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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...Ready For It?

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Il nuovo Beneteau Oceanis 41.1 in navigazione a Palma con a bordo il suo progettista Pascal Conq

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There are four things that weigh on every cruising sailor's mind. #1 Power #2 Fuel #3 Fresh Water #4 Human Waste There can be in upwards of 300+ boats anchored around George Town, Bahamas off of the Great Exuma Island. We've now spent almost three weeks here and it's surprising to me how many boats do not move. It's long been rumored that many of these boats are pumping their black water overboard but, we had hoped it wasn't the case. However, checking in on the Facebook group of George Town Bahamas, it was indeed confirmed to be the case. Fortunately, not everybody subscribes to pumping out in a harbor like this (it is illegal) but, unfortunately, there's too many people that do. There were three justifications made for such behavior: First: The harbor has a south and north entrance and is therefore subject to a constant flow of water and essentially flushing the harbor after every tide cycle Second: The Bahamians don't adhere to their own laws (Ed: so why should we??) Third: (Yes...this was actually a justification given). A Manatee poops more in one day than a human in a year. Suffice it to say, you don't have to look too far and speak with too many cruisers that have been coming to Bahamas over the last decade to see that the reefs are under stress. I'll be the first to admit that I'm no expert on this subject nor am I one to suggest that I couldn't do more. However, it seems to me that even if dumping black water in the harbor has a near negligible impact on marine life, we should still do what we can. Besides, going out on a day sail once per week doesn't seem like all that much of an inconvenience!

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We are very proud to announce we are this years winner of the Global Impact Award. Thank you to the Young Cruisers Association, Sea People App and International Cruisers Awards for picking us. And a HUGE thank you to our patrons, donators and supporters who made this possible! #cruisers #awards #winner #sailing #sailingvlog #saveanimals #animalrescue

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