So I thought I had posted pictures of Valkyr’s hard dodger long ago but it seems that I didn’t. These are not the best formatted pictures but should help to give an idea of what I did.
Showing posts with label solar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solar. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Valkyr’s Hard Dodger
Scott aboard s/v Valkyr needed more solar power to run his A/C (he is in Florida). And shade is also a very nice thing... So he took on the project of making a hard dodger to support all those new solar panels. This is not strictly a small boat project, but shows some excellent construction techniques. Enjoy!
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Solar Power, And More
We haven't heard much from Brian over at Dock Six. But he's been busy...
"But where we are going, Oh it hasn't fully, fully been told..."
-Ruby Velle and the Soulphonics
So, where were we?
Right: Boat is launched, boat is sinking, boat stops sinking, yadda yadda, Karma glides into her slip with no further drama.
With one boat launched successfully, it was on to the rest of the fleet. With a little help from the crew of Boats....
...we got our commuter dinghy, Chameleon, to the marina and into the water.
Then, we tackled Ereni, giving SWMBO's Bluenose a quick and dirty makeover... and a black nose in the process, to cover some of that quick and dirty.
Ereni is due for some serious hull refitting this winter- the brightwork needs to be brightened, the hull needs to have some blisters ground/filled/faired, and then we'll refinish the deck and topsides. But, we think we'll keep the nose treatment, and add some nose art- SWMBO and I agree we both kinda dig the vintage "rat rod' vibe.
Over the two full years we've lived with, and aboard, Karma, we've developed a pretty good idea of our wants and needs, and have fulfilled many of them along the way...
... and created new ones.
Our reefer install has been a well-received luxury, with an unintended consequence - power insecurity.
We have 3 40w solar panels that live on top of our bimini, feeding a single Group 24 house battery and a Group 24 starting battery, also charged by the 35 amp alternator on the inboard diesel. Last season, this system proved sufficient....
... barely.
If the solar panels underperformed for more than a day, some motorsailing was required to top up the batteries. We were careful about energy usage, charging electronics only during the middle of the day, being judicious about illumination, vhf and instrument use, etc. and never really had a power crisis...
But still....
This season, I made the decision to add more power and more power storage. Here's the plan: add another 100w of solar power, in the form of a semi-flexible 100 w panel installed on the dodger, then combine the 2 Group 24 batteries already onboard into a two battery house bank, and add a third Group 24 battery for starting, locating it just aft of the transmission in the engine bay. Next year, we will replace the group 24 house bank with a pair of 230 amp hour 6 volt GC-1 golf cart batteries, if we find that the 160 amp hour capacity of the house bank is not enough We decided to isolate the starting battery from the charging circuit- we opted to install a Xantrex Digital Echo Charge.
To quote the manual:
The Digital echo-charge automatically switches ON and OFF, charging a starter or auxiliary battery without affecting the main house battery bank. The maximum charge current is 15 amps when the starting battery is 1/2 volt to 1 volt DC less than the house battery... When the input voltage is 13.0/25.5 volts DC or higher, echo-charge automatically switches ON. The LED glows a steady green. When the input voltage is lower than 13.0/25.5 volts, the echo-charge automatically switches OFF, and the LED blinks green. The output voltage of echocharge is limited to 14.4/28.8 volts. When it reaches 14.4/28.8 volts, the charge current will decrease, maintaining a float condition."
So, I bought a bunch of obscenely priced cable, less obscenely priced wire, a battery and assorted electrical parts and pieces and tools and stuff and dug in, on the hottest day of the year....
... and everything largely went together better than I expected....
.... once I pretty much gave up on the original plan.
I cut and stripped and crimped new cable to wire the existing batteries in parallel...
...and that is pretty much where the original plan ended.
A "semi-flexible 100w panel installed on the dodger" became a semi-flexible 100w panel mounted on the foredeck. temporarily laying the panel on top of the dodger and measuring output demonstrated that there was just too much shading for the panel to generate anywhere near it's potential output. Because of our boat's design, and our usage, the foredeck gets little traffic, so I decided to see if the "you can even walk on it' claims about semi-flexible panels were true.
The install was pretty straightforward, once I wrapped my head around drilling 3/4" holes in the deck. An hours worth of work saw two of the aforementioned holes drilled, some wires run, and the panel fastened to the deck with, and all fittings sealed with, 3M 4200.
The new panel got a new charge controller, to complement the existing bimini bank charge controllers, then the controller output for both the bimini solar bank and the foredeck solar bank were driven to a distribution block and thence to batteries...
...Which were not happy at all.
Note to self: always check polarity before connecting 100 w panel to new charge controller.
Then check it again.
Then check it again.
I didn't, and wired the panel to the charge controller backward, and didn't realize my error for 48 hours.
I bought a new charge controller, and now the batteries happily charged away... but wouldn't hold a charge. Well, 5 year old lead acid batteries are due for replacement anyway, so "Next year, we will replace the group 24 house bank with a pair of 230 amp hour 6 volt GC-1 golf cart batteries" became "TODAY we will replace the group 24 house bank with a pair of 230 amp hour 6 volt GC-1 golf cart batteries."
(Note to those of you playing along at home: Golf cart batteries are about the same width and length as Group 24 batteries...but about twice the weight. Getting them up onto the boat, then down into the boat, then down further into the battery bay, was an exercise, that in retrospect, would be less danger-filled if one is wearing steel-toed boots, not flip-flops.)
So, new batteries go in, cabling is connected, and power flows! Meanwhile, it becomes apparent that "add a third Group 24 battery for starting, locating it just aft of the transmission in the engine bay." is a non-starter. So, the new batery gets located slightly farther aft, under the aft cabin berth. The Xantrex Echo Charge install was a breeze- the instructions were clear, the manual was well-written, and all of the supplied bits and bobs were of good quality.
Was it worth it?
Yep.
We now generate more power than we can use and store most days, and have had no problem keeping ahead of our loads even during our very hot July, when our refrigerator was running much more often than it's typical 30% duty cycle.
As we have realized the need for more power, we also have been grappling with our need for more space. the S2 8.0C is a cleverly designed boat, pulling 26 feet of accomodations out of a 26 foot LOA hull... but that means that on-deck and cockpit storage is non-existent. Coaming pockets would be a big help for line management- sheets would no longer be all over the cockpit benches and underass, an uncomfortable proposition during a crash tack. I did some measuring, found a pair of fire extinguisher pockets in the clearance rack at a local chandlery, and a little mahogany and varnish and cutting larger holes in our boat and screws later...
Our cockpit is slightly more organized.
Also seen in the above picture, behind the compact sportsdawg, you can kinda spy that scrap mahogany was also used to craft risers, to raise the height of the bimini slightly.
Below, little has changed, other than cushions that are 1" thicker and comfier, and new Low-Buck back cushions and throw pillows have been added:
We lucked out at our local grocery store (I shit you not- the grocery store) and found outdoor furniture cushions and pillows in the right colours, and amazingly, the right size, for half price.
Life is good, and more comfortable than ever...and the sailing's not too bad either.
Thanks for having a read. Pass the word- Please "Talk the Dock!"
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Low-Buck Projectapalooza
Over at Dock 6, Brian has experienced those two best days of boat ownership:
- The day he sold his boat
- The day he bought his new boat
"Yes, I'm workin' all the time..."
-Rush
The stages of New/Old Boat ownership:
Stage 1. Admiration stage- admire how much roomier (or prettier or shinier or faster or just plain better your New/Old Boat is than your Old/Old Boat.)
Stage 2. Installation stage- Start installing stuff. Begins approximately 7 minutes after the onset of Stage 1.Stage 2 never, ever stops.
If you have bought the right boat, the first stage never stops, either.
Having lived with and aboard NextBoat for almost 3 months, much Low-Buckness, and some Mid-Buckness, has ensued.
For those of you still following along, (thanks!) you know the story. For those who just stumbled into this meandering morass of a blog, here’s the short version:We owned a boat, wanted a slightly bigger boat, found a bigger boat, bought a bigger boat, sold the slightly smaller boat…
Now we are pouring money and time and effort into the slightly bigger boat.
And enjoying every minute of it.
The upside of NextBoat is that she had been well maintained by two previous owners. The downside is that there were few upgrades, and some gear that we consider necessities was missing entirely. Like, oh….
A compass.
Didn’t have one.
Apparently, never had one since new- the binnacle was as smooth and unblemished as a baby’s transom.
We'll come back to that later.
So, after peering into the purse and seeing the present paucity of pennies, (prolonging our perpetual pondering of whether we are presently poverty stricken or penurious,) providence presently allowed us to press the button on a plenitude of purchases, provided by the profits of this profligate’s penmanship.
In other words, I got paid for some scribbles. Cool.
So, with cash in hand, we got all Bugs Bunny and Road Runner on the boat.(Okay, come on, I can’t be the only one who remembers the theme to the “Bugs Bunny and Road Runner Hour”? Come on, sing it with me, “….On with the show, this is it…”)
er...
*turns the Obscure Weirdness dial down to 7*
A flurry of mouseclicks and credit card approvals and straight-up hand-to- hand cash transfers later, we had a whole bunch of new stuff to stuff aboard our new ride.SWMBO is a ginger, and with a redhead’s propensity to burst into flames upon exposure to sunlight, she immediately noted that NextBoat lacked cockpit canvas of any sort. A shadeless boat with a redhead aboard is an unhappy boat for all aboard. Luckily, a beaten and battered and unused-by-the-previous-owners dodger was included in the purchase.
It needed help.
Canadian Canvas Works underpromised and overdelivered, restitching the entire top in less than 48 hours.
The skipper of Cyclone sold us a languishing bimini from his currently-for-sale S2 8.0A, and with a little cutting and sweating we soon had a comfortable cockpit.
The stove that came with the boat had to go. Kenyon Homestrand pressurized alcohol stoves may have worked just fine when new, but 30+ years later….
… not so much.
The scary quotient, however, had increased considerably.
After following the less-than-simple lighting instructions, ( Pump tank of flammable fuel, tunr burner valve to introduce flammmable fuel to burner, close burner valve, light flammable fuel, let it burn out, then reopen valve and relight ) we inevitably faced a *WOOF* of ignition, resulting in burners with flames that had only one setting- Total Conflagration.
Seriously, the few attempts at using this DeathBlaster stove to create Two Burner Tastiness resulted in singed entrees trailing the faint odor of burnt eyebrows.
A quick click to Binnacle.com got us a great deal on a Cookmate non-pressurized alcohol stove. Under $250, including shipping.
Installation took less than a half hour, and the result is incredibly satisfactory.
Great temperature control, easy to light, and the burner capacity is measured in weeks, not hours. 6 weeks of regular use have borne out the value of this investment.
Further, we have upped the culinary ante by permanently installing the Kuuma Stow-n Go propane grille we bought during our first season aboard Whiskeyjack, but rarely used.
We have used this grille more this season than in the past 6 seasons combined.
Which means we are using more propane.
Which presents another challenge: Storage.
The one drawback to this center cockpit layout is that it eliminates all cockpit storage- no lockers, or lazarettes or cubbies on deck at all. I had no desire to store 1 lb. propane cylinders in the cabin, so a solution was required.
A quick trip to Home Hardware netted 2 feet of 6" PVC pipe, an end cap, a cleanout, and a couple of hose clamps. Less than $25 later, we were able to store 3 propane bottles on deck safely.
So, back to that no-compass thing: The existing cockpit instrumentation on NextBoat consisted of an inoperable Lowrance depth gauge.
That’s it.
A quick trip to Dovercraft Marine netted us a Humminbird 160 fishfinder for $80. Some headscratching on where to locate the transducer and how to route the cables and roughly an hour or so of sweating and drilling and and wiring later, we not only had depth display, but water temperature as well.
Back to that absence- of -cockpit- storage issue:
I picked up a couple of these mesh map pockets a half decade ago, and finally got around to using one! Very handy for books, sunscreen, sunglasses, all the stuff that would otherwise end up in the way.
With depth out of the way, time to deal with the compass issue. I opted to go with a small handheld compass as a backup to a small Lowrance chartplotter at the helm, from Radioworld.
I LOVE these things. Lowrance "Gold" plotters include a 2 gig Navionics chart card, and the plotter we had on Whiskeyjack never let us down. The seated helm position on NextBoat makes the 4"ish screen size practical, and, though small, the screen is easy to read, the controls are intuitive and the menus easy to understand. The included mount swivels and tilts, making it viewable from anywhere in the cockpit....
...even if you are a slacker teenager, as Jordan demonstrates:
$250 well spent.
$3 worth of 1/4" line and an hour or so of time dressed up the wheel...
All of this new electrical gear requires improved electrical charging management- Two $99 40 watt solar panel/ 7 amp charge controller kits from Canadian Tire were installed to charge the battery bank. When docked, or flat water motoring, the panels live on the bimini-
When the wind picks up, they migrate to the aft deck. An upcoming project is to sew pockets into the bimini to secure these lightweight panels up there full time.
Down below, hammocks were hung and bungies were strung and non-skid mats were laid to keep everything that has a place, in it's place.
The settee-berth did not have a table, although there was one installed at some point in the past:
A while back some of the stuff that James was clearing out of his boat shed ended up in my boat shed. Among the assortment of stuff was a table base and post. a little plywood and edgebanding later, we now have a salon table:
We managed to bend the shank on the anchor that came with NextBoat, and decided this was an opportunity to reduce weight on the bow and make anchoring a less strenuous task for the crew on the foredeck, by replacing the current steel anchor with an aluminum Fortress anchor....
...which requires assembly.
slightly larger flukes, slightly longer shank, half the weight of the previous anchor should make anchor launching and retrieving easier.
We'll let you know how it goes.
Last but not least, a quick little project with a big "why didn't they do this from the factory?" factor:
There are no clutches on the cabin top, and the only cleats are horn cleats...
which leave much to be desired when it comes to tying off halyards. You get a couple of wraps on the winch to get a full pull on the mainsail halyard, only to lose tension when you try to secure the halyard around the cleat, leaving you with a baggy sail.
We installed a cam cleat ahead of the horn cleat. No more baggy sails for us!
We also ran the mainsail reefing line to the coachroof, enabling us to reef the main without having to leave the cockpit.
Finally, we made life easier for the mutts. We carpeted the companionway ladder, to make it easier for them to climb/descend.
Ellie demonstrates that she now has ample room to run around.
Lots more projects ahead, lots more work to do, but, she's getting there.
She is becoming a home.
"Talk the Dock!"
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