New Boom

Circe's boom and gooseneck arrangement has been an area of concern to us ever since we first took ownership. There were numerous issues that we wanted to eliminate. When we were in Alameda at Hansen Rigging for the recent new solent stay installation we also ordered a new boom and commissioned them to design and build us a new, upgraded gooseneck arrangement.

The original Kenyon spar always seemed too light for a mid-boom mainsheet. We thought the cam style reefing cleats were flimsy and we saw serious galvanic corrosion where the end cap retaining screws and the vang mount had been assembled  without any corrosion inhibitor. 

We also didn't like the mainsheet routing along the full length of the boom as it was constantly chafing against the vang near the boom mount.

We also thought the gooseneck bracket could be improved. All the pivot holes were badly worn and we didn't like fighting the  sail slugs to use the fixed reefing hooks. Also both the skinny welded aluminium ears on the mast were bent.

We made sure that the job got the best supervision money could buy.... ;-)

Here is the old boom coming off the boat.

The old and the new side by side. The new spar section is a full inch deeper than the original. It will be much stiffer.

The old mast lugs being cut off......

....and the mast being cleaned up. 

(Also visible here on the mast is  the StrongTrack  extrusion. We very "strongly" recommend this, a great improvement for hoisting and dropping the mainsail.)

The new, fabricated gooseneck bracket. Look at those welds, Hansen does top notch work.

The finished boom, ready for paint (Awlgrip).

The new gooseneck bracket installed. The boom mounting ears are now thicker and further apart for more strength, stability and to resist any twisting of the boom.

Everything going back together.

We splashed out for new mainsheet blocks and re-routed it to eliminate the chafing problem on the vang bracket.

To get a cleaner route for the main-sheet we ditched both the boom block closest to the mast and the stand up block on the forward edge of the main cabin. We replaced them with a single block mounted to a small bail anchored in the sail track.

Mainsail going back up.

Finished. Note the two heavy duty Spinlock clutches under the front end of the boom for the reefing lines and the pigtail replacing the reefing hooks. Much more secure and easier to operate than the original set-up. 

Sailing back home to Richmond in 10-12 knots of wind. The new set-up makes it sooooo much easier for Old Matelots to manage the mainsail. 

On to the next project!

Solar Panel

As already noted elsewhere on this blog, our energy independence plan calls for five options to source our electricity; Wind generator, Solar array and Diesel alternator (all DC). Gasoline or LPG generator, shore power (both AC). This post records the installation of the solar power part of the plan.

Solar will be our primary passive power source, so our first concern was how to do the best possible job of matching output to our realistic power consumption on an average day. First problem; what is an average day? Is it sitting on the hook, with 10 - 12 hours of clear sunny skies, a steady 10 - 12 kts of wind and a temperature of 70 degrees? Is it powering along on a wet, overcast day with no sun, a 5kt breeze and temps in the 40's with the lights, auto-pilot, GPS, radar and radios in constant use? Or, how about anchored in thick fog with little or no wind, no sun, the anchor light and radar on with the water maker running for a couple of hours? Our best guesstimates for different  possible 'average days' varied from 70 to 160 amp hours so, in the end, we gave up!

When we talked to some other cruising sailors they all gave us the same story....you can't have too much passive capacity for generating electricity! This is certainly understandable, but the flip side is the long list of 'essentials' that are installed on so many cruising boats, and the acres of PV panels supported by extensive 'scaffolding' that seem to sprout up as a result. Many a cockpit has morphed from a pleasant retreat to an ugly cage, and we wanted to try and avoid that.

So, we decided to look at things another way. We would select a solar panel that would fit the space available on top of the new Bimini (without the need for extensive new support framework) and see how we managed with it for a few months, along with the recently installed Superwind generator. If we found we were having power shortfalls we would 'go active' as necessary, probably with the Honda genset. (We are reluctant to use the Perkins diesel just for battery charging, diesels don't like to run without much load.) Beyond that, if we found we were still short of power, we would break down and revisit the whole solar issue and consider additional PV panels.  

After all the usual on-line research we found ourselves repeatedly coming back to the eMarine website. They carry a wide selection of power related products for boats and seemed very knowledgeable and helpful when we called to discuss options. Largely based on their reputation for durability, we zeroed in on PV panels made by Kyocera and Sharp. Based on suggestions from eMarine (and remembering that we didn't want a couple of pool tables on the bimini), we selected a single 215 Watt Kyocera panel that would fit comfortably between the legs of the split back stay, along with a Blue Sky 2512 MPPT charge controller suitable to manage the panel's high (33.2 vOC) voltage.

Here is the new Kyocera panel, just delivered to the boat. It looks huge sitting in the main cabin!

There were already a pair of grab rails fitted on top of the Bimini, so we decided to use them as the supports for the panel. This made the mounting quite simple, rigid and kept the panel a couple of inches off the Bimini for cooling. 
 

We fitted split rail clamps to the grab rails and used regular 1" stainless tube and Bimini mounting hardware to connect them. The actual panel support 'Z' brackets and the plastic clamps were bought from eMarine.

Despite all our careful measuring we found that if we centred the panel fore and aft on the Bimini it was a bit close to the boom when amidships, so we moved it back about 4" to give adequate clearance. 

The repositioned panel doesn't hang beyond the transom but it does protrude quite a way past the back of the bimini and bothers our eye for symmetry a bit.....!

From a distance the overhang isn't really noticeable but WE know things aren't quite right....!

To get the wires to the controller we needed another cable clam on the transom. There are now four, one for the solar panel, one for the radar and main GPS antenna, one for the wind generator and one for the back-up GPS antenna and WiFi amplifier.

The recent new bimini installation and this solar panel combined to effectively blanket signals to both the WiFi amplifier and the back-up GPS antenna in their original locations on the stern rail, so we moved them both up alongside the solar panel.









The Blue Sky 2512 controller in a plastic junction box from Home Depot, with the lid cut to suit. We used a single 3/4" strain relief fitting for both the PV and load wires and it all went together for a clean looking installation.

Clean looking but not working.........! When we connected everything up there was no output from the controller. The panel was delivering the specified voltage and the controller status LED indicated a bulk charge condition but there was no measurable charge output? The folk at eMarine weren't able to give us much in the way of technical help beyond referring us directly to Blue Sky, who we called next. Blue Sky told us that the 2512 shouldn't have been paired with the high voltage Kyocera panel.....thanks eMarine! They recommended the model 1524 as more suitable. They informed eMarine who shipped us a 1524. Now for the really good news, it had the same problem.....thanks Blue Sky! 

To cut a long story short, we pulled out the Blue Sky controller and  installed a Morning Star controller, which was twice the price of the BS (sic) unit, but worked perfectly from the get go. 



We'll post an addendum to this post when we get a resolution from Blue Sky on the controller selection problem.

Update 6-19-13
The Kyocera solar panel has been working great since we resolved the controller problem. We went round and round with Blue Sky on the compatibility and pairing of their 1524 controller with a high voltage panel (The Kyocera peaks at almost 29v) but we didn't get anywhere. So, we've kept the controller in case we add another panel at some point. 

Learning to live with the solar and wind systems and matching our power consumption to the weather and the time of day has presented some interesting challenges and lessons.

For instance, our home slip is an up-wind, south facing location. So what?.... Well, as we approach our first summer with the solar panel we have discovered that during a good portion of the late morning the sun track is such that we are getting a big shadow on the aft third of the panel from the backstay mounted radome!
For almost three hours the shadow slashes the output of the panel, to less than 2 amps, even with the rest of the panel in full sun!  If the wind is blowing the Superwind takes up the slack but without wind then we lose a big piece of our recharging time.