I agree that SM is a very quiet boat. Essentially no squeaking in big seas and wind, and a tiny bit of thermal expansion/contraction noise. There is one way that the SM makes some noise though, and I

"Higher operating voltage panels are better" is an overgeneralization. You need to factor in the desired performance, costs of the other parts of the system, topology of your charge controllers, and y

We've had good experience with SunPower. We were looking specifically for flexible panels for our bimini because we didn't want to add an arch, so maybe what we found isn't quite applicable to you. Th

David, since you seem to be so interested in having an external LTE antenna (which I've never found the need for), might I suggest you get one of those hockey-puck portable hotspots? I've had good luc

Gerhard, thanks for including those diagrams. That makes it a lot more clear what I was trying to say in my earlier post. The directional antennas are great if you can be sure it will always be pointe

Eric, where did you mount your Groove? Ryan and Kelly SM 233 Iteration Boston, MA, USA

I decided to build my own system. I think it was lower cost, and it's great knowing that I can troubleshoot and repair every aspect of it. I've been meaning to do a full writeup on how I did it for my

That was a great post, Brent. Tom, to answer your question, the AIS messages are packets, but they're not as compact as you're envisioning. The transmission speed is slow enough that the designers dec

Hi Mark, Do you have a Class A VHF? Those are the type that use two antennas for DSC, but I've never seen one in the flesh -- most recreational boats use Class D, with a shared antenna. On our boat, w

When Kelly and I first got out SM, we were bothered by this sound, too. I think I even noted it during the sea trial. I remember it keeping us up the first night we stayed on the boat. But shortly the

These are used in a few places on our Super Maramu, most notably on the cockpit table. Amel replaced one for us in Martinique and I'm pretty sure they just called it a "special nut". Google translates

Our boat has a little placard next to the shifter which reads "Sous voiles, moteur arrêté. NE JAMAIS LAISSER LE LEVIER EMBRAYE dans la POSITION QUI NE STOPPE PAS franchement l'hélice." (crazy capit

Hi Vic, One of our very clever crew members found a great spot for it. Kelly built a sturdy mounting board with rubber feet and then the other crew member lashed the whole assembly to the mizzen mast

Tom, The description on the website is wrong. The Series 44 is the LED successor to the Series 40, and almost exactly the same size and shape. It is side-mount. I chose it specifically because it is a

Hi Dan, I replaced the wiring from the lights, through the bow pulpit, all the way back to the port deck locker. This let me get the length of the wire exactly correct. I was having wiring issues anyw

I recently made the change to the series 44. The mounting plate is not exactly the same -- you can't use the neat little slide on/off bracket. Two of the screw holes do line up, though. I drilled a th

Hi Wolfgang, There are a ton of marinas in Boston, and I don't think you can go wrong with any of them, so it really depends on what you're looking for and how much you're willing to pay. Dockwa has v

Trident Marine makes adapters that go from US to European fittings and the other way around. They're available through Defender. I don't know if that would get your US tank filled, but if you had to b

Hi Tom, Great meeting you last week. I believe we have the same watermaker you do (Iteration is hull 233). We see almost exactly the same production rate that you do. I believe we see similar TDS as w

Hi Alex, As you probably noticed, it's made by Anderson Power Products. It is most likely the SB-50 model. If you unscrew it and look at the bottom, you'll be able to definitively identify the model.