Wish I had tied down wind genny

[Mistroma]

The received wisdom - I think advice from Marlec - is that tying the generator down results in the rotor "rocking" and causing uneven wear and flat spots on some of the balls in the bearings.

Yes, that's why I always remove ours when ashore. I think the rotation also throws rainwater away from the bearings and is another possible reason to allow it to rotate.

It would be a pain to remove when the pole is upright. I designed our mounting pole to swing across the transom when lowered. The 913 is then in easy reach for removal.

 

[Robin]

Just as we were watching local news last night on board here on IOW and congratulating ourselves for missing the many power outages others suffered, off went the power until 4 am, maybe deliberately whilst a repair carried out back down the lines? Apparently a sailing dinghy in compound moved off trailer and got holed on something

Well I now know last night's outage was marina only not island wide. fortunately our lovely live aboard neighbour, who works here too, got upat3 am, located the fault and reset the main power trips controlling the yard and 3 main pontoons. Leccy blankets back on. There were other island areas mind not so lucky as lights were definitely out between us and Cowes, the darkness was deafening

 

[lumphammer]

I believe Marlec's own controllers embody this.

They do, but I needed to shut down the WG but leave the solar panel connected, the controller switches off both together.

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

OOOPS Needles just broke another record at 109kts/125mph. barometer levelled offand a tad higher at maybe 991mb

I don't know what the wind speed is, as I have just discovered that the topping lift of the neighbouring boat, in Malahide Marina, has parted, and wrapped itself around my wind instrument!

 

[Birdseye]

The received wisdom - I think advice from Marlec - is that tying the generator down results in the rotor "rocking" and causing uneven wear and flat spots on some of the balls in the bearings.

Thinking back to my days making ball bearing steels, I would be very surprised if this happened. There is little vertical load on the bearings so the load on the balls is likely to be fairly evenly spread around the circumference. And ball bearings are usually easy to replace and cheap to buy.
In any case, if you tie it down you make sure it cant move surely. On my last boat I didnt even do that - I simply removed the hub and blades in winter.