sailfish

whoa! i've had to unplug from shore power today and let the solar panels do their thing. They are now in desulfating mode - short bursts into the batteries to break down the sulfated layers. Its not quite 400w, 380 to be precise. One thing they did was give me a to small fuse wire and fuse (only 15amps) (must have been for 24v) cause although I havnt broken 15amps yet its come close and those wires are very warm! Mounted on top of my dodger, both panels take up a combined 1.6m2. They sit above our rain catcher with nice airflow underneath. I mounted them so there is only chance of one

Just finished solar panel install. 400w with a 30amp mppt controller. Just trying to drain our batteries a bit to see what solar panels will put in. Currently its very very cloudy in wellington and still in float mode and pumping 6amps in which is good. So on the cloudest days we'll at least get 6amps. Thats enough to run our fridge and part of our freezer during the day

Cut lots of steel out of the engine room in preparation for the 12-18hp(not sure what it is) diesel genny and dive compressor to go in. Made the frame they sit on so I can run it up as a unit out of the boat. Turned the old girl round so I could get ready to put the new 100m's of chain in but that didnt arrive so removed the diesel day tank and cut the off its mounts in anticipation for relocation further into the engine room.

busy weekend! just finished the new garmin ghp12 autopilot install, rewired the engine room electrical panel after a small meltdown (removed trailer plugs from wiring harness!!) and got the strange VSR box in our kitchen now working between both batteries (it came with the boat and I didnt think it was ever working - and confirmed because it now has LED's blinking ), then went out in the harbor and let the autopilot do its self configuration / setup and then let it sail us around the harbor. We learnt today how cool it is to not steer