We have questions, of course. A lot of questions.
Earlier today, Red Ranger was put back up onto her stands.
Our friend Scott (of Joie de Vivre) took some more pictures for us.
A great deal of the interior looks like it may be in good shape. Sure, it's chaos.
It appears that the things flung about were left reasonably dry. Another interior picture seems to show some carboard boxes that didn't get soaked until they collapsed into a corrugated paper mess. We can't tell from the pictures, but things look sort of like they might have stayed dry.
Power
The electrical panel suggests the batteries are either dead or disconnected.
Since the batteries were on the bottom of things when she went over, there are a number of possibilities.
- They broke loose enough to get disconnected, but didn't get knocked so far out of position that Scott noticed a problem.
- Something fell across a connector and shorted them, blowing out a fuse.
- The pump ran them dead.
- When the panel popped open a breaker was hit and turned something on that shouldn't have been turned on.
Red Ranger has 450 Amp Hours of battery. The bilge pumps draw a maximum of 10 amps. This gives us about 45 hours of operation until the batteries are stone dead. At about 3 GPM, that's something like 8100 gallons of water. That's about three times the entire interior volume of the boat. Stay tuned for more on that theory.
It seems possible that maybe something shorted them out. Or perhaps something wound up in the bilge and got caught under the float switch and the pumps ran them dead.
Engine Room
Other parts... well... there are questions.
This picture is a little murky. It shows the pan under the engine is completly full of water.
This pan is above the deep bilge. It's hard to get water this high without floating the floorboards off the main cabin floor and filling it with water. The cabin interior pictures suggest water never got above the floorbords.
We think the water came in the piano hinge on the port lazarette cover. When the boat was lying on her side this could admit tons of water to the lazarette, which would drain into the engine room after the lazarette filled.
The lazarette hinge sits above a shallow trough around the top of the lazarette. In ideal circumstances, water drains down the trough to the cockpit floor.
When Red Ranger is laying on her port side, however, the water would pool between bench and back-rest. The hinge would be under a few inches of standing water for the duration of the storm.
Hopes for the Future
After the yard gets power back on, we're praying Scott can make one more trip to
- Turn on the battery charger and see if the batteries charge and the pumps start.
- Move the dehumidifier so it drains through the galley sink.
We'd love to have him pump water out from under the engine, but that's asking too much.
We'd feel better paying a mechanic to pump the water out from under the engine and check the oil for the presence of water. If the batteries won't charge, the mechanic can investigate that for us, also.
Other Damage
We'll need the hull painted. The gravel may have done enough damage that we'll need to have the barrier coat of epoxy repaired or redone.
And there's this.
This is the starboard winch box. At the bottom of the image you can see were there's a broken plank. The the dodger was ripped off, it took part of this plank with it.
That's going to be a bit of carpentry to rebuild.
Waiting
Hurricane season until November 30th. We have above seven more weeks of risk for yet more damage.