At the beginning of the season, before I had my sea head screwed on straight there came a time wwhen I had to have a new bracket fabricated for my alternator. During the previous season one of the bolts holding the alternator broke off and had to be drilled out. The mechanic did a poor job and elongated the hole so much that I couldn't even sleve it to keep it aligned so I sent it out for a lasting fix. So here it is the beginning of a new season and I'm raring to go, but I have no alternator.
Here's where my brain and sanity disconnected. I'm figuring, "why do I need the alternator?" After all I have 2 freshly charged 4D bateries and a new gp 27 starting battery. Heck I'll never drain all that power in a couple of days just running the instruments, so off I go from the mooring in a slight, but adequate breeze. Of course I'm a few miles from home when the wind dies completely so what do I do? Sure, start the engine which promptly overheats. So I shut it down and wonder why the heck it overheated in a few minutes. I had just installed a new impeller and now I look and the water pump belt is tight and everything looks good. I try it again with the same result. As I'm being towed back to the mooring I'm discussing the problem with the Tow Boat US guy who politely points out that without an alternator and alternator belt one has no way to turn the cooling water pump. Duh!
