I am recovering from just such an instance of Murphatical Law.
I have, for about 2 weeks, been trying to find the problem with my
wind turbine. It was acting erratically, working then not working, stopping suddenly and the little led was flashing in an inconsistant manner.
Of course, recently, there hasn't been enough
wind to blow away a puff of smoke.
I listened carefully to the
weather and was pleased to hear that the wind would 15 to 25 on Tuesday night so I went and stayed on the
boat, something I almost never do during the week.
The wind almost filled in about 3am. Fortunately there was just enough to figure out that the turbine wasn't working right.
Early in the morning I got out the ladder an stood it up against the turbine
mast in EXACTY the same way as I've done it about 30 times previously without any movement or other trouble.
This time I had the
engine running and the
deck was wet.
Weather or not this had anything to do with the fact that as soon as I reached both hands upward beyond shoulder height to remove the turbine blades the bottom of the ladder scooted backwards away from the
mast I don't know.
I do know I dropped about 3ft straight down the mast and smacked that nice(soft, tender) meaty part of the inside of my bicepts just above the
elbow really hard onto the edge of the
solar panel mount, breaking off(and loosing over board) the
radar reflector and bending the
AIS antenna to 90* and tearing my new(bought on Sat) warm up hoodie.
The language in the immediate aftermath did however spin the turbine up to speed quite nicely.
I am now a shocking plum colour that Prince himself would be proud to wear.
I am most proud however that the
solar panel mount I designed and built survived having a 200lb weight dropped on it from a substantial height and thrilled the ladder didn't even scrape the
gelcoat and didn't break anything else (yet found) on it's short violent trip across the
cockpit.
I don't know yet if the solar panel got damaged because of course there has been no sun for the last 3 days so I haven't been able to check.
Just to prove that I can learn from my
mistakes I tied off the ladder and went back up and removed the turbine and sent it back for
repair.
I should have been much more careful in planning or beginning this job.
As soon as I found out the turbine had broken while still under warranty I should have been suspicious.
Maybe I was just a little. I did tie a line to the tail of the
generator to prevent it dropping from my hands and going through the solar panel and then into the
water.
Unfortunately that line snagged my glasses and sent them to the bottom of the slip too.
Murphy can be such a kidder........m