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Trivial Sandy's Aftermath

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OLarryR
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
3460 Posts

Initially Posted - 11/03/2012 : 14:22:01

Since there those that have suffered tremendous losses or are still suffering the aftermath, I felt that I would not post this in the main Sandy's Aftermath posting thread as this is really trivial in comparison. However, like me, there may be others that have semi-hurricane related stories to share. So...here is mine:

I was very fortunate with the hurricane passing to the north of us. We had winds as high as 60-65mph and rain for many, many hours but no issues down at the dock and at home, lights flickered once or twice but never lost electricity. Today, I removed my extra dock lines/snubbers I had put on last Saturday. It was too windy to re-install my furling rig genoa but I got my mainsail back on with cover. Big surprise - I checked the bilge and I had not even one drop ! That I could not understand...but not complaining !

But here is a side story: I was concerned that we would lose electricity at home and then would not be looking forward to manning the bucket every half hour if my sump pump was not able to pump ... but I did not give this any thought until...Sunday early afternoon !! I went down to West Marine and bought a Rule auto bilge pump and 12 volt battery - one of the few they had left ...A SeaVolt AGM 55 Group 34. I then rigged a support for the bilge pump and hung it in the top of the sump pump tank. Well, electricity never went out, so I never used it. Now I have a new AGM 55 battery ! I was considering buying another and replacing my 2 Group 24 lead-acid (flooded ) batteries as they are ~ 7+ years old...but still okay. Their standing voltage has dropped thru the years from 13.2 Volts to about 12.8 Volts. It looks like the group 34 and Group 24 batteries are about the same size - I took the measurements and compared. My solar panel controller has settings for flood, AGM and Gel batteries ...so no problem there. I sent an EMail today to Marinco-Guest to also check out if my Guest 2610 5+5 charger is compatible with the AGM batteries because it does not specifically indicate that but the newer model 2610A does. (I only use the charger when I hook up to shore power on overnighters which are very infrequent. Otherwise, I do not pay for dockside electricity and have relied on my 20 watt solar panel for charging the batteries.)

So, my only semi-related hurricane damage occured prior to hitting our area. On Saturday, my work cell fell into the water and although I was able to eventually fish it out, it is being replaced. The boat next to me broke his old stern dock line and I replaced his line on Saturday afternoon as insurance that his boat would stay put and not bang into mine. The marina is crediting my account for the $30 new dock line and billing the other boat owner for it. By the way....he never did show up to prepare or check on his boat before or after the Hurricane !

Larry
'89 Robin's Nest#5820, Potomac River/Quantico, Va
http://catalina25.homestead.com/olarryr.html

Edited by - OLarryR on 11/03/2012 14:23:58

TakeFive
Master Marine Consultant

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2272 Posts

Response Posted - 11/03/2012 : 22:30:48

Larry,

Similarly, our boat, house, and family survived unscathed. No water in the boat at all. No power outage.

12 years ago I installed a secondary sump pump above the primary one. The pump was designed specifically for this purpose, with float switch and check valve built in. It installs directly in the same drain line as the primary pump. The check valve is very important, because it directs the water up and out the drain pipe, instead of down through the primary pump. You might want to look for one.

The backup system is powered by two identical group 24s connected in parallel, on a float charger. When I take my Trophy boat on vacation, I take one of those two batteries with me and leave the other one home. This secondary pump saved us during Irene, when the power went off for 24 hours right as the rain was at its peak.

During Irene I also got a smaller amount of water into a second part of the basement (through a seam in the concrete foundation), so during the past year I built a containment dike with a 120v furnace condensate pump (with built in float switch) to pump that water over to the main sump well. It worked flawlessly during Sandy. Since I did not want to manually pump this dike out if the power went out, I pulled the bilge pump out of my Trophy boat and positioned it to pump out the containment dike. The 120v pump had passive wire leads to activate an alarm buzzer, so I pulled the bilge pump out of my Trophy boat and connected it in series with the alarm leads and a 12v battery as a backup pump in case the power went out (which it did not).

Everything worked flawlessly, so I slept soundly on Monday night without having to constantly mop up water (like I did with Irene).

Edited by - TakeFive on 11/03/2012 22:37:10

Dave5041
Former Mainsheet Editor

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USA
3758 Posts

Response Posted - 11/04/2012 : 15:02:56

I just visited my marina today. Pearl didn't get pulled because the storm put them way behind in haul outs. She had been scheduled for the week before the storm, but I had told them that I wouldn't be up until today and it didn't matter when they got to her. My mistake, but I only lost a fender. I had taken the fenders of my dock and tied them to stanchion bases in preparation for haulout. Apparently, a fender got caught under my dock and the line parted in the subsequent strain. My sails were already off, but the rubrail did grind on an upright without doing damage to itself except for a lot of ground up wood dust. The last bit of cleanup was removing scraps of sailcloth on deck from a few boats that must have relied on a couple of wraps of the sheets on their furler to contain the sails. It just reenforced my practice of always securely tying off the genoa with a separate line when she's in her slip

Edited by - on

GaryB
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
4303 Posts

Response Posted - 11/04/2012 : 16:24:31

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Dave5041
 ...It just reenforced my practice of always securely tying off the genoa with a separate line when she's in her slip...
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I do exactly the same thing.

I also keep two sets of dock lines on all four corners all the time (one set barely slack and the other set just slightly looser). Plus a couple of spring lines.

Never hurts to take extra precautions.

Edited by - GaryB on 11/04/2012 17:43:06

OLarryR
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
3460 Posts

Response Posted - 11/06/2012 : 04:42:36

By the way, Marinco/Guest got back to me via EMail about my question if the older Model 2 battery bank charger 5+5 was okay for AGM batteries. They indicated that 5 years or so ago, the charger had not been updated yet with the new batteries that were coming into the marketplace but now they have updated it believe it is the 1610a model that does support all three main battery choices - flooded, AGM and Gel. However, they indicated the older charger I have will probably work fine on almost all AGM batteries except 2 that they mentioned that were what they called unigue AGM batteries. (I do not have the EMail here at work so I do not recall the ones that they questioned suitability but probably fine for the West Marine/Sea Volt line of AGMs.)

Edited by - on

Stinkpotter
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
9080 Posts

Response Posted - 11/06/2012 : 07:35:39

Sarge was delivered by the builder with two "unique" AGM batteries made by Optima--the ones that look like oversized six-packs. The Honda outboard promptly fried both of them, generating plumes of sulfuric gas. (Oops--hijack--over and out.)

Edited by - Stinkpotter on 11/06/2012 07:36:25

OLarryR
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
3460 Posts

Response Posted - 11/06/2012 : 09:25:53

Dave !!! Yep ! That's one of the unique AGMs they mentioned - Optima ! But you bring up a good point regarding the charging of the Honda. I do not charge all that much with the outboard unless going a long distance when no wind or wind is against heading up or down river when not tacking back. Another thing for me to consider.

Edited by - OLarryR on 11/06/2012 09:29:00

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