Going Green(er)

We've been trying hard to reduce our carbon foot-print and to be as "off-the-grid" as possible when it comes to fossil fuel usage. Besides our wonderfully efficient diesel Yanmar engine, which we use for no-wind propulsion, Terrapin uses a decent size battery bank to power all lighting, refrigeration and electronics. The batteries are charged daily by our 245 watt solar panel but on days when we are anchored close to a mountain or there is limited sunshine, they don't get a full charge.

This is not a problem for us if it only occurs infrequently but recently we have had a hard time getting a full charge which will eventually damage the batteries. The best solution for us was to add a wind generator which, in the breezy trade winds is generating a lot of power 24 hours a day. We can now run all lights and electronics and are still at 100% charge by mid-day! The financial return in not using and paying for fossil fuel to charge our batteries pays for the wind generator in less than one year! Also, when we are sailing at night we will be able to run all our navigation electronics whenever we want to and not have to "cycle" them to conserve power.

Picking the location for the rubber mounted base.

Getting up the courage to drill holes in our nice deck.

The mounted wind generator.

The next morning we were almost full after running the refrigerator all night and using a lot of incandescent lights.

Kala was not impressed and just wanted dinner.