely riverfront trail, and I ran into more Riverfront Recapture staff, who were again very welcoming.

Connecticut State House.

We got underway on the ebb, and with the current behind us it was a quick trip back to Middletown. Sadly, my adjustment did little to mitigate the driveline vibration. We dropped the hook mid-afternoon just a few yards from where we stopped on the upbound leg (map). I tendered ashore and walked up to the Wesleyan campus just to stroll around; on a holiday weekend in the summer I had the whole campus to myself.

Union Station, upper (track) level.

I walked back through downtown, stopping in the downtown branch of the Wesleyan RJ Julia bookstore, which was quite nice. In the evening we returned ashore together and had dinner at Sicily Coal Fired Pizza, which I chose during my walk because they had a wall of draft handles. Sadly, the pizza was not the best. Like Hartford, Middletown's waterfront is separated from downtown by a highway, with either a pedestrian tunnel at the north end or a road bridge at the south as the only options; we made a loop of it.

"Stegosaurus" by my fellow alum, Sandy Calder.

I returned in the morning to offload trash and recycling and to pick up milk at one of the c-stores downtown. That took me past Tate's, right at the top of the gangway, who were serving a nice-looking brunch, with the smell of bacon wafting down the river walk. It was very tempting. Afterward I took yet another stab at the engine alignment; I've now lost count of the number of adjustments I've made.

The heart of UConn Hartford is the old Times building.

We once again weighed anchor on the ebb, timing our arrival to the East Haddam swing bridge for the 3pm opening, where we were just a few minutes early. In stark contrast to Friday, where the river was mostly quiet north of Essex, from here south it was go-fast boats and jet-skis in every quarter. We ended up abreast of Essex at 4:15 and we dropped the hook on the Essex Shoal (map), across from the town. This is a no-wake zone, aggressively enforced, and even though traffic was thick for the rest of the afternoon, everyone pretty much kept to the 5kt speed limit.

Louise at The Travelers umbrella.

At dinner time we tendered over to the free city dinghy dock and walked to the historic Griswold Inn, locally known simply as The Gris, for dinner. In continuous operation since 1776, we planned to eat in their historic Tap Room, but live music sent us to The Library instead, where it was not as loud. Food and drink was excellent, if the service a bit slow and inattentive.

The Bulkeley Bridge, completed in 1908, is nicely lit and can be seen from our deck under the Founders Bridge. It nowadays carries I-84.

Essex understands cruisers, with three free dinghy docks, a pumpout boat, and a three-page document that includes a guide to anchoring nearby. This morning I tried to call the pumpout boat, which would have been very short notice, but we learned the pumpout was free at the Safe Harbor Dauntless marina, who also let us stay for 45 minutes to fill our water tank. We had a short walk in town via one of the dinghy docks before weighing anchor for the pumpout, and managed to get caught in a rain shower on the way home.

Vector in Portland/Middletown as seen from the Wesleyan boathouse.

We had a fair tide from Essex all the way here, a short cruise of just 20 nautical miles. The last time we were here, a decade ago next month, I wrote that we had no need of coming back, but after reviewing all our options to wait for good weather to leave Long Island Sound, it really came down to this, or try to hunt for one of the unobtainium spots in Mystic Harbor.

Memorial Chapel and South College on the Wesleyan University campus.

We are, just as last time, literally the only boat in the anchorage, here in the height of summer cruising season. Of the two dozen moorings the city installed back then, just two are occupied, neither by a transient boat. Going ashore we were the only dinghy on the free dinghy float. No one comes here.

The Arrigoni Bridge, from Middletown to Portland, at sunset.

We went ashore at dinner time and strolled the main restaurant row, Bank Street. Lots of places are dark Monday, but Blue Duck was open and had decent food and draft beer. The place we ate a decade ago is long gone. Still, there are plenty of going concerns and the city is doing a good job with the downtown. We need provisions and in the morning I will walk the half mile to the grocery store.

Essex waterfront.

We are waiting on calm seas to cross from the sound to Narragansett Bay. That crossing is open to the fetch of the entire North Atlantic to the south, so we need these southerlies to clock around. That might happen Wednesday, but more likely Thursday. In either case we will move to an anchorage just north of Fisher Island to stage for the crossing. We expect to visit with friends in Rhode Island, and when next you hear from me, we will be under way eastbound toward the Cape Cod Canal.