Before I dive into the chaos of generators and voltage, let me introduce a little game we have been playing aboard Sawasdeekat. A dear friend gifted me a daily calendar where each day offers a new word of the day, and I have decided to hide a couple of them somewhere in this blog like a linguistic Easter egg. Consider it a wordsearch for the literary-minded. Spot them if you can, and if you do, drop me a comment because bragging rights are absolutely included. They are Conscientious and Travesty. Here goes.

Sometimes the universe sends you a sign. Sometimes it sends you a faulty generator, a fried inverter, a dead fridge, a broken hob, a ruined grill, a destroyed microwave, and a shore power connection that turns your entire electrical system into a very expensive paperweight. All at once.

We had limped away from St Barths and from what I can only describe as the worst anchorage in the history of maritime endeavour. Not because of the wind that shook us like a terrier with a rat. Not because of the relentless rollercoaster motion that had Pookie reaching for the horizon with that particular shade of green. Not even because we were two miles from land and might as well have been anchored on the moon for all the comfort it offered.

No. We left because our Fischer Panda generator would not start. Again.

The Piece of Shit Fischer Panda – Sailors Beware! Do Not buy one!!

Let me tell you about the POSFP. That is now its official name. The Piece of Shit Fischer Panda. We had already paid to have this wretched contraption repaired once, and what unfolded was a travesty of engineering. It had let us down during the Atlantic crossing with only 400 hours on the clock. Four hundred hours. That is barely broken in for a decent generator. For this one, it was apparently middle age. A midlife crisis. A decision to just give up on life entirely.

The error code read 019. Fuel issue, apparently. The kind of vague, unhelpful diagnosis that makes you want to throw the whole thing overboard and watch it sink to the depths where it belongs. DO NOT buy a Fischer Panda. I say this not as a grumpy sailor with an axe to grind, but as a public service announcement. Their warranty is about as watertight as a sieve and their reliability is a work of fiction. Sailors you have been warned.

So we pointed Sawasdeekat towards St Maarten. Engineers were there. Surely they could fix it. Surely.

We arrived and waited an hour for the bridge into Cole Bay. The bay sits in the middle of the island, half on the French side, half on the Dutch. Which is appropriate really, because St Maarten is not one island but two. One nation, two flags, two currencies, two levels of tap water quality (avoid the French Yeuck!), two voltages, and one very expensive lesson in electrical engineering waiting to happen.

The Island That Drinks Too Much

The story of how this island got divided is one of my favourites. Legend has it that back in 1648, the French and the Dutch could not agree on who should own what. So they decided to settle it with a race. A man from each nation would start at the same point and walk in opposite directions around the coast. Wherever they met would become the far side of the border and from there back to the start a line would be drawn. Simple. Elegant. Utterly ridiculous.

The Frenchman, being French, was cheered on and given wine to sustain him on his journey. The Dutchman, not to be outdone, was given gin. The Frenchman walked and walked, covering about two-thirds of the island. The Dutchman, unfortunately, stopped for a nap. Because well, its gin!.

Anyway, according to fable, that is why the Dutch side is only about a third of the island. The French got the bigger bit. The Dutch got a hangover and a smaller territory. The Treaty of Concordia that formalised this arrangement is still one of the oldest treaties in effect today, which is remarkable when you consider that the decision was made by a drunk man with a bottle of Genever. In fact, this border is the only land border shared by France and the Kingdom of the Netherlands anywhere in the world. You can wander between the two nations without so much as a passport check, crossing from baguettes and Bordeaux to Bitterballen and Heineken in a single stride. Which is fortunate because the only international airport is on the Dutch side, and the French without it would have a terrible time getting anywhere. Grand Case Airport on the French side handles only regional flights to neighbouring Caribbean islands, so anyone arriving from Europe or America must land on the Dutch side and then cross that invisible line which separates these two very different worlds.

The Engineer Who Knew Nothing

We found a spot in Cole Bay and summoned an engineer to look at our POSFP. He arrived with the confidence of a man who knew exactly what he was doing. He left having demonstrated the opposite.

The error code said fuel. He decided it must be compression. He took the cylinder head away, cleaned it, and put it back. The generator still did not start. He replaced the fuel pump. Still nothing. He then announced that it probably needed a total rebuild!!

So at this point we were over a thousand euros down and had gained absolutely nothing except a profound sense of existential dread. We thanked him for his time and asked him to leave while we thought about it. What we were actually thinking was, how did this man become an engineer?

The Maths of Misery

I sat down and did the sums. The POSFP was a backup. We did not actually need it if our solar panels could keep the batteries charged. So maybe the answer was not to fix the backup but to fix the cause. I started getting quotes.

POSFP repair: $3,000. Lead time 1-2 Weeks. POSFP replacement with a second-hand POSFP whose hours and warranty were suspect: $3,000. Lead time 1-2 Days. Better replacement generator: $21,500. Lead time 2-4 four Weeks. New solar panels and stainless steel frame: $22,500. Lead time 2-4 weeks.

The numbers were not pretty and nor were some of the lead times. And while we dithered, our batteries drained like a sinking ship. We needed a marina. Fast.

The only marina in the bay that could take us offered a discount if we stayed more than ten days. They clearly knew we were desperate. The rate was $215 per NIGHT. We felt like they were touching parts of our anatomy they did not really have rights to, but we did not have many options, and so we took it.

The Voltage That Killed Our Kitchen

The first thing we did upon arrival was plug into shore power. The marina asked if we wanted 120 volts or 240 volts. Sawasdeekat is a 240 volt boat, so I naturally chose that. What I did not know was that despite being Dutch, St Maarten is not really Dutch at all. They use US dollars, not euros. And their standard power supply is 120 volts at 60 hertz. Not 50 hertz like Europe and about seventy percent of the world (including the Netherlands).

Our Victron inverter accepted the power. It charged the batteries beautifully. Right up until they were full. Then it declared itself dead. Just like that. One minute working, the next a very expensive paperweight.

Now we had a broken inverter on top of a broken generator. And because the shore power was going straight into our system without passing through the inverter properly, every appliance on the boat was now running on 60 hertz instead of 50 hertz. The results were catastrophic.

Our Dometic fridge freezer died. Our hob gave up. Our Sage grill expired. Our microwave combination cooker went to the great kitchen in the sky. In one fell swoop, we had lost almost every appliance on the boat. The only thing still working was the kettle, and I suspect that was just showing off.

The Angels of Port de Plaisance

While we were wallowing in self-pity and contemplating the cruel irony of a boat that had sailed across an ocean only to be defeated by a plug socket, we met a lovely couple who had retired-early on Bitcoin gains. They told us about another marina on the opposite side of the bay. Port de Plaisance. Much more affordable.

We called and spoke to a wonderful woman called Jess. She offered us a berth at nearly half the rate of the first marina. We thanked the first marina profusely, they had been delightful and helpful, and moved our boat faster than you can say two hundred and fifteen dollars a night. Port de Plaisance was everything we needed. Calm water. Friendly staff. And crucially, a woman who understood that not every sailor has a superyacht budget.

Jess introduced us to Terrell from Tradewind Marine Electrics. He was a godsend, a conscientious professional who confirmed our old 12 volt to 240 volt 5,000 amp 50 hertz inverter was dead, then explained something that made perfect sense.

Our whole boat is electric. Everything runs off the batteries. We had been trying to run a 12 volt system that converted to 240 volts, and it had been overheating ever since we bought the boat. Episode 017, if you are keeping track. Marseille. The first of many electrical headaches.

Terrell recommended upgrading to a 48 volt system. More efficient. Less heat. No more overloading. We could actually turn on more than two appliances at once without the whole system throwing a tantrum. Pookie could use the kettle and the toaster simultaneously. Revolutionary.

We ordered a 48 volt system capable of 8,000 amps. We bought a 12 volt battery bank for the lights and small systems, with a DC to DC charger to make it all work. We also ordered an engine mounted alternator producing six kilowatts of power as a replacement for the POSFP. No more generator. No more diesel. No more waking up to error code 019.

When it was all finished, we would have a better system than we started with. More solar. Better batteries. A backup that actually worked. The POSFP would be retired to whatever afterlife awaits terrible generators. Probably a scrapheap in the sky.

Our friends saved us from this daily worry and nightmare by inviting us out, a lot. Jan and Miguel, Erich and Sabine are all wonderful people who refused to let us wallow. They dragged us away from the boat and up to the highest point on the island. Sentry Hill. 1,125 feet above the Caribbean. The views were breathtaking and you could see the whole island spread out below you like a living map. The French side with its green hills. The Dutch side with its bustling marinas. The turquoise water stretching to the horizon. Looking out across that expanse, it was hard to believe that the indigenous Arawak people who first inhabited this place called it Sualiga, which means island of salt. Salt was the island's main industry for centuries before tourism took over in the 1970s, and if you know where to look, you can still find the salt pans that once made this place so valuable to its earliest inhabitants.

The Flying Dutchman. The world's steepest zipline. A descent of 1,050 feet over 2,800 feet at speeds up to 56 miles per hour. A 45 degree angle that looked like a vertical drop to my terrified eyes. Now I am a man who has cycled as a good amateur. Who used to teach scuba diving. Who has thrown himself off cliffs into the sea for fun. But strapping myself to a wire and hurtling down a mountain at nearly sixty miles an hour is a different kind of crazy.

Strangely they would not let us take our cameras, but in hindsight I think I should have insisted. Once Pookie and I set off, my vertigo disappeared and I enjoyed the whole journey down. The launch was terrifying but only for a second or two and then the rest was exhilarating. The landing was a rough affair, but we lived to tell the tale and it was the best distraction we could have asked for.

Pookie, Judge Extraordinaire

But the real magic of St Maarten was yet to come.

Jess from Port de Plaisance turned out to be a MasterChef fan. When she discovered that Pookie had been on the show, runner up in series 18 no less, she was absolutely thrilled. Pookie has been recognised in every country we have visited. From the streets of Rio to the markets of Murcia, people spot her. They smile. They ask for photos. She is not terribly media famous, but she is certainly a crowd pleaser. And Jess was no exception, Pookie had already been spotted as we sat in a restaurant in town a few days earlier – By Americans no less!! (picture earlier).

However, what we did not know was that Jess was organising a food competition. A proper one. Head chefs from superyachts in the marina were going head to head against each other in a culinary battle-royale. Local celebrity restaurateurs were invited, and Pookie was asked to be a judge.

The event was extraordinary. The Yacht Club at Port de Plaisance was transformed into a gastronomic arena. Chefs from luxury yachts, the kind of vessels that make our humble catamaran look like a rowing boat, competed against each other in multiple rounds. Appetisers. Main courses. Desserts. Each dish more exquisite than the last.

Pookie sat on the judging panel alongside local culinary legends. She tasted. She evaluated. She offered critiques that were firm but fair. She even gave me her leftovers so that I and our friends could also taste the time-restricted competitive culinary delights. She gave the kind of feedback that only comes from someone who has been through the MasterChef pressure cooker themselves. She knew what it was like to have your entire culinary reputation riding on a single plate cooked in an absurdly short time. She gave them the respect they deserved.

The competition was fierce. The food was spectacular. And finally, after much deliberation, a worthy winner was crowned. The best superyacht chef in Sint Maarten. A title that would be the envy of every galley from here to the Mediterranean.

Jan and Miguel introduced us to their friends with whom we ate, we drank and we were merry. For one glorious evening, we forgot about the POSFP and the dead inverter and the broken appliances. We were just people enjoying good food and better company on a beautiful Caribbean island.

We also had to face reality. And the numbers, when I finally added them up, made my eyes water. The new 48 volt system. The battery bank. The alternator. The replacement appliances. It was a small fortune. But here is what I have learned in this adventure.

Boats cost money.

They cost time.

They cost patience.

And sometimes they cost your sanity.

But they also give you moments like this. A zipline off the highest peak in St Maarten. A food competition judged by your wife. Friends who drag you out of your misery and remind you why you started this whole ridiculous adventure in the first place. And meeting bitcoin millionaires who are living their best life and don’t mind sharing it with you.

And then the bad news arrived

It was just a simple phone call – but one that changed our lives forever.