White Pepper's New Look

White Pepper has been back in the water for several weeks now. It has been a slow process getting her back into cruising shape after two years on the hard at Deltaville Boatyard. She did not sit idly as a lot of effort and money has gone into maintenance and upgrades. In addition to an all new and improved muffler and exhaust system, she has an all new aluminum and larger fuel tank. On the deck there are all new hatches and the side windows were replaced with six opening ports from New Found Metals. What a delight to lay in a warm dry bunk listening to the rain patter down on the deck without a drip or drop coming in anywhere! Also Jan and I have worked steadily at getting all of the systems back on line and functioning after years of just sitting. The compass had to be sent back for refurbishing, the life raft serviced, some old batteries replaced. The faithful dingyHabanero needed to be patched and the Yamaha motor coaxed back to life.

However, the really new thing was putting a Solar Stik on the stern. A Solar Stik is a simple idea of solar power and wind power, but presented in a slick high tech package. The mounting is a fully gimbaled aluminum pole that only weighs 80 pounds all up. The panels are small but powerful. Rather than rely on size they use the fact that they can easily be oriented perpendicular to the sun in an exposed manner.
I thought that the idea was too good to pass up. After all, our last trip to the Bahamas nearly came to grief because of battery issues. I had done lots of research and seen many pictures and reviews. Imagine my surprise when the unit showed up with serial number of 100156. I doubt that the company has sold over a million of these expensive units. And since the technicians at DBY had never seen one before, I am left with the conclusion that this is installation #156. The staff here at Deltaville Boatyard struggled with the complexities of a one off, first of its kind but finally ended with with an excellent installation. As usual for a boat the install was more expensive than the equipment.

Finally we were ready for a shakedown cruise. Jan and I went just across the Piankatank River to Gywnn Island and Milford Haven. Gywnn Island is remembered in history as the last hold out of royal Virginia's Governor Dinsmore who moved here after the sack of Norfolk. This was the start of the Revolutionary War. Eventually, Dinsmore was shelled or starved out and left for England. Gywnn Island has had a storied history of boat building and water activities since. Today it looks a bit dilapidated. Milford Haven is an exposed anchorage which was just what we wanted to test out the Air Breeze generator. The solar panels are labelled BP but are made in China. As planned the two together in full sunlight with a brisk breeze will fully carry the 24 load of the freezer and lights. If there is calm or clouds, we have to turn on the motor or generator.

This past week end son-in-law Pat Robinson came for the week end and we all sailed up to Reedsville to revisit some of the old sites of our last cruise in 2008 there. We had a delightful time and brisk sail back.

The pictures are of Mike installing the wind generator on top of the Solar Stik, a striking sunrise on Milford Haven, the "new" White Pepper lying at anchor behind Gywnn Island, and Pat helping on the foredeck