SO WHAT DID YOU DO WITH YOUR RANGER TUG TODAY ??

[happy101]

true gallens per hour is probably more accurate as n miles into head winds etc can cause variations.

[Island Ranger]

We're back.

We had an incredibly great trip - 4 weeks, a little over 600 miles, 111 engine hours up to the Broughtons and back home to South Whidbey. Great cruising at 1700 rpm, 6 kts - under 1 gph. (we did "zip" up the first couple of days to get through the Straight of Georgia, but the rest of the time we stayed at 1700 rpm and stayed there all the way home).

Weather was raining and cold in the Broughtons - that must be why they call it the Rain Coast. So we headed back to Desolation Sound and had warm sunny days. The place was empty - for instance there were only two boats in Melanie Cove when we were there. A great time to cruise!

We stayed on the hook almost the entire time. I learned / confirmed that the batteries do not get recharged when we run at 1700 rpm - (we did keep the fridge on the entire trip), but the solar panels worked like a champ - they fully recharged the batteries when there was at least a little sun. We did start falling behind in the Broughtons, and had to stop at Pierre's at Echo Bay for a night to recharge. That was the only time we had to plug in for the entire trip.

A couple of other items made the trip special.
- Freedom from the fuel dock stops. Once went 9 days and only bought 68 liters to fill up, and another time went 8 days and got 35 gals. Since we paid over $6/gal in Canada, that was fine with me.
- Linda made gourmet meals on the Wallace every day. We learned it doesn't like to simmer, and will shut down (over temp?) if you don't keep a pot directly on the stove top.
- We went with microfiber clothing - wash and wear, dries over night, so we never had to stop for laundry.
- We used salt water for everything we could, including dishes, only used the fresh water for drinking (used a water pitcher/filter), showers and the clothing wash so our 30 gallons lasted over 5 days. I had 10 gallons extra stowed but we never needed it. We made plenty of ice for martinis...but did keep running out of vodka and had a heck of a time finding more. We now know to stock up at Blind Channel.

It did get a little tiring finding a place for our three dogs to go ashore twice a day - gotta love that Portland Pudgy. And finding a place to stow our garbage got tough some times. (We didn't have the roof storage box this trip - it now has the solar panels). And on our very last night, our anchor line fouled on something at Hope Island / Deception Pass and I could not get it up. I think it got snarled on one of the mooring anchors that didn't have a float attached. I had to cut the rode (leaving the anchor, chain and 70 ft of line behind). I was tempted to dive in - but the water was 51 degrees. I talked with the Park Ranger - maybe they will find it when they do the maintenence on their floats - but who knows when that will be. I'm thinking of making a short dive trip to recover it.

Great trip, great boat, wonderful weather...now looking forward to our next trip..

Mac & Linda
And Porsche, Charlie & Obe too!

[Trinity]

Mac and Linda

What a great trip. A special thanks for the vodka tip!
Seriously, appreciate all the great info. Will have to take a closer look at those solar panels. Have often thought of stopping at Hope Island. How protected is it? A good place to hike/walk around?

Nancy and Kerry

[Island Ranger]

Hope Island / Skagit County is included in the Deception Pass State Park system. It is completely primitive - the only thing we found was a few picnic tables. There were a couple of paths - pretty overgrown. We were told they lead to the other side - not a great hiking island.

The Island appears to have at least a few coyotes. We watched one catch a river otter the morning that we left and they did get to howling at night.

There are supposed to be 4 (or 5?) mooring buoys on the north side - but we only found 2 when we arrived (both taken) on Saturday night. A third one popped up at low tide (I already called the Ranger and reported it. It is labeled to not use it). Our anchor is caught on the fourth one I think. The Park maintenance team will be fixing them this winter they said.
There was plenty of room to anchor, pretty good holding ground, and we were told there were additional good spots at the islands further north.

It was a very calm evening - anywhere would have worked. The spot is well protected from anything that comes from the south (or SE or SW). It is a little open to the north, but if it got to blowing, I'd move to the south side of the island. We did get a few boat wakes from passing vessels.

I would go there again - not just to get my anchor back

I am planning to procure a DC clamp meter so I can make some additional measurements with the solar. I think the fridge runs about 1/3 of the time, at 3+ amps so it uses ~ 24 amp hr/day. I am really curious what the electronics use - and how much the alternator produces at 1700 rpm. I think our notebook PC draws 100 watts (8 amps) so that's a killer too. And the anchor light is 10 watts - so that eats another 10 amp hours. I look forward to building a data base with real numbers...

Mac

Mac

[terraplane]

Mac,
This really sounds like a great trip. Though i love being here on the Chesapeake, i sometimes long for your type of environment...wilder, more open..I don't trailer, so our Bay is it for me...of course it would take me a lifetime to get around it fully anyway.

I am not mechanically or electrically savvy. You mentioned that at 1700 your batteries don't charge..I also cruise at about that...6 to 7 kts. So how fast do you have to go to get a charge? I keep the boat plugged in ate my slip, but i am on the hook often...i usually shut off the refrig. when i turn in...on in the morning.

These boats are great...and the 110 Yanmar is a great engine.

terraplane (tom)

[Island Ranger]

Here's my guess at this point.

The factory install was two house batteries on Island Ranger - each at 105 amp hour. If we only want to use a max of 50%, we have 105 amps to work with. I was guessing we use something in the 50 AH per day - running the fridge all day and night. 'course it is not very hot here. So that gives me 1-2 days. I have now added two additional house batteries, so have 210 AH to play with or 2-4 days. That seems to match what happened (on the low side). On many of our days we only went 10 miles (2 hours), so there was never time to recharge anyway.

The 80 amp alternator expects to run at ~2800-3000 engine RPM. When we run it at 1700, we don't get 80 Amps. I guessed more like 40 amp, but sure would like to know.

When runnning: radar, autopilot, C120, fathometer, vhf, and fridge are all drawing power. Intermittently running the pressure water, Wallas, radio, computer also takes power. I plan to measure soon, but it might be a significant share of the 40 amps (I think my notebook computer draws 8+ amps all by itself.

So, the alternator keeps up with the draw, but I don't think there is anything left to recharge the batteries.

The solar panels could be confusing the alternator circuit as well - as soon as the sun hits 'em, they are producing at a pretty high voltage. Suppose the alternator sees this high voltage, and decides the batteries are charged and regulates back to a trickle? I don't think this is happening 'cause I think we had this problem (not recharging at 1700 rpm) during our Alaska trip when we didn't have solar panels. But I wasn't sure, and had no way to check.

We don't plug in as a rule - I don't want my boat to be the anode for another boat in the marina (I do have the galvanic isolator but still eat through zincs pretty quickly). Plugged in, you only get the 5 amps/hr from the charger so it takes a while to recharge - but at least the fridge can run from AC and not draw on the battery.

I now have 756.7 hours on the Yanmar 110. Still doing fine. Mostly just changing the oil and filter & cleaning the raw water intake filter. I have been monitoring the oil with a test kit, so far so good.

Mac

Mac

[K7MXE]

Saw a west bound Ranger 25 on Highway 16 near the Tacoma
Narrows Bridge. Looked good traveling down the freeway and
heading for adventure.

Bob Heselberg Eatonville Wa

[rob mulhall]

My R21-EC, Machete Bettie just returned from the Lake Powell C-Brats gathering. She spent 10 days on the Lake under beautiful skies and perfect water temperature. She logged 350nm and although the slowest boat among all those supersonic C-Dory's (and 1 R-25 tug) she managed to hang with the group. There were a couple nights where we lost touch of the group but we just stayed along the main channel and sure enough they would come zooming by.

Anyway an awesome place to go if you haven't been there and an extremely great group of C-Brats. My hat's off to Chris for organizing and Bill and El for their hospitality and knowledge. They are truly a fine couple to know!!