Back on the Water Again with a Dead Fischer Panda

Monday, January 20, 2003

016-49.200 N
088-4.740 W

It's hard to believe that it's been over a month since we've been out on the reefs, but based upon my last position report, it has. But lots occurred in between. We had an action packed trip back to the States over Christmas and New Years, which included lots of snow and a great skiing trip to Sunday River in Maine. We ordered lots of boat parts, which we managed to get into Belize without any problems (and Customs here can be tough).

We arrived back in Belize on Jan 10 and have been working non-stop on the boat since then. The major job was getting the boom welded. The welds on the tabs where the boom attaches to the mast were cracking. I had new tabs manufactured while at home and I found an ISO certified welder down here to attach them. Let me just say that the mast will fail before these new welds will fail! No more concerns about here. The biggest problem getting the boom off BlueJacket, loading it onto a launch to get it to the mainland, and then getting it welded and then the reverse process in increasingly high winds and seas. Everything took longer than expected, but it all went OK.

The other major project should have been repairing my lovely Fischer Panda generator. As readers of this forum may recall, my generator has failed continuously since I purchased it. I decided to litigate this as they didn't stand behind their product. FP decided to offer me a Westerbeke generator as a replacement. I guess that they decided that I'd get really mad if I had more problems with their equipment! That might have been acceptable, but they refused to cover my legal costs, which I can recover under the RI lemon law. These costs are about 3x the cost of the generator, so I said forget it! They also were going to require that I remove any Internet postings regarding them. I guess that they don't like other people hearing about how they treat their customers and have decided that it's cheaper to gag their customers than it is to provide good customer support.

Anyhow, the last failure involves (at minimum) a valve spring breaking and the push rods bending. Even though the motor was under warranty, I paid $450 for a set of new valves, springs, rocker arms, etc and a shop manual. They only shipped 1 valve and didn't include the shop manual and the shipment arrived the day before we were leaving, so it wasn't even possible to over-night the missing materials. Luckily when we got down there we found another boat who had someone coming down...much later that week. Unfortunately this was too late to get a mechanic in, so the generator remains dead. Luckily we have another set of friends who has a son who's a certified marine mechanic who will be coming down on the 28th. He's already rebuilt his dad's Fischer Panda (which is on it's second motor). We'll give him a ride to his folks boat and he'll fix the generator (we hope). What a deal!

Life at the Maya Landing's marina was interesting. When we got there, there was no water available due to a dispute over the water bill. I'm sure glad that we filled the tanks before leaving! Happily that got resolved before we left. Without a generator we really can't make water and charge the batteries. The marina was also pretty empty when we arrived, but soon lots of other boats pulled in and the social dynamic returned. We had carried a Pactor wireless modem down for a boat named Kiwi. Since I seem to be the resident computer expert, I installed it on their boat. During the process we got to know Tom and Julie much better. What a delightful couple! We had a great time with them and we're looking forward to seeing them again.

It's been COLD down here! There's been non-stop cold fronts moving through the area, bringing with them clouds, rain, cold air and high winds. It was 65 the other morning, and when you combine that with 20-30 kts of wind, it's COLD! I sure hope that the weather returns to normal sometime soon.

A neighbor, Guy Rodomista arrived on Saturday for 8 days of sailing and diving. At high tide on Sunday we pulled out of the marina. The entrance to the marina is very shallow, and the high NW winds have been blowing lots of water out of the bay. We got stuck big-time in the channel and the launch, with a 100 HP motor, had to come and pull us over it. BlueJacket has wing keel, and you're stuck when that keel gets grounded. Luckily it was soft mud and we were able to muscle through it.

Our destination is Lighthouse Reef, but due to our late start we were only able to get to Turneffe island. We had a great down-wind sail with about 15-20 kts of wind from behind. Once the rain lets up today we'll head to Lighthouse Reef where a flotilla of friends awaits.

-- Geoff, Sue & Guy
Log ID: 333