Power Games

Generating power has been an ongoing issue and as the months roll by the aggravation has slowly ratcheted upward. We have to generate for on average 5 hours per day, 2-3 in the morning and 2 or 3 at night. Not only does this create heat and noise during sunrise in the morning but it also means some late nights.

If we are out particularly with friends and we return to the boat at midnight then we have to stay up generating power until 2am, sometimes this approaches 3-3.30am.

And when not generating we are simply running off all that power only to go through the whole cycle again and again.

So we have taken some action and have removed our bimini and replaced it with two 190w solar panels. At this stage they are only cable tied as we experiment with life under this new structure but if it avoids a 7,000 USD bill for an arch then this could be a winner. We need to achieve 3A charge per 100A battery bank so we are targeting 18-30A of green power production. We have installed a Blue Sky MPPT and so far we are gaining about 7A. We will fit a charge booster to improve on this as well as firm up our electrical connections.

Our next step is to go for a wind generator as 20kn of wind whizzes past our ears 24/7 at the anchorages and that’s free power disappearing into the ether.