Direct current events
The morning the boat was to be picked up in Raymond and transported to Seattle, Gary mailed me to say that the deep-cycle DC batteries had crapped out during the night and leaked out their acidic contents leaving a smelly, caustic mess in the corner of the engine hold. He cleaned everything up and quickly dropped in two spare batteries he had on hand, but cautioned me to look out for this issue in the future. His quick diagnosis was that the charger was probably kaput.
As it ends up, this was a spot-on conclusion and the charger needed replacement, but not before I procrastinated on it for a fair bit while other tasks occupied my time (brief update - the starboard rear corner repair is finally DONE! More on that later.)