June 16th
I spent the whole day rust busting and sanding the box corer. One part had an extremely rusty weld, I kept chipping and chipping without finding the bottom of the rust. Tim came over, jammed a chisel in there, and snapped the part right off. I didn’t think the weld was THAT weak! The whole device will be sent in to get assessed and re-welded once I get the rust taken care of.
The motor arrived back from the company- all fixed! It was lowered through the big deck plate and the engineers set about reinstalling it and reconnecting everything. The guys from the motor repair company were here too and I talked to them about the problem. They suspected the same thing as the engineers- that one of the rectifiers went bad and fried the DC drive motor by sending AC power into it. But nobody knew for sure.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Ey9FRFbkXd0/U7G6qYG5-_I/AAAAAAAAJgw/PUrJ-mDo6Dk/s800/_MG_8488.jpg Motor is back!
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-JRiQdEXFhHY/U7G6q-LPUfI/AAAAAAAAJg8/aoyioZgKcac/s800/_MG_8585.jpg Engineers reinstalling it.
We temporarily test-mounted a big new sideframe that can deploy equipment over the port side. It’s not for this trip, but is another cool piece of equipment and we know it will work next time.
June 17th.
The scientists came back since the motor was fixed.
I finished cleaning and applying corrosion-inhibitor to the box corer.
The engineers worked on fixing the bow thruster, which wasn’t working because a cooling fan went bad.
One weird thing I’ve noticed is that most of the electronics on the ship are always left on. I’ve asked about it, and the answer is “so that we know if it stops working”. It doesn’t really make sense to me. But Sharp is usually at sea running everything, not sitting at the dock waiting. At least we’re on shore power which probably comes in large part from the wind turbine nearby.
The ship is rigged with cameras all over the place so that people can remotely monitor other spaces/equipment if necessary. The scientists fly the HABCAM from their control center in the dry lab, and wanted a camera view of the winch like the doghouse has. Ted and Max had been trying to get this set up for the last couple days, but none of the splitters or signal amplifiers they got seemed to work. I thought about it suggested we check the doghouse monitor for a video-out port that we could plug directly into. We found it, and it worked! Solving real problems on the ship is a great feeling.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-n9Y1ppHf7dU/U7HTUXBljTI/AAAAAAAAJhc/pBpSVC8FgHk/s800/Screen+Shot+2014-06-30+at+5.11.36+PM.png The computer setup in the dry lab where science crew will “fly” the habcam.
I organized some of our drawers and installed a smoke detector in the lab van.
Rumor has it that the motor will be all ready for a sea trial tomorrow. Great news!
June 18th
Motor didn’t work. Turns out it probably is something wrong with the rectifiers. A specialist is coming in from PA to figure out our rectifier problems. Like a lot of stuff on this boat, It’s a highly complicated and unusual system made by a company that doesn’t exist anymore. Parts and expertise are hard to come by. Apparently the New York ferries have a similar setup and this motor guy works on those. Hopefully he will solve our problems.
I went for a nice bike ride into town. It’s a beautiful little beach community with historic sites and nice little shops that are too expensive to buy anything from. I checked out some of the parks and museums, including a lightship and a house with a cannonball stuck in it.
I did a little fishing and taught Earnest, a student with the scientists, how to fish. We saw lots of baitfish and a saw a blacktip shark feeding on the surface but didn’t catch anything.
June 19, 2014
The motor problem was in the rectifier and we’re still stuck here for a while.
I spent most of the day hanging out with the scientists. We had breakfast at Surf Bagel, everybody’s favorite bagel shop. In the afternoon we rented kayaks and went for a paddle in the mash. It was gorgeous. I had wanted to kayak in there since I arrived but figured I’d never get the chance. It was good to get a long workout and have some fun away from the boat. We saw a lot of cool wildlife. I brought my camera gear with me and got a few nice pictures. Some people are horrified to watch me change lenses in a kayak- but bringing it into risky places is the only way to get good pictures. Ultimately, it’s what the camera is for. I really enjoy shooting from a kayak because animals don’t see you as a threat for some reason. It was interesting to note the differences in wildlife (and people) between Delaware and New York. These places are not that far apart, but things are distinctly more “southern” here.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YsrPakLwLOs/U7G6gyoqBzI/AAAAAAAAJeE/L2_DYhx3hok/s1200/_MG_0460.jpg Kayaking
Earnest and I fished more in the evening and saw a cownose ray. All we caught was a someone’s old lost lure- but catching a fake fish is still catching a fish in my book!
All in all a fun day.
20/21/22
Not much going on these days; still standing by to stand by. The boat is still not working but we are progressing toward a solution. The engineers swapped parts between motors until they found the problem- one of the rectifier control boards. They have to locate and order a replacement part, but once we swap it in everything should work. That’s great news. But a new circuit board is hard to find and may take a while to get here. Every single part of this boat comes a different foreign company and everything is extremely complex.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-HJevXeyvmu8/U7G6emCVIEI/AAAAAAAAJeQ/apztvPMHGV8/s640/IMG_0313.jpg The root of all evil.
I biked to town a few times to get stuff and go to the beach. I also went for a bike ride into what I thought was going to be part of the nature preserve, but I ended up finding cleared woods and a new housing development. Saw a fox and got some cool pictures though. Also biked into town more.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-peMSeJ2u1Eg/U7G6jrgsaBI/AAAAAAAAJg0/jWI100w80qw/s800/_MG_0923.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Tv5FYxKuHFA/U7G6hvV8jMI/AAAAAAAAJec/__5jXA_PVBE/s1200/_MG_0767.jpg
I went out to dinner with the scientists again. Lots of talk about canceling the trip and other options. Sharp is by far the best boat for the job and there aren’t a whole lot of other ways to do it. They left again the next morning. Everyone is very worried about the trip getting canceled. We’ve sat at the dock too long. It’s costing a lot of money.