9 December 2009 Walter breaks down in pieces

David was woken at 3am by a strange, unhappy noise coming from the wind generator. Something wasn't right, it wasn't putting any power into the batteries despite brisk winds so while I dozed he changed a connection box (not the problem), put on the generator to feed some power into the batteries and did the washing up from the previous day. What a treasure! We have an agreed division of chores. The crew cooks and the captain does the washing up.

Back to Walter, the sickly wind generator. After breakfast David checked everything possible at deck level and still couldn't find a fault. The next step, or hoist, was to go up the mast and check the wiring and connections there. In today's photo David is in up the mizzen mast in the bosuns chair. In the end we lowered blades and hub to the deck and David set about dismantling and diagnosing. Part of this involved the chief engineer, David, holding the centre shaft while the assistant engineer, me, whacked a piece of wood with a hammer to encourage the central stator to part from its snug fitting fibre glass casing. Not quite as simple as it sounds. I hit my fingers a couple of times and, fearful of damaging the casing, was too timid in my blows so we swapped places and it came off straight away. I must have loosened the casing. And behold our problem – five of the six wires connecting wires had broken. A fault in the manufacture.

We skyped the maker in Trinidad and he agreed it was a manufacturing fault and has offered to Fedex a new stator to Cartagena. David is very smart repairing things so he set about rectifying the broken connectors – nothing to lose with a replacement being sent. Best case scenario, he repairs the original, we benefit from the power and we'll have a spare as back up for when the warranty expires. Worst case, we wait a week or two to fit the new one.

Here's the chief engineer soldering new connections in his work shop – the cockpit. The photo was taken by the assistant engineer who had earlier offered able assistance in soldering the new connections. With the repair done we reassambled and I winched David up the mizzen and he hoisted up and refitted Walter wind generator. It was a hard day's work, but our Kiss generator now works better , stronger and smoother than ever and we should have a spare stator should we need it further on.

It was a well deserved gin & tonic and hug tonight