ALL RED WIRES HAVE TO BE CONNECTED

In the middle of the night somewhere on the straight line between Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Boothbay Harbor, Maine, the CHARGE light on Charmed's engine panel started flickering. Not good, when coupled with the fact that we were burning, and would be burning, about 15 amps for nav lights, nav electronics, and other electrical stuff. Good, only because we had 170 amp hours of 12 Volt energy stored on board, and we only had 8 hours left in the voyage. We could probably make it to Boothbay, where we could calmly and comfortably figure out whether we had a mechanical or electrical problem: an alternator, a regulator, a wire. It wasn't the belt. It was easy to check that.

As Jim of Grand Adventure professes, all electrical problems are mechanical. Once settled on a mooring in Boothbay Harbor, a tug here and a tug there, until one red wire tugged apart. There are two 10 AWG wires connected to the positive terminal of the alternator. One was doomed from the beginning. The original crimp of its terminal had cut most of the strands of the wire. The balance had worked almost through. Renewing that terminal had amps flowing both ways again, into and out of the battries.