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1) Understanding your energy needs is essential to determine how much solar you need. Start by making an "energy budget". List all your consumers and their daily usage. For example, if your LED lights use 1W per bulb and you have eight bulbs on for 5 hours a day, that would be 8 Watts for 5 hours or (8x5) 40 Wh (Watt hours). I like to use kWh to keep things consistent. 40 Wh = 0.040 kWh. It's a good idea to list what you're using while at anchor and another list of what you're using while underway (for instance, you don't use your autopilot at anchor). Remember to list everything: fridge, freezer, watermaker, autopilot, nav lights, chart plotters, etc. For example, here aboard Athena, with an electric galley, fridge, freezer, watermaker, two computers, etc, we use an average of 5.5 kWh per day. 2) To give you a quick estimate, use https://globalsolaratlas.info/ to find "Global horizontal irradiation" per day for your location. Take your daily energy consumption from step 1 and divide that by the number of solar hours. In the case of Athena, located in the Caribbean, that would be 5.5kWh per day / 5 sun hours = 1.1 kW solar array. Keep in mind that this is a theoretical number that does not take into account the shading or degradation of the panels over time. Let's add 30%. 1.1 x 1.3 = 1.43 kW. You can now divide that number by the panel's Nominal Power output. In the case of Athena, our panels are 400W SunPower panels. 1430W / 400W = 3.6 panels needed to cover our 5.5 kWh per day consumption. 3) Understand that the amount of solar you can install on a small sailboat is limited by the size of the boat and heavily influenced by shading and, of course, the boat's location. The size of the panels might also be defined by the height of your stanchions or the size of an existing solar arch. Figure out where you're able and willing to install panels. That will dictate the size and number of panels. 4) Use Victron Energy's MPPT Calculator to calculate what MPPT is ideally sized for your solar panels and expected output based on location. Based on our experience in the Caribbean, the estimate provided by the guide is reasonable. https://www.victronenergy.com/mppt-calculator. Remember that it's best practice to avoid combining panels with different specs on the same MPPT. #sailboat #sailboatproject #boatwork #saillife #liveaboard #liveaboardlife #saltlife #sailing #sailingadventure #travel ingcouple #livingonaboat #solar #sailboatsolar

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Ruby A's video from the Hine Moana programme April 2022

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Hit the throttle on the Leader 7.5 CC — where bold performance meets sleek style for an adventurous day on the water. 🌊 #Leader75CC #BoatLife #StyleMeetsSpeed

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Batteries died at anchor

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Nautitech in comparison to the two major players in production catamarans are famed for their performance and are often the sailors choice in catamaran terms uncompromising in their pursuit of a preferred balance between comfort and performance. This one is a rather special example taken away from the factory at an early stage by its wealthy discerning owner keen to adopt a greener approach to sailing. In fact this one can not fairly be compared to a run of the mill production Nautitech, as it was originally built as a project to promote an upgraded option called "Greenboat" as a commercial venture, bristling with high tech upgraded equipment on all levels offering a much more luxurious fit out altogether. The Nautitech is a pretty looking catamaran, spacious and a spritely sailing catamaran, which really does knock spots of most of its rivals in its factory fitted standard guise, but this one is in another league . The condition of this pocket superyacht is beautiful and no prospective purchaser would fail to be impressed with every aspect inside and out. If your looking for a Nautitech in this size range you will not find a better example.

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