Saturday 23 November 2013

Heisenberg

Erin Mae has become a Heisenberg zone. There are some things that cannot be known with certainty, said the clever man, thinking specifically of the position and velocity of fundamental particles. However, his Uncertainty Principle is not supposed to apply to everyday-sized objects, where Newtonian Physics and Normal Chemistry reign supreme. Erin Mae appears to be an exception.

As I wrote on Monday, arriving late last Saturday night we found the boat's leisure batteries reading 0.5 volts on my hand-held meter. All the domestic circuits were off, even though the mains land-line was attached. The Victron inverter / charger / mains manager was apparently charging the starter battery but not the domestic bank, and providing no 240v supply to the fridge – I'm told it needs to have functioning batteries in place to work properly.

We called Clive the electrician, since he'd been the last to have anything to do with the circuitry. The workshop couldn't find Erin Mae's keys when he called (obviously another position / velocity conundrum), so nothing was done for a couple of days until we were told and were able to make other arrangements. Clive got back to us last night with the news that when he finally got into the boat, the indicator lights were all on, the circuits were working normally and the domestic batteries charging at the usual level. He doesn't have a clue what's been going on. Now I know this is the 50th anniversary both of Dr Who and of the start of everybody's favourite conspiracy theory (JFK), but that doesn't seem to be any excuse for Erin Mae to start exhibiting signs of  an Alternative Scientific Framework (such as: batteries drop to 0.5 volts at weekends, but carry normal charge at other times; keys may acquire invisibility without warning).

So, with no answers to the most recent issue, it looks as though it's back to Plan A – get the batteries out and down to Evesham for testing. This is when it would be convenient to live at less of a distance from Great Haywood. Perhaps Erin Mae could summon up a wormhole to whisk us there before you can go da-da-da-dum, da-da-da-dum.

But I do wish I knew what was happening.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Martin, good to check in on your adventures. I hope and pray all is well and that the batteries sorted out. I also hoped you didn't get washed away during the current flooding out there in the UK. Blessings Adrian

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