Outhaul Overhauled and Capacitor Casualties

AT LAST! The Lewmar outhaul car parts arrived and we have made the repairs. It only took a week for the parts to arrive, leaving the US via USPS Global Express and arriving via FEDEX with a Customs tax of around $20, plus a taxi ride across town to the FEDEX building, and shipping costs of $85 for $75 worth of parts. Geez. Next time you make a purchase from another country and the item shows up in your mailbox without any hassle or additional fees, just be thankful you are living in the USA. Other countries don't like it when things are imported. Buy local, pay the tax, or do without seems to be the general theme.

But I digress...the outhaul car is now repaired and seems good to go for many more miles. The two end caps were replaced, along with the pea-looking bearings. This turned out to be the trickiest part of the procedure since the bearings ride alongside the track and must be held in place by a plastic loading device while being positioned on the track. A few strips of electrical tape added insurance that the peas would not once again be raining down upon our heads. Once the outhaul car was carefully slid onto the track, we fished a new outhaul line through the boom to replace the old, chaffed line. I neatly tied a bowline to attach the sail and we were set.

Newmar outhaul car on boom

So we must be on our way to Puerto Vallarta now, right? Nope. No sooner did we have the outhaul car repaired, when the capacitors we replaced in Ensenada broke. Yes, really. We motored into the marina in hope of finding a repair person to address the problem quickly, but as it was by then late on a Friday afternoon we had no luck. Everyone was out fishing already! But we did discover one thing...the capacitors installed in Ensenada were not the correct ones called out in the manual. Note to self...check everything yourself, even if the work is done by a "reputable" company. The capacitors provided by the repair guys in Ensenada were smaller and not capable of handling the loads of our electric system, so when the water maker and refrigeration systems came online at the same time, the capacitor burnt out.

Capacitors

With any luck at all we will locate the correct parts on Monday and be on our way. I suppose there are worse places to be stuck over Valentine's Day weekend than Cabo San Lucas, right?

Cabo San Lucas

Cruise ship at anchor