We are moving Island Pearl II from AGM to Lithium this week here in Australia, so I just wanted to shout out to you with a huge thanks for all your hard work here and for sharing. It has been a huge help to us!

Our system will not be as complex as yours, and particularly we have decided to go with 24v Lithium batteries instead of connecting banks of two 12v's in series, and we already had the Victron 3000w/70amp Multi Inverter/Charger installed in the "ex wet locker" (our cockpit is fully enclosed so the Admiral never allows wet gear downstairs anyway!). Even on the old AGM's at 450amp hrs capacity, we have never experienced any heating problem with this unit situated there, and we particularly placed it there due to advice about placing it closer to the battery banks. This also had the advantage to us of having both Dolphin chargers still available too as a backup. With 1040w solar, plus two Rutland 1200 wind gens, we have frequently run 3 x full 6.5kg loads in the clothes washer in a single hot sunny day on the batteries alone, but to get to this we had to replace the old Thompson washer with the latest Bosch model 6.5kg washer last year. We don't normally like to run the rear aircon on the inverter for long but now with Lithium we think that would be a real possibility too!

Since we were almost completely running on nature alone before with this existing setup, we very much hope that the switch to 4 x 100Amp hr 24v LifePo4 batteries will be the absolute end of us ever needing the Genset, other than to give it it's normal once two weekly run to ensure we don't "lose it through not using it!"

Wishing you and Mia a wonderful cruising season this year and we do hope to catch up with you if and when you ever sail into Brisbane, Australia.

Best regards

Colin & Lauren Streeter

SV Island Pearl II SM#332

Newport Marina, Brisbane, Australia

Link to our circumnavigation tracks: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/IslandPearl2

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njyLgJb3FfA