Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

It depends on the speed of the wind but

it's only turning due to the wind pushing on the surface of the blade and not from the aerodynamic shape of the blade. It won't be so much as to be a problem using the switch. I'm thinking mine is running at about 40 or 50 RPMs in a pretty good wind when I have flip the switch. I had an old "Red Wing" 25 years ago with a 5 foot 2 blade prop that I would tie off with a line once I got the damn thing stopped. It was to dangerous to get close so I would short the windings at half speed which is all the slower I could get it to go by turning it out of the wind. It was pretty exciting but it never seemed to bother it much. It made a hell of a lot of power but it was prior to regulators and would boil your batteries if you weren't careful. The new generation generators are "Oh, so much better".

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