Ian, Thanks ever so much for the helpful post. We are taking delivery December 9 this year and had anticipated adding the Air Marine when it was suddenly dropped from the options list. Your experience may have been the reason for the change, as we all know how evolutionary the SM concept is. The engineering you had to overcome is impressive, but I hope applicable. Perhaps we may see the Air Marine offered again but with a purpose-built masthead fitting for the mizzen. We, too, are concerned about the SM's casual attitude with KwH and were recently gifted with a custom rigging-hung generator. It'll be interesting to see how this works out. The unit was originally set up to put out 110V so it could be plugged in directly to a (US) boat's power inlet. We'll need a transformer to allow us to do the same with the Amel. Looking forward to your next post! Regards, Chuck Luecker --- In amelyachtowners@y..., closereach <no_reply@y...> wrote: Having lived on board my Super Maramu 2000 (299) the past 22 months, mostly on the hook, and sailed 21,000+ nms, I decided to investigate putting a wind generator on the top of my mizzen mast. There are not ANY wind generators that will supply all the SM's electrical needs, and research showed that the only two makes that would make any significant contribution were the Air Marine 403 and the Kiss. However, weight is a factor, and I chose the Air Marine 403 which is half the weight of the Kiss.
Because I did not wish to get the mizzen staysail halyard tangled in the blades, I decided to mount it on the very top of the mizzen mast, where it would be out of the way. Amel kindly supplied me with a copy of the mast top blueprint, and I had a stainless plate made up that matches the mast top plate, and welded the support post to it with suitable bracing. Note that if you wish to replace your mizzen halyard with the wind generator in place, you will have to cut a slot in the plate to allow access to the sheaves.
The 403 worked well up there, even down wind, but the vibration from the unit caused an unbearable resonance in the mast, which made the generators use at night, and even at certain RPM's during the day, impossible to live with. However, after some 6 months of trying various cures, I have come up with a solution that works well.
I discovered a company in England called AVA Limited that specialize in anti vibration mounts. Yes there are many on the market that consist of a rubber block with a stud bonded to each end, but these would not be suitable in case of failure. The AVA mounts are fail safe as they have a bolt through the entire assembly. They are made of die cast aluminium, so they do need spraying with zinc chromate primer then a good quality marine paint before use. Also they have a two bolt flange bottom fitting which would make them difficult to fit to the area of the mast top flange that protrudes outside the profile of the mast.
I got around this by making up 4 aluminium pieces of 1/4" bar that were tapped with three holes. Two holes take the short fixing bolts from the bottom flange of each vibration mount, and into the centre tapped hole I screwed down a bolt that would attach the whole unit to the mizzen mast flange. To make matters even better, I put a strip of 1/4" rubber under each bar before bolting the vibration dampers down, sleeved the 10mm bolts with fuel tubing where they pass through the bottom plate, and put a further piece of rubber under the washes of the 4 bolts that attach the dampers. All bolts were locked with Locktite 270 locking compound.
The wind generator is now never switched off, and is hardly noticeable under sail at all, and makes but a faint singing noise in the aft cabin at night. I would point out though that Air Marine are again testing their Air-X model which will be considerably smoother and quieter in operation. After much dialogue with Air Marine, they have asked me to test an Air-X on my mizzen top. From what I have seen so far, the new model will be worth waiting for. There are some RFI problems to be sorted out before I get the test model, but it should not be long now. They have gone away from using blade flexing to limit the turbine's speed, and are now using more rigid and quieter blades.
Of course, one wind generator will not solve the Super Maramu's thirst for electrons! I have also fitted 2 Solarex 120W 24V solar panels to the side rails just aft of the genoa car adjusters. The combination of all three works well. Under sail in sunlight, I need an apparent wind of 15 knots to equal the electrical demand, and at night 24 knots (radar on). In the tropics, I now only need to run the generator once a day, usually in the evening. My only regret now is that having such reduced generator time, I should have bought a bigger capacity water maker!
I did leave Crusader in the Bahamas for 2 weeks on the anchor with the freezer running but the fridge switched off, and returned to find the batteries fully charged. It's this freedom to leave the boat for sight seeing and visits home that got me interested in an alternative power supply.
AVA Ltd can be found at:
Unit 1, Monkton Park, Farnham Trading Estate, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 9PA, England Tel: 01252-733040 Fax: 01252-722958
What you need are 4 x AL30 Specials-25NAT M10 Core Price 9.56 GB Pounds each.
They are specials in that the top fixing bolt size is increased to 10mm as the original bolts on the AL30 units were a bit on the light side for the application.
Modifications to the bow thruster, hot water system, anchor wash and speaker systems will follow when I get a moment!
Good sailing
Ian Shepherd
Amel Super Maramu 2000 # 299 "Crusader"
Web Site www.bayc.org.uk/crusader Email g4ljf@w...
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