Our choices, our boat and fitting out for circumnavigation.

[Oscarpop]

A couple of months ago, it was suggested on here that it would be useful for those planning on giving up bricks and mortar to provide details of our particular choices, regarding boat, fitting and alike . Hopefully if people are in the planning stage of either an extended cruise or circumnavigation, the links to this part of our website will be helpful.

The first link is to the page that details what life on board is like for us:

http://rumsodomyandthelash.com/onboard/

Within this page are three other pages. The first relates to our choice for a boat:

http://rumsodomyandthelash.com/onboard/why-we-chose-our-boat/

The second describes our fitting out, the equipment we chose and why we chose it:

http://rumsodomyandthelash.com/onboard/fitting-out/

I have also now added a third page detailing how we communicate while we are at sea, both in port and offshore.

http://rumsodomyandthelash.com/communication-onboard/


Obviously there are an almost infinite number of options, for a huge range of budgets. However these were ours. I hope it helps. So far , we are in the real infancy of our life afloat, but it is possibly the best decision we ever made.

 

[Baggy]

Bon Voyage Oscarpop

Hope the Aquair works well for you
as it did for me,

I did fabricate a Funnel to retrieve the turbine
( substantialy built by my own fair hands )
but that got blitzed on first try, :ambivalence:

Helped a chap in Gib to make one for his Aquair, almost the same as mine,
met him a few months
later in the carib, and his funnel worked fine

 

[Oscarpop]

Cheers baggy,
I read somewhere at a small fender attached to a carabiner sent down the line works well. I am petrified of losing the prop though as the manufacturer seems to be obsolete now.

Bon Voyage Oscarpop

Hope the Aquair works well for you
as it did for me,

I did fabricate a Funnel to retrieve the turbine
( substantialy built by my own fair hands )
but that got blitzed on first try, :ambivalence:

Helped a chap in Gib to make one for his Aquair, almost the same as mine,
met him a few months
later in the carib, and his funnel worked fine

 

[Baggy]

Thinking back ...

The probable reason the Funnel setup worked for the other chap
was because the " spout " part was longer thus keeping the
funnel runing down to the turbo straight, as apposed to mine
( short spout ) that wriggled/waggled down

 

[dslittle]

Good luck on your way. We are following on behind you but at the speed you are going I don't think that we will catch you up. Keep leaving good weather behind you though!!!

 

[jonic]

Very nice boat.

Enjoy :encouragement:

 

[Oscarpop]

I have populated the pages with some more photos, should it be of interest.

Also, I added a section about our choices for communications on board

 

[capnsensible]

Good luck on your voyage!

Do consider dragging that devil device behind you though....

Friends of ours felt it cost them days on a transat in speed lost for virtually no benefit.

I spent hours grappling with the bloody thing when delivering a yacht from Lanzarote to UK. Always aware it was an accident waiting to happen. Wind gets up, its a nightmare to recover, no matter what the 'Good Ideas Club' comes up with....

Apart from that though....

Fair winds!

 

[typhoonNige]

Hope you are as lucky with the weather as we have been!

We are big fans of the Aquair. It was used all the way from Cape Verde to Grenada as well as on previous legs from the UK heading south and produced a steady 5-6 amps all day every day. There were short interuptions to clear sargasso weed from the propeller but I did this by simply holding the line and pulling it in. This takes a good grip and heavy gloves but was not too difficult. A comparison of boat speed with and without it in the water showed a speed difference of 0.2 knots at worst but really it was hard to see any change. The wind option also adds a good 3-5 amps at anchor with typical trade winds over here which with a similar solar setup to yours is ample to meet our needs.

Happy sundowners!

 

[Oscarpop]

So far we have 200w of solar which produces a max of about 11amps. However if there are shadows or cloud we get about half of that. The wind gives us between 3 and 8 Amps on an average passage. This should cover our needs. We also will run the engine for a couple of hours a day to top up batteries and heat water.
The ampair, is fantastic when we have used it. I am just paranoid about losing the prop, so will possibly only use it if we're lacking wind or sun. However we have a biscay trip next month and it will be a good outing for the prop.

 

[typhoonNige]

So far we have 200w of solar which produces a max of about 11amps. However if there are shadows or cloud we get about half of that. The wind gives us between 3 and 8 Amps on an average passage. This should cover our needs. We also will run the engine for a couple of hours a day to top up batteries and heat water.
The ampair, is fantastic when we have used it. I am just paranoid about losing the prop, so will possibly only use it if we're lacking wind or sun. However we have a biscay trip next month and it will be a good outing for the prop.

Even if you cant find an original spare it wouldn't be hard to get one made that would do the job. We got lucky with a couple of tatty 2nd hand ones on E-bay which we refurbished. No losses after 8000 miles.

 

[Monique]

Another forum reports that large sharks are fond of the blades...

FWIW, we chose a solar panel solution with 540W atop a gantry/davits. But our boat is a 53 footer...

We are setting off from Turkey (15 July ish..) where Eleuthera has undergone an intensive refit. We expect 2 weeks of sea trials with many fixes needed before we head west. We'll be in Gib sometime in September jumping off to Madeira, Canaries, Cape Verde then Barbados... we'll be in CV over Xmas. Look for a well sorted Amel Super Maramu and we'll look out for you as well. We'll post links to our blog soon.

 

[CatCouple]

You will grow to love your top loading fridge particulary as the weather gets warmer. With a front opening door all the cold air spills out. You will use less amps and your beers stay colder! Allways interesting to read other sailors choices and some interesting stuff on the site thanks for sharing

 

[geem]

You will grow to love your top loading fridge particulary as the weather gets warmer. With a front opening door all the cold air spills out. You will use less amps and your beers stay colder! Allways interesting to read other sailors choices and some interesting stuff on the site thanks for sharing

We built our top loading fridge freezer for this reason. Stainless steel liner, 4 to 6 inches of high performance insulation. Drain pipe(insulated) with stop valve to drain when defrosting, freezer inside the fridge to improve efficiency. Works very well and low amps to run. Currently 30degC in cabin with nice cold beer and meat and ice cubes in freezer. All running on solar. We wouldn't want it any other way

 

[Petronella]

If you are looking to cross the Atlantic independently try Googling "Atlantic Crossing Group". Hints, tips and shared concerns. Contribute as little or as much as you want. Now in its third year.

 

[jlwuk]

Thank you Oscarpop, a very interesting thread.
We are just about to redo the interior of our boat & you have given me lots of ideas.
Enjoy your trip

 

[KellysEye]

What we found was a wind generator doesn't work downwind it just turns in circles, this is a problem because most ocean passages are downwind. The best option is a generator we bought a 4KvA Westerbeke and had a 240v fridge and water maker both commercial and thus less likely to break. Make sure you carry two spares for every part of every piece of kit excluding electrical kit plus associated tools and parts diagrams. Most things on a boat are made for weekend and holiday sailors so everything will break more than once. I used to spend about two days a week servicing or fixing something that broke. The longest we went without something breaking was a month in the Venezuelan out islands and the day we arrived in Bonaire three thing broke. Also bear in mind the generator on a towed Aquair has been known to be bitten of by a shark, we know a boat it happened to.

 

[vyv_cox]

You will grow to love your top loading fridge particulary as the weather gets warmer. With a front opening door all the cold air spills out. You will use less amps and your beers stay colder! Allways interesting to read other sailors choices and some interesting stuff on the site thanks for sharing

This is something of an urban myth. Yes, the air does fall out but its specific heat is about 1/1000 of water (or beer) so it takes almost no time or power to recover the temperature. Putting a can of beer in the fridge is considerably worse than opening the fridge door several times from a thermal point of view. I calculated this a long time ago and I am told that Nigel Calder has now written an article saying the same thing.

Where a front opening door loses out is that its insulation is invariably pretty poor. However, it is far more convenient. Our choice is to stay with a front door and put up with the additional electric consumption.

 

[Tradewinds]

This is something of an urban myth. Yes, the air does fall out but its specific heat is about 1/1000 of water (or beer) so it takes almost no time or power to recover the temperature. Putting a can of beer in the fridge is considerably worse than opening the fridge door several times from a thermal point of view. I calculated this a long time ago and I am told that Nigel Calder has now written an article saying the same thing.

Where a front opening door loses out is that its insulation is invariably pretty poor. However, it is far more convenient. Our choice is to stay with a front door and put up with the additional electric consumption.

My Nic39 comes with a front opening fridge. I fitted polar strips so you can see what's what when you open the door then take out what you need. Works for me (in the tropics as well, way back when).

 

[geem]

This is something of an urban myth. Yes, the air does fall out but its specific heat is about 1/1000 of water (or beer) so it takes almost no time or power to recover the temperature. Putting a can of beer in the fridge is considerably worse than opening the fridge door several times from a thermal point of view. I calculated this a long time ago and I am told that Nigel Calder has now written an article saying the same thing.

I thought the specific heat of water was only four times that of air?
The top opening fridge is not convenient when trying to get to that item right at the bottom but it makes up for the fact that you can open it on passage and not have the contents land on you. We found our front opener a real pain. On balance I am happier with the top loader. I guess the energy efficiency is not such a big issue if you open the door for only a short time but if it's open a lot there will be a significant difference. We notice a huge difference in the amount of cold air flooding out. Nothing from the top loader and a significant cooling effect when we used to open our front loader.


Where a front opening door loses out is that its insulation is invariably pretty poor. However, it is far more convenient. Our choice is to stay with a front door and put up with the additional electric consumption.