May 25, 2020 - Panama Canal Transit

May 25, 2020 Canal crossing commences at 3:30 am.  At 6:50 am we can see Raven exiting one of the chambers of the Gatun locks.  Later we see her entering a chamber in the Pedro Miguel lock at 11:36 am with her companion vessel following, and later into the next chamber.

Unfortunately, during the transit, Nikolay finds the bow thruster not working.  Performing some fast trouble shooting, he learns that a lot of return current had flowed through the bonding wire, versus the ground wire, and fried it.

Quickly rig-up a replacement and continue on with minimal use of the thruster.


Things not found during survey:
  • Thruster ground wire issue
  • Stabilizer system in need of significant maintenance even though reported they had been serviced in September 2019 (more later)
  • Failed Balmar regulator and missing thermal sensor connection


Positive events - I think we have a guardian angel:
  • Nikolay and Camo are able to do a repair as John Captains the boat
  • Re-fueling was looking grim - thanks to the canal agent we are able to get fuel at Shelter Bay
  • Avoided pirates off Nicaragua - possibly the sea state help to discourage any nearby pangas
  • Geary and Lois make the right choice to step off 
  • We were able to find a harbor where we could stop and evaluate the boat and crew
     Fried bow thruster wire
Fried bonding wire to bow thruster







Location: Panama Canal, Panama

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