Sailing Saoirse - We got LITHIUM ION batteries for our sail boat! 🔋

We have upgraded our power system!! 👏 and are so happy with the results. After a winter of battling to get enough power into the batteries each day, even with out nearly 1400kW solar system, we came to the conclusion that we needed new batteries. Then came the dilemma of "do we replace our batteries with new lead acid or splurge and go with lithium"? After months of not wanting to face the cost implications, we decided that we should bite the bullet and go with lithium ion. We also decided to add Sterling Alternator - to battery chargers so that if we had to start our engines to charge the batteries, it would all happen very quickly, whilst also protecting the alternator and batteries. Getting the old 56kg each, lead acid batteries out of their cubbies, was a job but replacing them with the new 28kg LifePo4 batteries was such a pleasure. It took a couple of days for Chris - our go-to guy - to carry out the installation and change over all the settings in the system to accommodate the Lithium Iron batteries, but its been so worth it in the end!! We have gone from a little over 400 Ah lead acid setup - with only 200Ah usable power - to 440Ah lithium setup with usable power of just under 400Ah - effectively doubling our usable energy. The new Blue Nova batteries have their own integrated battery management system and with careful use and monitoring, with an 50% depth of discharge, we expect to get at least 5000 cycles out of the batteries - which equates to over 10 years of use!! Our next worry was whether the +/-1400kW solar system would cope with filling the batteries. We needn't have worried. After a few weeks of figuring out the settings on our MPPT controllers, borrowing a Victron dongle from our friend Ernie - (thanks Ernie😉) we managed to customise our controller settings and now we have full batteries everyday by around 11am!! We still cant believe how fast these lithium batteries charge in the right conditions. We even have great power going in on an average cloudy day - so all in all we are ecstatic at how it has changed our lives when it comes to power - which everyone that lives on a boat knows, is a huge part of your life. We have even bought ourselves an induction cooker - so now we even get a lot of the cooking done everyday, using solar energy which means we get to save on costly gas 😜. We also get to deal with South African Dept of Home Affairs, when Robin, Teagan and Colben go to renew their passports. Denver's is practically brand new and I will be traveling on my British passport but the others only have a couple of years left on their current passports, so we decided it would be best to renew them whilst still in the country, rather than through foreign consulates later on. We were expecting the worst, after being told during a phone call to the department in Malmesbury, that we should try to get into the que by 4am to ensure getting the applications done before their daily 4pm close We were really surprised when we got there, the que was way shorter than expected and we were through by mid-morning. Almost unheard of!! We made a spur of the moment, surprise visit to great friends in Jeffreys Bay, it was a special time but heartbreaking to say goodbye as we are now really into the final countdown to our leaving South Africa in a little over a months time. Follow our adventures through our Instagram accounts Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sailing_saoirse_/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/findingfr33dom/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sailingsaoirse If you enjoy the video, please subscribe, like and hit the notification bell so that you are notified each time we upload a new video. Doing that is also a free way for you to support our channel and help us grow. Please also leave comments or questions, we love the feedback and are also interested to know if there are any topics you would like us to cover in a future video