Maintenance update — Cupcake Afloat

We spent a couple of days in Georgetown waiting for our solar panel to arrive. When it finally did, we quickly provisioned at Exuma Market, collected Moss from her pals on Vivens Aqua, said goodbye to all our friends, and headed out to Leaf Cay yesterday while the seas were calm and the wind was not adverse. Leaf Cay is Ellen’s and Moss’ favorite anchorage of the trip.

As Ellen and I walked down the dinghy dock at Great Exuma Island for the last time this year, we wondered if we would ever be back. I don’t see returning by air…there are too many other places in the world to explore by plane…but we hope to come back to the Bahamas on a Cupcake in the coming years.

Ellen with Chat & Chill beach in the background.

Jennabird inspired us to bug out of Georgetown while we could, and we initially hoped to join them as they made their way to the Abacos, after all, we are headed that direction as well. But their pace is blistering compared to ours, so we said goodbye to them with the expectation that we will have time to visit as we prepare for our offshore trip back to the US at the beginning of May.

With the new panel safely aboard I set about doing some maintenance. Because the cables are a standardized connection format, the new panel clicked right into our system. The new panel is 175 watts and it replaces the 120 watt panel that failed. So we should produce significantly more power than back when the original array was functioning well, which it hasn’t for several weeks.

The new panel is a bit larger than the old one, so it needs a little trimming to make it fit. No problem.

Ok, remember that sailboat we saw burning at sea a few weeks ago? Rumor has it the source of the fire was a failed solar panel. There is a brand (we don’t have it) that overheats if mounted in a certain way (not the way ours are mounted) and that overheating can result in fire.

With that information in mind, I dug into the dead 120 watt panel to see if I could determine the source of its failure. Piece of cake, as it turns out. The silicone caulking that protected the electrical connections as they exited the panel leaked and allowed salt water to get into the delicate wiring. (The panel itself has the solar cells encased in clear plastic, so those guys can’t really get wet or corrode, but the power has to get out of the panel somehow, and that somehow is through two little ribbons of metal.) The ribbon connector from the negative side of the solar panel got salty, corroded, overheated, and melted itself free from the junction box. The burn hole is tiny, but is definitely a sobering discovery.

Failure point in the old panel. Look at the burn mark on the right side.

I’ve added sealant to the two remaining 120 watt panels in an attempt to forestall their failure. Those panels are on the bimini and get significantly less salt water on them, but we don’t want any more corrosion if possible.

If I had a decent soldering iron (I do not) and some skill with a soldering iron (again, I do not) I could get the dead panel back in business. In fact, with some alligator clips and tape, I could probably get the job done, but at this point we will just put the panel under a mattress on board and deal with it when we are back in Maine.

In other maintenance news, we did three loads of sink laundry while underway yesterday. And today I shaved my face.