Hi Danny,

Thanks for the concern, and dialogue.  Sorry about the cold-sweats.  I agree, needing to rotate the unit out-of-wind &/or to physically tether the blades due to an operating limitation/requirement, is not a viable option for anything mounted above, say, 2 meters.  That is not the case here.

I am not thinking on doing a mast-climb to lower the wind-turbine at sea or in adverse conditions.

What I am thinking is to lower the unit (or remove the blades) if hauling out, or leaving the boat, for an extended period in a high-wind-prone area/season.  Not just for the survivability of the unit itself, but because of the wind-loads such additions would place on the attachment points, mast, and boat as a whole. Just as one would for solar panels, or other removable deck-ware.  It may be that the insurance company requires the masts to be taken off if secured on-land in the hurricane belt in-season, in which case this aspect becomes moot.

As an aside, in addition to a manual switch that stops/slows the blades (by shorting out the coils), the Rutland 1200 starts to electronically self-limit at wind-speeds above 35 knots (or when charging current is no longer needed). To my mind this is better than simply letting the the blades spin to dump excess current to a resistive load (&/or trying to slow/stop a rotor already exposed to high winds).  I have heard of Rutland 1200 units successfully self-limiting and surviving hurricane-force winds.  On that basis, I reckon that the unit can stay up in all conditions I am likely to encounter at sea.  Of course, as we have seen with IRMA, nothing, not even the masts themselves, can necessarily survive a full-on Cat5 or, more properly, the debris that is often associated with such conditions.

David
Perigee, SM#396
St Maarten