Cruising [krooz ing]

Cruising [krooz ing] verb- present participle (1) Repairing your boat in exotic anchorages

When motoring we turn the refrigerator compressor system to a setting that runs the compressor off the engine via a belt drive. After an hour or two everything in the freezer is frozen solid. The engine compressor is many times more effective than the 12-volt compressor system. Probable because the engine is so powerful. After clearing the point off Melague I ask Rhea to switch the refrigerator system to engine. She flipped the switch but the system would not turn on. So she switched it back to the 12-volt (house battery) system.

Later we were sailing without the engine and I noticed the 12-volt compressor was not working either. Once we anchored a quick check confirmed that neither system was working.

Perhaps we were low on Freon gas. The next day I checked the control box for power and I checked the internal fuse. Both checked out. That night I read the manual and realized that we had two separate Freon systems. Not likely that they would both fail at the same time. This left the thermostat as the common part. The first thing I did was check the thermostat for the second time, making sure that it was on and looked for any obvious issues like broken wires. I planed to short out the thermostat at the control box in the engine room.

The next morning before bypassing the thermostat I used a mirror so I could see the connections at the back of the thermostat. Looked fine but for some reason I got fingers in there and tugged on the wires. One came off in my hand. That was the problem. Both of the spade type connections were lose. They finally worked lose to the point where they no longer made contact. I crimped the connectors tight. The compressor is working now. Lets hope the problem was that simple.

We are in an exotic anchorage.