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Revealed! The secrets of Viking electric power
Log Date: July 27, 1998
Author: Dean Plager
Lat/Lon: 66 deg 51 min N, 53 deg 34 min W
Location: At anchor
Click on the pictures below to view enlargements.
We're anchored off the island of Umanarssuqssuaq, by the abandoned village of Umanarssuk.
Back in the '60s, under a Danish government policy called G-60, the people of this
island were relocated to Sisimiut, about 5 miles to the NW. Umanarssuqssuaq is now
used as a summer camp.
While we're here, I thought I would give you the Techno Tour of Snorri. Because I
lobbied for the SSB radio and a wind generator, I sort of became the contact person
between the crew and Lands' End regarding electrical systems onboard the boat. For
the past 5 weeks, those systems have given me fits. Murphy's Law has been in full
force and, while I'm glad to have the benefits of all this equipment, I definitely
do not enjoy the hassle when it decides not to work. Computers, keyboards, disk drive
have all gone on the blink at one point or another. The batteries were suspect until
recently. The wind generator will probably just manage to keep up with our usage,
even on the best days. And so far, there haven't been any best days.
 The white dome is the tracking antenna for the sat phone. Note the wind generator. How quiet it is! The radar reflector is our own addition. |
Typically, the time everybody wants to get on the computer is when we are at anchor or in a harbor. We are usually at anchor because we don't have enough wind to be sailing - and the harbors are well-sheltered from breezes. So getting power from a wind generator is usually out of the question. For juice, we rely on a gas generator. It's noisy and shatters the tranquility of life on a wooden boat. That generator has run almost constantly for two out of the last three days. Right now, it's 9 P.M. and I'm the only one on board. The generator is running and everyone else has gone ashore to escape the noise.
As you probably know from other journal entries, we've had sat phone trouble, also. That's how we get our journal entries to you. You also know we had a spare sat phone part delivered to our anchorage by jet ski. It was both too much and too funny. These three guys zipping around, bundled up like they were riding snowmobiles and handing us this little, plastic-wrapped box that had just been flown in from Norway at who knows what expense. If nothing else, this trip has been a study in contrasts.
The weatherman on channel 12-C
Things are coming together. The batteries are OK. The sat phone works and we have backup components. And, most important, we are in touch with Herb. Herb Hilgenberg, call sign "SouthBound II," lives outside Toronto. Every night, he comes up on the shortwave radio (marine HF SSB) to give matchless marine weather forecasts to sailors making offshore passages in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Because of our locations (and various technical problems) I hadn't been able to do a proper test of my radio installation. Actually, it was my installation of the antenna and grounding plates that needed to be tested. And it works!! The last three evenings at 2230 GMT we have been able to have readable communication with Herb. (If you like listening to shortwave, and can receive SSB, you might try to listen in at 2230 GMT on 12359.0 kH. That's channel 12-C on the 12 kH band.)
 Under a tarp and out of the drizzle, Dean gets a weather report from Herb |
 Trying to receive weatherfax over the shortwave radio using the computer. You can see from the graph that we are not getting a very clear signal. We can barely read the charts. |
Back to the Techno Tour
The pictures I've sent along show the various pieces of electronic equipment. It has all been fitted into waterproof Pelican cases and these have been attached to the underside of three deck boards on the aft deck. With the cases closed and the deck boards in place, you wouldn't even know they were there. We just flip it over, open it up and go to work. The biggest case has a computer, SSB radio and sat phone, all-in-one. This laptop is particularly fun to operate when your fingers get cold.
 The "Big Box" that contains computer, sat phone and SSB radio. (That's Dean again, still talking to Herb!) |
 Digital camera and chip bring all these wonder pictures right to your computer screen. (Hey, if that's the camera, how did they get this shot?) |
 This is the box that selects which battery we use and monitors their status |
We have a battery monitor which lets us tell how much charge the batteries have, how much current is going into or out of them individually. We can use one and charge the other. And it tells us how many amp-hours we have drawn off each battery from its peak charge. We are now using this figure to monitor our electrical usage.
We have the standard marine VHF, both fixed and handheld, as well as a GPS, which we use to check our dead reckoning navigation. And just so you don't think we're too dependent on all this technology, I'll show you the plot of my celestial navigation sun shot. (I won this contest by being the closest, 2 miles - but if you're going to bet on someone, pick Terry. I was lucky that day!)
 My sun shot. Look closely. Our position is just left of the intersection. The LOP runs upper right to lower left. I'm 2 miles off! Not too shabby, since I haven't done one in over 3 years! |