Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Fridge Replaced, Beer and Wine are Cooling

3013 07 30
Brindisi, Italy

It was all such a nonevent in the end.

Replacing the fridge had, by the time we arrived in Brindisi, taken on Augean proportions.  What kind of moron installed his own fridge?  Yeah, I know, you are looking at him. In this situation what else do you do?   Come to a marina and wait for some fridge guy to come and do it for you?  As he does the marina fees mount up and the boredom kicks in and in the end the fridge guy does a crap job that you know you have done better yourself. 

My son Jake noticed at the tender age of age of fourteen the propensity of wealth to render people incompetent. Ability  to pay others to do your work for them leaves people unable to do for themselves.  Poor people have to do for themselves or do without. 

Doing for yourself is not all that calming. Even ordering materials I'm a foreign country is sort of a tapdance through a minefield.  You try to order everything at one time knowing that you cannot get even simple hardware in most local towns.

We had to have our fridge delivered to a marina and that meant arranging with the marina to accept parcels on your behal. At Marina do Brindisi this part was easy.  But then you must give an address to the vendor to ship to.  Europeans do addressing I'm the reverse of Canadians.  Here the street number goes last.  But which of those Italian words is the street name and which just Italian for "St"?

Today we were at a place located at 50 Via Appia.  My tortured Italian told me the address in Canadian was 50 Street Street.  See what I mean?

Marina Di. Brindisi got off on a good footing.  It was inexpensive, even in high season. 




After the Armageddon of €80 a night marinas in Croatia this Italian outpost, on the heel of
 the Italian boot, was charging only €28 a night.  Free WiFi, electric and water included.

Leaving the Tri Likes anchorage on Korcula at 0600 we motored in flat seas for 28 hours arriving Brindisi about 1000 on the 29th.


It was to Marina di Brindisi that our new fridge was being shipped by SVB.  That delivery was completed at 1230 on the 29th but, this being Italy, the marina office closed for the afternoon.  Nothing could be done about that, it is local custom.  Our package was picked up at 1630.

At 1700 we began installing the condensor.  Then we removed the old compressor. We discovered our fridge was a Nova Cool.  We always believed we had a Waeco Cold Machine because the former owner had the Cold Machine manual in the boat papers. Once removed so we could see the dataplate our error was undeniable. Makes you wonder what else we "think" we have on our boat.  The compressor out we quit for the night.

 Next morning we installed the new compressor, connected the control cable for the energy controller.  Final step was to connect the coolant lines and then...
 we powered it up.

Now we are burning it in for 24 hours to give the system a chance to cool down before we fill it with food.  This will also give the microcontroller achance to sort out its electronics and take proper control.

It was nerve wracking but unerringly straightforward process.  Connie knows a lot more about refrigeration than she ever wanted to. Me too.

Many thanks to Christian at SVB for his hard work getting our system to us in good order.

Many thanks to to Mark at Great Water for his fast and informative answers to my installation questions.













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