When the Sun shines down…
April 9, 2016
We finished installing the solar panels today. Two 70W panels and two Genasun GV-10 controllers to charge a 110 amp hour Firefly Oasis carbon foam battery. We only dropped one small, important, non-standard part for one of the clamps in the water, so for a boat project, we can call that a success!
According to our (conservative) energy budget, with these two panels we should be able to generate 150% of our consumption. That should be enough to get us through several cloudy days that we may experience in the early days leaving the California Coast.
By pure luck the Pelagic autopilot ram fits nicely underneath the panels.
Does this make my butt look big?
Very nice! I look forward to following you guys progress again this year!
Guys, great job! And, of course the parts that get dropped are important ones! So playing devil’s advocate and all, what happens in heavy seas (God forbid) and you take one over the minimal dodger and the wave hits the panels or vice versa you get pooped on? Are the mounts really durable in those cases? Just a concerned Dad, I’m sure you are very confident in stuff like that.
Are these to power an autopilot during the race?
Hi Chuck,
Sort of. We will have an autopilot, but plan to use it very little. The panels are primarily to power our instruments, GPS, VHF, running lights at night, and charging of our iThings and computer that we use for navigation and weather.