Re: Wind generators
|
Surely it depends on where you cruise and the time of year.
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
To give an extreme example; in the north of the U.K. during winter there is precious little sun, about 6 hours of daylight and 18 of darkness. Solar will not produce much, whilst wind will perform as it blows like hell. I am not planning on a winter cruise of the Hebrides! Another example is Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. It blows the whole time and is sunny too. Both will perform. I have a pair of Rutland 1200’s and they had a remote monitor with accumulative amps generated. Each Rutland came with a controller that could also do solar. So I had a port controller of the Rutland with one 265a solar panel. And a starboard controller doing the starboard WG and Starboard solar panel. They both had counters on the remotes. Solar out performed wind most of the time. However whilst sailing in strong winds even downwind the WG ‘s we’re useful, especially the windward WG. I found that at night running everything with the autopilot working hard I had full batteries. Unfortunately I did not record the figures of cumulative amps generated. So the set up was great in principle….but the controllers got hot and seamed to be a bit primitive. So I changed to a single Blue Sky Solar controller for both panels, And continued with the WG controllers for them. The WG’s were silent re the blades but created a harmonic hum that came down the frame into the aft cabin. The WG’s failed and went back for repair (free) Now they failed again and burned out. Rutland have said they will repair them for free. So now I have lugged the whole lot back to the U.K. for repair but I have had it with the brand. The company has been good but frankly they are just not reliable enough for Amelia. So I will try and eBay them after service. On a cost benefit basis, including the hassle and irritation I am afraid that solar has been an outright winner and wind a painful expensive hassle. In conclusion for my cruising plans that may include some summer higher latitude forays solar will be the backbone of renewable power. I may add a Superwind 350, we shall see. Had I bought Superwind 350 from the beginning I may have had a great set up. The trouble is that they are damn expensive compared to solar! Nick S/Y Amelia AML54-019 back stored ashore in Leros as I am 83 days out of 90 in Schengen. On 30 Aug 2021, at 04:54, Danny and Yvonne SIMMS <simms@...> wrote:
|
|
|