Jonesy arrived by launch about 9:30 a.m. Thursday but he didn't board Robin immediately. Instead, he got out a clipboard and began sketching.
I looked down from Robin's rail, with John and Tom Gilmore peering over my shoulder, as Jonesy, a man in his 30s, I would guess, drew a diagram of the wires connected to our Beta Engine. Here, he said, is where he expected to find our problem. Here, in the harness with the two plastic connectors that I'd already, at Stanley Fiegenbaum's suggestion, inspected.
I don't recall if it were at this precise moment, when Jonesy was declaring his expectations, that I emphasized my desire that he check every possible point where our problem could originate. It probably was.
I remember Jonesy saying that in the vast majority of cases matching ours that he encountered, the problem was corrosion in those couplings.
Jonesy wonder aloud whether the engineers that designed electrical systems for boats ever were aboard boats. If they were, he thought they should know about the moisture in which their elecrical systems had to function.
In any case, Jonesy assured me that he would check everything, even if he found what he expected in the wiring harness.
He explained that a poor connection that didn't allow the current to flow where it was designed to go could actually result in the current finding another path -- one that could, in essence, confuse the alternator, making it work too hard. Enough bad connections and reversing currents could drive the alternator mad, burn it up.
He drew these reversing currents on his clipboard
John and I had unbolted the cockpit sole and removed it before Jonesy arrived, so he had complete access to the Beta engine. Once he boarded Robin, Jonesy settled in the cockpit, at the rear of the engine where, as I could have told him, the harness coupling was thoroughly corroded.
I took up a position inside the cabin, where I'd removed all of the companionway ladder steps and could watch all his movements.
I'd imagined that Jonesy -- his name is so close to Jonesport, a Maine harbor -- was a Maine native, so I asked. No, he said, he was from California. Grew up in Wassila, Alaska.
John and I had the same thought simultaniously.
"You and Sarah Palin," one of us must have said.
"Yeah, and I'm a conservative, too," Jonesy said. I don't know if it was a warning or a challenge.
Jonesy kept up a constant patter as he worked, so at this point he told us that Palin was a year ahead of him in high school and was in the glee club. "I was in the 'Don't tell my parents' club," he said.
We laughed.
Having seen the corroded connectors in the harness coupling, Jonesy began hard-wiring them together, bypassing completely the coupling, one color-coded wire at a time. First, he snipped one wire free from the coupling and trimmed the insulation back about a quarter inch. Then he crimped on a connector before snipping and trimming the end of the wire on the other side of the coupling. After putting on a piece of shrink-wrap tubing and sliding it down the wire, he crimped this second end into the same connector as the first, then melted the shrink-wrap over the whole crimped assembly with a butane lighter so that no moisture could penetrate the crimping.
Jonesy repeated this process until every wire was removed from the coupling. Then he wrapped the whole assembly with black electrical tape.
Jonesy worked methodically, steadily, occasionally having to relieve a cramped muscle as he crouched in the cockpit. Then he moved into the cabin and replaced the alternator with one that I had ordered from Beta, explaining as he went why he made each move.
I'd like to report that I'm such a fine student I remember every detail of Jonesy's instructions. He was a fine teacher, but I don't.
In the end, I felt Jonesy was the finest boat mechanic I've ever encountered. He was confident of his analysis. That's not particularly unusual. What was rare was that he went beyond the first thing that worked -- and would have even had I not insisted he do. He was systematic in his diagnosis and when he finally left Robin, she was in shape to complete her voyage.
He left initially so that I'd have two hours to run the engine and charge the batteries. He returned and performed what I believe he called a load test and found that the batteries -- they are four years old and their condition had to be questioned -- were strong.
At one point, he noticed the new pump I'd installed in Robin's air conditioning system and remarked that he had one just like it back on his bench that he'd removed from a boat that was changing AC systems. When he came back for the load test, he brought the pump, almost new, with him and gave it to me, along with instructions to get the old alternator rebuilt and keep it as a spare.
Compare Jonesy's time on Robin -- about three hours in all -- to the time the mechanic in Cape May spent -- maybe one hour. Jonesy's bill was less than $150, compared with $462.24 in Cape May.
You can guess which mechanic impressed us more.
Which is not to say that I wouldn't worry the whole way back to the Chesapeake.