BLUEMOMENT

. . . and how do we tell?

One little incident that occured today during our mad motor-sailing beat to Porto Santo was that the 1st mate kicked the engine key and switched it off - she had some feeble excuse like trying to stay on board the vessel during one of our extreme attitude manoevres.

I thought it had died, and was looking forward to twelve hours hove too drifing North in the maelstrom followed by a jolly beat back . . . so naturally was delighted to find it was ony a matter of turning a keyl

But now it occurs to me . . . is the alternator / diode pack likely to be knackered, and how do I tell?

Nah - it'll be fine.

Nick,

Glad you're tied up safely. Your weather didn't sound at all nice!

Re alternator: the easiest check is to just measure the battery voltage after the engine's been running for a few minutes. If it's 14.5 V or so then the alternator's fine.

Hi Nick

I would agree with both of the above posts.

The diode packs are said to get damaged if you open circuit the alternator output - ie disconnect the battery, or switch the battery selector switch to OFF. Switching off the ignition won't do that - some engines have an electrical stop solenoid - in which case you would have to turn off the switch.

The output of the alternator might be temporarily affected whilst the switch is off - as you would have removed the external excitation - but even that is unlikely as it would be self exciting by then.

Ash