This last week 06/10/17 we departed Shelter Island Marina in the heavy Freshet and headed upriver on the Fraser. We quickly found out how powerful and dangerous this river is during the Freshet. I almost turned around by the Pattullo bridge it was so bad and I was having doubts at that time. I'm sure the people on the walkway thought they were going to see a marine emergency.
In the end though once I could better judge my progress against the current and match my forward progress through the water to a reasonable speed over ground we started to make better progress. I was able to overcome the current and still have forward propulsive power and torque to easily navigate, hold course, make course corrections for debris and correct for an almost fatal steering over correction to dodge debris that may have sent an ice powered boat careening into a bridge pylon. We did a sharp 360 and came back out tracking back up river thankfully. We were able to maintain 4-5 kmh reading from the cell phone to gauge if we were making progress or not against the current.
We successfully cleared the Pattullo and proceeded upstream. The Port Mann Bridge was next and it was easily navigated.
Other noteworthy events during the trip were:
1) The throttle control for the starboard motor was dislodged from it's mount - subsequently fell and displaced a wire from inside the controller and rendered us dead in the water for the most part with only one prop turning under power and one free wheeling. Thankfully this did not occur in heavy current by a bridge or narrows. Quick thinking by both the co-owners saved the vessel. We deployed the Motorguide Xi5 hit the spot lock and removed four screws seperating the housing from the controller and reattaching the orange sense wire into the terminal block of the controller then reinstalled the four housing screws and re-affixed to the mount. Turned the key and now both motors would not start. Pucker, some serious pucker as we are slowly loosing ground against the current some and the big white metal trawler moored behind us is now only 50 feet away - I'm almost going to call PAN PAN on the VHF. I then manually control the Xi5 get our bow around pointing downstream and the Ray Electric Outboards spring to life as the props stop freewheeling in the water. Got out of that one unscathed.
2) A little predicament was the result of a bolt that holds our cable steer and dual steering linkage together. The Starboard bolt on the Ray Motor had come loose and was inhibiting the turning of the vessel to port. Again the Xi5 gets deployed and we quickly grab the needle nose pliers and make the required adjustment to the bolt snugging it up against the bottom of the motor while the shoreline and disaster looms. Repair completed bow downstream and main ignition start we are underway again.
We arrive at Pitt Lake after 11 hours on the water and choose a direct path to Little Goose Island because it has an inviting looking anchorage. Unfortunately we we began preparations to deploy the MotorGuide Xi5 to spot lock us there we determined we did not like the flow of the waves and the current and rejected the idea of GPS spot locking there.
We powered quickly back to to the east side of Goose Island and deployed the Xi5 again. Verified the GPS lock and we held position there for the next three days powered by a 36v 72ah CALB lithium bank. Next we deployed the Electric Meco 1650W electric barbecue and grilled up some tasty cheese burgers and potato salad for a replenishing meal. The first night spot locked was interesting for me as I logged only about four hours sleep and was up early after helm duty the previous day. Checked the battery levels in the morning and I know we are good to go with the small 36v bank considering the amp draw doesn't peak much. Almost like having a terminator or robot outside the boat and I was dreaming about terminators in the compound while I slept.
The first day involved recuperating and playing some network LAN games while listening to the little Honda 2000 feed the Lestronic II 48v battery charger rejuvenate the 400ah Winston 48v main propulsion and house bank back up with a steady 19 amps input or max capacity for the charger. Solar input was dismal to say the least. The sun did not shine.
Then on day two awoke to find us still in the same position behind the protective embrace of Goose Island. It is on the main channel into the lake so any boat entering or exiting the lake would eventually send rolling wakes our way but the Xi5 and the catamaran would easily handle that repeatedly. We conducted maintenance on the Ray Electric outboards snugging up the steering bolt with a Nylock Nut and oiled the fans on top of the motors. The solar panels were cleaned one side with windex and the other with an iso alchol 70% mix. To our surprise on the few sunbursts we saw that day the panels were producing close to 30 amps intermittently. We still believe we have an array problem caused by a panel that was damaged over the winter. Our MPPT charge controller is not tracking properly to Vmpp and input is the same as output. Will be ordering a couple new panels eventually. The evening brought steak supper, corn on the cob husk style, baked potato from the electric barbecue and it was attempted to try to plug it directly into the Honda while the Honda was also powering one of the Lestronic 48v battery chargers. Over voltage shutdown.
Gave me an idea though so I plugged the other Lestronic II 48v battery charger into the Honda 2000 and presto we now have 30 amps inbound with both the Lestronic II 48v battery chargers humming quietly away recharging us as if we were connected to shore power. We have it made at this point and even though we motored for 11 hours the day before our bank is hardly even empty for the most part. I'm seeing voltages on the main pack around 53.8 and I know we are good but still delay the supper hot water heating for the night and leave the dishes for the next day. Like to always have a full bank should conditions change.
Also on day two we conducted generator maintenance on both the AlphaGen DCX 3000's and the Honda 2000i. They all got new oil and full gas tanks.
We so over packed on fuel carrying aboard over 90 liters of the good stuff. 1 20 liter can in the forward anchor locker and 3 20 liter jugs and two 5 liter jugs in the wet locker on the starboard side. We discovered running only one of the AlphaGen DCX3000's is sufficient to lower the amp draw for our vessel to easily bank sustainable levels and on the journey up to Pitt lake we were turning two props fighting current for perhaps only 40 amp draw considering the deductions for generator input and solar input that day. Solar input while sailing up the river was an incredible 25amps as the panels seem to be more efficient with wind cooling them.
Day three brought ROV operations and hull inspections. This marked a milestone for us with our first waterborne deployment of our custom designed ROV. After fumbling through figuring out how to control the ROV with the X-Box controller we were able to produce some informative videos of our hulls and inspect the two outside hulls from top to bottom. It is decided we are not running the ROV up the middle of the boat toward the Xi5 spinning prop as that would be a stupid thing to do because of a lack of experience with the ROV. The ROV sends 120v down the 100' tether we took on this trip instead of the 400' teather we left back at the dock. We can optionally put 240v down the tether and it should have more power but we tried to power it up last year with 240vac with no luck.
Day three was also slotted to bring Helm-1 Cable Steer auto pilot waypoint and track creation and follow plotted course but lack of sunshine held us spot locked. We are completely clouded in three days in a row save for a few sun bursts the day before. Can't be out there burning up battery for no good reason. Was really a pity because we could have carved up that lake all day long if we would have had sunshine. We could have fired up an AlphaGen to get us out there but it is a minor thing this auto pilot configuration and besides I know the motorguide Xi5 could pull us through water and do autopilot functions.
Day four brought the decision to stow the Xi5 and relieve it of station keeping and proceed from Pitt Lake Goose Island back to Shelter Island Marina. We don't see any hope of sunshine any time soon and in fact looks like it might get worse. We poke our nose out from the protection of the island and enter into 15 knots of wind and 1 to 2 foot lake chop. Spin around and lower our rear solar canopy for wind conditions and motor back out into the chop and the wind for 20 amps a side on the motors and 4 knots. We listen for hull integrity inside the boat. Things like slamming or banging of the bridge deck between the hulls we want to be aware of. None detected. The blowing wind and driving rain make the morning an interesting leg. I discovered I can helm the boat effectively from inside if needed from the helm. It could also be done from a remote if that was set up right.
We beat through the lake chop like butter with no problems whatsoever pushing the throttles and speed up as we realized the boat was handling the conditions easily. Towards the boat launch at the start of the lake we throttle her up more as the wave action decreases and we start to catch the last of the high tide turning to slack.
An hour later and now there is no slowing down really. Time to see what this boat can really do. My concern was that I want more water flowing past the props than the current so we end up doing 8-9.8 knots back down stream shooting under the bridges dodging debris doing 18km/h 9.8knots. The trip back was so much quicker than the trip up.
We sail past our slip and down to the end of the marina only to realize we should have dock right when we passed as now the water level has locked us out of our slip and we don't care to see if there is enough water to clear the sand bar. We are now stuck out for the next five hours.
We deploy the Xi5 again for a river lock on a 3 day depleted 36v pack and monitor voltage levels and amp draw. The Xi5 carves a lock into the river 30 degrees and 75' away from our berth entrance. We conclude the Xi5 spools up to 30amps on it's short upstream leg to maintain GPS lock and slowly drifts back downstream swaying the bow and stern in some eloquent but dangerous dance. Should the spot lock not hold we would quickly be into the dock. We during this time had also tied the Ray Electric Outboards up out of the water so the props are not freewheeling. Our observations continue on the battery bank and we decide on a different approach to killing the five hours needed to get back to our slip when I observe under 30 amp load the cells dipping to 3.09 volts. I then manually control the Xi5 on it's upward leg and we drop the Ray Electrics into the water and engage the outboard lock mechanisms and throttle them up. We are away.
We then do four or five trips back up and down the river in our Shelter Island Marina cruise basically setting a 1 knot or less sog seeing how efficiently we can move the solar electric catamaran. We can almost dial back the upriver momentum to .5 knot upstream for about 3.5 amps on each motor. Really it was incredible actually because we could maintain heading and course and make corrections for evading debris while still being almost spot locked manually on the river. Onlookers were actually awestruck wondering if we were going to make it, lol. Of course a brief easily understood conversation later and they understand it is all about the torque and your just not going to do what we are doing cruise control style with an internal combustion engine. We effectively and repeatedly made trips up and down the river burning up only 3 amps of power if you consider the meager solar input.
Further upstream just before the marina earlier in the day on our trip home a guy on the dock lets out an ahoy and tells us this was his first boat 25 years ago. We have to go back and find that guy when time permits.
All in all a very interesting and successful maiden voyage of the "Black Hole Sun" flagged Canadian Vancouver BC solar electric catamaran. Our MMSI is 316031036. The gpx tracks are attached but I lost part of the return track due to an OpenCPN crash while evaluating high gain 4G radar ARPA tracking of 6" debris in the water. I am also uploading 32 GBor more of videos of the expedition to my YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6BAWH7F1cixqeoS1XlLYww and as they finish uploading I'll publish them all. We end up with two video inlays one of the back up helm cam and one of the shunt cam in the head we affectionately have a different name for. I will also upload the bonus ROV footage of our hulls and some cell phone videos.
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