Is it worth fitting a Wind Generator

A

anniebray

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We are continuing preparations for a 12 month Uk to Canaries cruise possibly including Madeira & Azores. We shall no doubt spend many nights moored up where we can connect to shorepower but this wont always be the case. We have the usual modern cruisers collection of electronics (but not considering high power usage of inverters) . We have a 35w deck mounted solar panel but were wondering if a wind generator would produce useful power in the region of our cruise (I would have thought so). Jonny_H of this parish who sailed UK to Australia concluded that his W Gen was a waste of money but perhaps that was because he was mainly downwind sailing. What does the panel think ?
 
the Serpa solar power plant in Portugal is Europe's largest. Why ? Because the area is regarded as the sunniest in Europe.

Solar panels are silent, reliable, and - watts per pound - better than wind gennies, which are noisy, dangerous if sited badly, and need attention in strong winds.

Buy a few decent solar panels, incorporate them into some form of bimini, with adjustability for sun altitude. Shelter plus power - sorted.
 
Do not listen to the negative moaners!

We had a wind turbine fitted an Airex Marine. It is virtually silent and with the Solar panel charges my bank of 7 x 110amp batteries and the 2 cranking battries. All from BARDEN.

Good luck

Peter
 
I'd have both if the budget will run to it...

At the moment I live aboard in Brighton and have a Rutland 913 with an HRDX controller. It can get a bit noisy when it's blowing a gale but that's mainly the noise of it resonating through the boat and a result of how it's fitted rather than the unit itself. The HRDX lets you effectively put a brake on when it is blowing a gale, which slows it right down somehow (haven't worked that one out yet), allows you to wire in up to 100w (I think it is) of solar and acts kind of like a smart charger. People who have 913s leave them running for years with few problems, which is what you're supposed to do. I don't have any solar at the moment, but rarely switch on the battery charger, use one or two cabin lights every night, Eberspacher heater every night which takes quite a lot, have the radio on couple of hours a night (my vhf has fm radio) and the water pump. The 913 works better than some of the others in lighter winds and is quite quiet, I'm glad to have mine.

Enjoy your cruise...:)
 
A lot depends on where you sail, what the average wind speed is, and how you sail.

With the wind astern the apparent wind is less, so a wind turbine will have less available power. With the wind on or forward of the beam there is more power. At anchor a turbine uses the true wind.

My boat has an AirX Marine turbine that has around the maximum output of any in moderate to fresh winds. Many people complain that they are noisy, and the standard blades can be a bit loud. However, silent power blades from www.sprecoenergy.com transform the machine making it no more noisy than the slower low output fan bladed types, but it still works best in moderate winds. If you expect low average wind speeds then one of the slower fan type turbines with six wide blades may be better as they start charging in lower wind speed, but output will be significantly less when the wind picks up. Power is a function of rotation speed and swept area, with 3 thin blades producing the highest rotation speeds and power output for a given wind strength.

My solution with the wind abaft the beam is to also use an ancient Aquair towed turbine that starts to generates 1 or 2 amps with a boat speed of about 3 knots and continues up to hull speed, maximum output is only about 5 amps but continuous as long as we are sailing above 3 knots.

We also have a solar panel on the gantry, around 50 watts that helps a bit.

For long term cruising a mix of charging systems are probably safer. In fact I was not too worried when the engine alternator on my last boat failed and continued with the planned cruise relying on the Air X until I got a replacement.

Hope this helps.
 
On this very subject, could I fit a wind generator to my motor boat?
(I know it's considered unorthodox but I have various reasons for wanting to do this)
My main concern is will it be abel to cope with the cruising speed of the boat - 20 to 25(ish) knots plus the speed of the wind?
Assuming it's mounted correctly, would it be able to spin fast enough?
 
Thepipdoc said:
On this very subject, could I fit a wind generator to my motor boat?
(I know it's considered unorthodox but I have various reasons for wanting to do this)
My main concern is will it be abel to cope with the cruising speed of the boat - 20 to 25(ish) knots plus the speed of the wind?
Assuming it's mounted correctly, would it be able to spin fast enough?
Click to expand...

ours has run with 40+kts under way
 
anniebray said:
We have a 35w deck mounted solar panel but were wondering if a wind generator would produce useful power in the region of our cruise
Click to expand...

I would have thought that a 35w solar panel was inadequate with or without a wind gen. I wouldn't be without my wind gen but when I head West for an extended period I will also have 60 - 70w of solar panel, I am a firm believer in belt and bracers (I also have a 2kw mains generator :o )

I must admit that a wind gen has trouble performing down wind, mine is up my mizzen and when the wind is aft of the beam I tether the tail to hold it facing the wind else it spins like a whirligig. Down wind the mizzen sail gets dropped so it isn't so much of a problem providing there is 15+ knots of wind.

Note: this is also on Liveaboard
 
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probably not.

anniebray said:
We are continuing preparations for a 12 month Uk to Canaries cruise possibly including Madeira & Azores. We shall no doubt spend many nights moored up where we can connect to shorepower but this wont always be the case. We have the usual modern cruisers collection of electronics (but not considering high power usage of inverters) . We have a 35w deck mounted solar panel but were wondering if a wind generator would produce useful power in the region of our cruise (I would have thought so). Jonny_H of this parish who sailed UK to Australia concluded that his W Gen was a waste of money but perhaps that was because he was mainly downwind sailing. What does the panel think ?
Click to expand...

I´ve been out for 4 years now with an aerogen4 and if you´re only going for a year I really don´t think it´s worth the bother for that route. Not many anchorages (apart from the Rias in Galicia - nice!) and anchorages you do find probably will not be windy enough to get anything useful. The money might be better spent on a honda genny so if (when?) the engine gives up you´ll still be able to get a decent charge into the batts on passage or in an anchorage. You probably won´t be spending that much time on passage and if you´re lucky the wind will be behind the beam anyway so windgen will be useless. 35w solar won´t do you much good either I´m afraid. LED´s and\or florescent light down below and a quality LED masthead I would say is a good investment. As is AIS. Radar is nice for Portugueze coast with fog and fishing boats but a bit power hungry. But wind gen? Don´t think it´s worth the expense and the hassle fitting.
Sounds like a great trip, Azores are beautiful, I´m heading back there in a few weeks and Canaries are great as well.
 
anniebray said:
We are continuing preparations for a 12 month Uk to Canaries cruise possibly including Madeira & Azores. ..........We have a 35w deck mounted solar panel but were wondering if a wind generator would produce useful power in the region of our cruise ?
Click to expand...

You don't say what your battery capacity is. But assuming it is at least 300Ah, I would first at least double your solar capacity, better still triple it. That will allow you to keep your batteries more or less topped-up under most conditions. I would then add some wind charging capacity for night sailing and cloudy days. When choosing the charger, remember that people who say theirs keeps their batteries fully topped-up on their mooring, have quite different needs from a cruiser who is onboard and using power 24/7.

FWIW, we have a nominal 440Ah of battery, 120W of solar and are about to replace a dead Air-x with a new wind charger. We could manage without the wind charging but it gives us a very valuable extra trickle for night sailing and very cloudy days. Cold beer, fresh food, autopilot, laptop, fans over berths are essentials IMHO.
 
If you are planning on more passage sailing, more than a few days then to add another option think about a towed/wind generator.

I used an Aquair 100 on the last trip, when sailing it was constantly producing 7-10 amps (downwind most of the way), and then when we were anchored and it was windy it was hoisted above the boom. Almost silent in 25-30knots, we slept in the aft cabin with the two large hatches open, I could see the wind gen from my bed it made no more noise than the wind in the rigging.

We never needed to use the engine to charge batteries, the engine would be used to come into marinas and we plugged in once or twice, mainly for diy tools and charging laptop/drill etc.

Leave yourself a good few weeks for the azores, we spent a month there and it wasn't enough.
 
Conachair said:
I´ve been out for 4 years now with an aerogen4 and if you´re only going for a year I really don´t think it´s worth the bother for that route. Not many anchorages (apart from the Rias in Galicia - nice!) and anchorages you do find probably will not be windy enough to get anything useful. The money might be better spent on a honda genny so if (when?) the engine gives up you´ll still be able to get a decent charge into the batts on passage or in an anchorage. You probably won´t be spending that much time on passage and if you´re lucky the wind will be behind the beam anyway so windgen will be useless. 35w solar won´t do you much good either I´m afraid. LED´s and\or florescent light down below and a quality LED masthead I would say is a good investment. As is AIS. Radar is nice for Portugueze coast with fog and fishing boats but a bit power hungry. But wind gen? Don´t think it´s worth the expense and the hassle fitting.
Sounds like a great trip, Azores are beautiful, I´m heading back there in a few weeks and Canaries are great as well.
Click to expand...

Thanks all for your advice, all the comments received will help me make my decision. I take particular note of Conachair because Paddy spent about 2yrs sailing in my chosen cruising area & therefore knows it well. In fact I met Paddy just 12 months back in Puerto Mogan (I was on my annual timeshare holiday courtesy of Easyjet) when he was preparing to leave the Canaries.
 
Personally - no. People often have a funny idea of how much time they have the engine running. When nwe took mour boat down to Spain I kept a detailed log ( sad I know) and was amazed to find that our engine ran for 70% of the time we were away from our berth / anchorage.

The boat wasnt a motor sailer and I dont like having the engine going. I much prefer sailing. But the point I'm making is that your engine will run a lot more than you think and like as not will keep the batteries charged without assistance. Depends obviously on how many gadgets you have running at anchor etc, but think about it.
 
>a wind generator is of no use to generate eletric. u'd need a very big one to generate enough of a breeze to turn a turbine to top up your batteries.
the power loss in such a system is enormous, the drag would spoil the sailing abilities of your craft. i don't recommend it.

What utter nonsense.
 
Neil_Y said:
I used an Aquair 100 on the last trip, when sailing it was constantly producing 7-10 amps (downwind most of the way), and then when we were anchored and it was windy it was hoisted above the boom. .
Click to expand...

Neil,

I've got one of these and I confirm it charges well if you're sailing close to hull speed and can afford the smallish amount of drag.
I've also got the wind conversion kit but I've never got round to hoisting it.
On a sloop, I've assumed the only practical place was from the spreaders. What did you mean when you said you hoisted it over the boom?
 
simonfraser said:
a wind generator is of no use to generate eletric. u'd need a very big one to generate enough of a breeze to turn a turbine to top up your batteries.

the power loss in such a system is enormous, the drag would spoil the sailing abilities of your craft. i don't recommend it.
Click to expand...
Is this a wind up/troll?

We have a Rutland 913 and it is silent. There is some resonance down the pole at high speed which we will have a go at eliminating but it's fairly insignificant. We are big power users and the Rutland keeps us topped up, though we benefit from a once a day one hour genny run which puts in about 20amps whilst we heat the water.

4 years ago we spent a year based on a swinging mooring and the Rutland was all the charging we had, it managed all our domestics plus gave us enough power to run two electric blankets via an inverter - luxury indeed!
 
simonfraser said:
a wind generator is of no use to generate eletric. u'd need a very big one to generate enough of a breeze to turn a turbine to top up your batteries.

the power loss in such a system is enormous, the drag would spoil the sailing abilities of your craft. i don't recommend it.
Click to expand...

:D

Funny how some folks have no sense of humour!
 
anniebray said:
Thanks all for your advice, all the comments received will help me make my decision. I take particular note of Conachair because Paddy spent about 2yrs sailing in my chosen cruising area & therefore knows it well. In fact I met Paddy just 12 months back in Puerto Mogan (I was on my annual timeshare holiday courtesy of Easyjet) when he was preparing to leave the Canaries.
Click to expand...

Unlike Paddy we found our Aerogen very useful on our East Atlantic cruise, but you will still probably have to run the engine occasionally for charging if you are using a lot of juice. The Aerogen kept up with 12 hours tricolour (25W) plus all the instruments, but we found prolonged laptop use via inverter or step-up transformer was a drain. I would imagine radar would be too much for it as well.


Our Aerogen was on the boat when we got her and has been fantastic, but of course fitting one is a different ball game. Whatever you do don't fit one of the high-power screaming banshee models if you want to make friends on your trip!

- W
 
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