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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Feather Stars are a crinoid that is typically found anchored to the bottom on coral reefs. On occasion you can find them using their feathery arms to go for a swim. This one was spotted while diving in Komodo National Park aboard All Star Aurora Liveaboard.

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Teaser du nouveau modèle Greenline NEO prévu pour 2019. Le prototype de la coque avec deux moteurs électriques sera exposé à l'Internautica Boat Show à Marina Portorož, Slovénie du 17 au 20 mai 2018 Evasion Yachting, Importateur France de la marque Greenline depuis 2010 Trawlers Greenline Hybrides : https://www.evasion-yachting.com/catalogue/trawlers-hybrides-greenline Bateaux Moteur Greenline : https://www.evasion-yachting.com/catalogue/bateaux-moteur-greenline

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Tanguy de Lamotte a trouvé un parrain pour son monocoque Initiatives-Cœur à bord duquel il s'apprête à prendre le départ du Vendée Globe. Il s'agit Kev Adams. Découvrez le message adressé par le skipper au jeune humoriste pour le remercier.

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It's a perfect breezy morning in Palma de Mallorca where SAIL Editor-in-Chief Wendy Mitman Clarke is sailing hull No. 1 of the new Dufour 41. Stay tuned for a video walkthrough and review coming up soon! @dufouryachts #sailing #boattest #dufour

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