So it Begins

[Stemar]

Sorry, off topic slightly Stemar, but did you post a pic & details of your new boat? Forum rules you know, give us a gander!

I haven't taken her over yet, though she is paid for, so photos will have to wait a bit. The original owners are elderly, and are reluctantly accepting that it's time to give up, so we've promised to allow them to use the boat this summer to sweeten the pill a bit. They only put her on the club pontoon and sit on board for a few hours, so they're unlikely to wear anything out! (Except my patience - I want to get to work, especially now Jissel's gone (sniff, sniff) - but I won't tell them that!)

As for batteries and what have you, plan A is to use one battery to start both engines and parallel the other two. That'll give us about 180AH, which is about 50% more than we had on Jissel, and we'll see how we do. We'll have a wheel pilot, which will chew them up a bit, but she is a motorsailor, and I'm not sure how much Management will allow me to put the sails up, so I reckon that should be fine with a bit of solar.

I wouldn't sneer at the idea of a wind generator; on a blue water boat, I'd certainly have one, but for the kind of sailing we do, solar will give us plenty, and has the big advantage of being silent

 

[Tranona]

You are the first person I can think of who has posted out this salient fact - PBO and by inheritance this section of the Forum was about 'doing things' your self, hopefully with professional results.

I note that many of those who did do it themselves have disappeared, VicS, Coopec etc.

Jonathan

Not sure that is correct. The majority of the questions asked here are definitely in the PBO mould, even though many of the responses come from people who are perhaps no longer DIYers but were in the past when the boats prompting the questions were current - or the problem is universal.

I think it is fair to say the majority of boating in the UK is done by those on a limited budget. Sure, the marinas are full of shiny new(ish) boats, but behind that is a vast array of clubs and moorings inhabited by boats that cost less to run a year than a 7 day cruise in the Med for 2.

There is an interesting thread on Scuttlebutt about costs of running boats at different levels. The UK is full of older boats from the halcyon days and careful selection from those for sale can provide 5-10 years of relatively cheap and trouble free sailing if one is prepared to forgo the temptations of trying to upgrade to the latest kit and can live without integrated nav gear, fridges, electric windlasses extensive sail wardrobes etc. Of course there is always the risk of a major failure - engines most common that render the boats uneconomical, but there is still a market for "project" boats.

If you look at the print PBO this is the sector of the market they are aiming at - no reviews of the latest £300k Med sunbeds with sails attached, but instead a frequent rundown of boats from the past available at modest prices (this months it is boats from N American designers). Can be a bit boring and repetitive for old lags but hopefully appeals to newcomers looking to get in or move up at the modest end of the spectrum.

 

[dunedin]

I would definitely recommend a good solar setup for a cat. Even in Scotland, we run a large fridge 24x7 when on board, and solar helps a lot with long daylight hours in summer.
We don't have a wind generator as don't like the noise, and one generally chooses anchorages for shelter from wind. (May be different in Caribbean and Southern ocean)

 

[Stemar]

behind that is a vast array of clubs and moorings inhabited by boats that cost less to run a year than a 7 day cruise in the Med for 2.

That's me. I used to joke that we had two cars and a boat for what most people would pay for a decent second hand car. You could buy a new car for the price we paid for Jazzcat and our car, but you probably wouldn't want to

one generally chooses anchorages for shelter from wind. (May be different in Caribbean and Southern ocean)

But not in the Solent. That's us too

 

[pvb]

Not sure that is correct. The majority of the questions asked here are definitely in the PBO mould, even though many of the responses come from people who are perhaps no longer DIYers but were in the past when the boats prompting the questions were current - or the problem is universal.

I'd agree. The PBO forum still caters extensively for the DIY boater (and I count myself as one as I very rarely pay anyone to do anything to my boat).

 

[C08]

Regarding a fridge - we use a Waeco/Dometic 35 Compressor Coolbox which sits in our port cockpit locker. It is about 30L volume and has a low duty cycle and does not use much power at all. I did worry that being in a locker that it would just heat up the locker and reduce its efficiency but that just does not seem to happen. They are magnificent fridges, you can set the temperature down to freezing if you want, set the battery protection levels etc. Ours averages less than 20 AH/24 hours in summer months in uk. Not quite the convenience of being under the galley sink but ok. Ours has just quietly got on with it for 8 years now and our 160W solar + Rutland 903 easily balance that and other domestic use even with minimal input from my outboard when motoring.

 

[pvb]

Regarding a fridge - we use a Waeco/Dometic 35 Compressor Coolbox which sits in our port cockpit locker. It is about 30L volume and has a low duty cycle and does not use much power at all. I did worry that being in a locker that it would just heat up the locker and reduce its efficiency but that just does not seem to happen. They are magnificent fridges, you can set the temperature down to freezing if you want, set the battery protection levels etc. Ours averages less than 20 AH/24 hours in summer months in uk. Not quite the convenience of being under the galley sink but ok. Ours has just quietly got on with it for 8 years now and our 160W solar + Rutland 903 easily balance that and other domestic use even with minimal input from my outboard when motoring.

Modern compressor fridges are indeed very good. But the OP has a gas/electric absorption fridge, which will be much less efficient. For a few days' use, starting out with a big block of ice in it will help reduce power consumption though.

 

[Neeves]

If you look at the print PBO this is the sector of the market they are aiming at - no reviews of the latest £300k Med sunbeds with sails attached, but instead a frequent rundown of boats from the past available at modest prices (this months it is boats from N American designers). Can be a bit boring and repetitive for old lags but hopefully appeals to newcomers looking to get in or move up at the modest end of the spectrum.

I'm not denigrating what you said, at all, I'm just highlighting your final paragraph.

You have a marvellous way with words

'Med sunbeds with sails attached'

Love it!

Jonathan

 

[Neeves]

I would definitely recommend a good solar setup for a cat. Even in Scotland, we run a large fridge 24x7 when on board, and solar helps a lot with long daylight hours in summer.
We don't have a wind generator as don't like the noise, and one generally chooses anchorages for shelter from wind. (May be different in Caribbean and Southern ocean)

We have a LVM Aero4Aqua gen and it does not make the noise, its basically silent, of the 3 bladed designs (of which I think you refer). Sadly LVM are no longer with us - but there must be other wind generators that don't make obtrusive noise. Our big mistake with our investment was we wish we had bought the Aero6 and the Aqua 4 - but that would have more than doubled the cost (not significant over 20 years) and we lack foresight).

Most of the anchorages off Australia's southern half of the coast are bays off the Tasman Sea - shelter from seas but less so from wind. To have steady wind of 30 knots would not be unusual if a front moves through (which is when one would seek shelter). You can find shelter out of the wind, up navigable rivers but they are commonly guarded by a bar, very unattractive if you arrive in the dark and if the weather builds you cannot get out till the seas abate - its tough down under - but good for wind generators. Once you get to the northern half of the coast, say north of Brisbane then the SE Trades start to dominate and there is much more sunshine (hence The Sunshine Coast' and the popularity of The Whitsundays). In Tasmania, which is not very large, and in the summer winds are forecast to be over 25 knots somewhere every day, there is at least 1 gale warning once a month and sunshine is less than north of Brisbane. There is no one right answer.

Being at anchor with 30 knots at the masthead, without seas, chop and a steady wind - and good shelter in the cockpit is not unpleasant (in the summer, more character building out of season - its winter now but Covid has controlled 'offshore' activity)

But with power - you never have enough. Your power needs (that is arrogant) our power needs appear to grow to be just beyond what we can comfortably produce. Increasing the potential to increase power production simply results in an increase in demand. I blame Parkinson, to a lesser extent Apple and our increased desire for the life of The Lotus Eaters. Not helped by the increased maturity of grandchildren whose power demands appear to be growing exponentially with their increase in teenage years (definitely Apple and the birthright of showers).



Based on our experience we would continue to want power produced by both water and wind and also have solar. Multihulls commonly have 'space' to have plenty of solar, more than you think you need and we would instal solar initially with the expectation to instal more - so arranging the first installation to allow further panels to be added, neatly (ours are looking decidedly untidy). If we had the excess funds - we would look at a WattnSea (+ wind), but maybe a DuoGen

Jonathan

 

[Tranona]

Everything you say is relevant IF your normal mix of sailing and motoring is not able to deal with your power consumption. In UK conditions, weekend sailing and the odd couple of weeks away you really don't need much more than a good size bank to cope with the variations in consumption plus perhaps a solar panel to top up in the week if you don't have shorepower. Adding 100AH costs around £100, will add a safe couple of days' consumption and give a life of up to 10 years.

The key to determining what you need in capacity and charging is a consumption audit, perhaps validated by a battery monitor. As i suggested earlier I managed for 10 years with just 105AH house bank. Of course once you start getting integrated nav (mine consumes about 2.5 amps), fridge (av 3 amps) overnight sailing with lights on, autopilot running all the time under sail or living on board everything changes and you need to upgrade capacity and recharging to suit.

Again, I look round our marina and guess less than 10% have solar (but shorepower is available) and can probably can count on fingers of both hands the number who have wind power. but then no liveaboards and only a handful of bluewater cruisers (mostly retired like my next door neighbour who has both).

Horses for courses

 

[Concerto]

Modern compressor fridges are indeed very good. But the OP has a gas/electric absorption fridge, which will be much less efficient. For a few days' use, starting out with a big block of ice in it will help reduce power consumption though.

My advice would be to check the insulation around the fridge and either change it to a Kingspan insulation or increase the thickness of the insulation. On my Fulmar I have just changed the insulation on my cool box from 1" of polystyrene (probably high tech 40 years ago) to Kingspan. I managed to increase the sides to about 1½" and the bottom now has 4". The cool box now has a bulkhead on 3 sides and a small gap against the hull, so is like a sealed unit and should keep its cool very well as it is top loader. Now just have to fit the cooling plate for the fridge unit and mount the Dometic compressor.

 

[pessimist]

Bit late to the partybut here goes. We switched to a cat last year and inherited a smartgauge and two smartbanks. day.This takes the place of VSRs and, to date, all battery banks have been charged by solar by the end of the day. This is a little more expensive than the BEP switch recommended earlier but has the advantage of the gauge. The system also allows paralleling batteries, by means of the gauge on the port side and manual switch on the starboard. We ditched the wind generator which managed to produce a grand total of 10ah over two weeks and installed 240w of solar - that great big coach roof was begging for it. We matched these with an Epever Triron mppt controller. Cheaper than a Victron and allows real time monitoring of charge rates. It's not unusual to see this set up putting in well in excess of 10 amps into the batteries in the late morning when the fridge has been on all night. Good luck with the cat, we've no (well not many) regrets; ours doesn't go to windward like our Rival did but the deck saloon makes up for that. Especially in the rain.