12 volt aqua-turbine generator. For the price of a nice small yacht...

[Greenheart]

Has anybody seen this neat 'green' generator, which appears to flip up & down like a retractable outdrive leg?

http://www.seamarknunn.com/acatalog/f-AYSHYDGEN12_500.html

It makes various claims over & above the talents of solar panels and wind-turbines...but at least they work when the yacht is moored.

And, what level of solar wattage could you buy into, for four thousand pounds?

Didn't Rutland make an aero-gen which could convert for towing an underwater rotor? Surely it wasn't this price.

 

[Keen_Ed]

And, what level of solar wattage could you buy into, for four thousand pounds?

Didn't Rutland make an aero-gen which could convert for towing an underwater rotor? Surely it wasn't this price.

Designed for the IOMCA Open 60s. Works at 20 kts. The racing version with a variable pitch prop is thirteen thousand euros. But its a price the Vendee sailors are happy to pay. The cruising version is popular in the Class 40 fleet. Saves a lot of diesel on a transatlantic race, especially important if you're using the pilot all the time, as they are.

ETA:just had a look, and see that they're selling the new Cristec one - designed with help from Mich Desjoyeaux. The Watt and Sea is the one that's 2been available for a few years.

 

[FullCircle]

I have solar, 913 and an Aquair100. All for ermm, far less than £3995.00.
Also, taking 1kt off my speed is something akin to 15% of my cruising speed. (the Aquair claims max 0.5kt, we shall see)

 

[Neeves]

The Watt and Sea units allowed the Open 60s to sail round the world without using diesel. They produced enough power to operate the canting keels, autopilot, all the communications. If you look at other yacht (sail) races you will find that they run their diesel engines, 24/7 to drive the canting keels, power winches, drive the computers - and they still call them sailing yachts and yacht races? It should raise questions of the use of engine power to drive these bigger yachts in races (there seems little difference in using an engine to drive an alternator to allow a keel to cant and maybe turning a propellor? - but the racing fraternity has been pretty mute).

The Watt and Sea unit is expensive, but not for what it does. They are cheaper to buy than a diesel engine and easier to install (though most Open 60s had both). It actually allows yachts to return to a dependence on wind and water alone.

The Rutland and LVM towed impellors stop working at 8-10 knots, not much use when your averages are well over 10 knots. The idea that any of these units slow you down is not entirely correct, you might looses a 1/3 of a knot but that's a small price to pay for silence (we use an LVM version - magic, we built even smaller impellor blades from stainless steel as we can average 10 knots on a good day).

But it would still be nice to see the price drop so as the units become more palatable for a larger proportion of the yachting population. I think the Watt and Sea units are made in Europe, France?, so there is room to make savings if they were to produce offshore, with the same reliability.

I have never heard of the Cristec one?

Edit, I looked at Cristec, or Marinebeam - their units seems cheaper? but does not work to such a high boat speed (though high enough a boatspeed for most).

Jonathan

 

[laika]

I was looking at these a few months back:
http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?343411-Hydro-generators/

There wasn't an official price on the cristec at the time, but they mailed me a couple of weeks ago with the price. Sadly I had to confess that it was out of my league.

If you check out the claimed power vs. speed curves, the Watt and Sea and Cristec generators are in a completely different league from the likes of aquair or even the (still very pricey) duogen. Even at the 6-7 knots I can realistically average (obviously a long way away from an open 60, and a little bit down from an Anderson 22) they'd cover all my needs including the fridge and autopilot. Obviously they're designed for and really come into their own with craft averaging well into double figures. I just wonder if there's an opportunity for a cheaper product which has the same efficiency but tops out at, say, 10 kts. Neeves: I believe both the Cristec and the Watt and Sea are made in France.

There's also this unit from swi-tech:
http://www.swi-tec.us/index.php?route=product/product&path=4&product_id=172

Can't see any power curves on their site but I'm certain I've seen them somewhere and they're better than the likes of the duogen but not really in the same ballpark as cristec/watt and sea types. About £2.5+VAT. Saw them at the boat show but they looked a bit rubbish and flimsy for that sort of money. They were being hawked by a channel islands outfit who would doubtless emphasise the lack of VAT if you were kitting out for "export".

Yes a wind vane would be cheaper, but they're still not cheap.

 

[Allan]

I've often wondered if you could do something with an alternator or even an old car generator. You would only need to produce a couple of amps at say 5 knots to be useful.
We are using Rutland 503 and a 50 watt solar panel at present and we have to run the engine for an hour every two days. That is using the autohelm 24 hours a day.
Allan
https://share.delorme.com/JohnSearle

 

[laika]

For comparison, the 12v cristec claims a bit over 200 watts at 6kts, 255 watts at 6.5kts and 530 watts at 8kts. Actually it tops out there, so clearly this is the "cheaper, for the leisure sailor rather than sponsored racer" product. Still not really approaching most people's "affordable" though. Also, dunno if "200 watts" is equates to 16 amps@12v or whether it's one of those qualified "power" measurements which ends up being rather less. Still, 10amps at 6kts would be marvellous