Sunday, May 23, 2010

I fixed something, but Daddy broke something else.


I fixed something,

Yes, I know that blogs are supposed to show current events, but sometimes you have to post late. Well, I was doing what I like to do; take stuff apart to find out how they work. Or how they're supposed to work. In that case they don't work, and I try to fix them. Well, the thing I was taking apart didn't work. It happened to be the solenoid for our windlass motor. The first thing I said as I was taking off the top was "Daddy, I think I know what the problem is.". The spring that was above the plunger was askew; creating a short circuit that let a tiny trickle of power through. It wasn't anough to activate the plunger (couldn't go up anyway because the spring was put in wrong), but It also couldn't turn the motor. Well, I put it back together CORRECTLY and today, we tested it using the power going to the engine, and it worked. It happened to be so that the same day the solenoid that we replaced with the "broken" one wasn't working, so we used the same test as before on it, and it worked. It was actually bad connections on the wiring. @#$%&!

But Daddy broke something else.

We dragged during the night, so we re-anchored. When I was backing down an it (Daddy let me), the line going to the thermometer-which was for some reason was in the water-started shaking. I pulled on it, but it wouldn't come up. I immediately put the boat into neutral (You other sailors out there reading this will know why; the thermometer was stuck in the propeller.). When I told Daddy about it he pulled it out, and admitted that he forgot to take it out. Only a shattered bit of plastic was left on the end. Our second-to-last thermometer had been smashed by the propeller. @#$%&! again!


--by Rigel

1 comment:

  1. I loved your story about the solenoid, Rigel, your interest in how things work is what has propelled me my whole life into the profession I have today. As you can see, knowing how things work is a very handy thing to have. Keep it up

    ReplyDelete