Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

Between 50 and 100 AH/day...

depending on what's running. That is at 24V, so double if you are on 12V. The solar cells typically seem to put back about 40 - 50 AH on a sunny day. When underway, the instrument system is one of the largest consumers - if everything is fired up, it is about a 5 amp draw. 2 chart plotters, 7 display heads, autopilot, Sirius weather receiver, AIS, VHF, radar on standby, wind, depth, speed - it adds up. I can cut that to about 2 amps (just a few display heads, one chart plotter, radar shut down, etc.). Refrigerator is about 20 AH a day, freezer about the same. Air conditioner draws 26 amps when running. The house lights are all Alpenglow CFL and are quite efficient. Running lights are Lopo LEDs and don't draw much at all. Maybe one of the best things we did was put in LED courtesy foot lights which light the cabin sole throughout. We run this always at night, and it eliminates the need to run other lights just to move around, at very little draw. We also run the red LEDs in the Alpenglow fixtures frequently - these let you do most things in the cabin while drawing a lot less than other lights, and don't seem to attract bugs. So cabin lights are one of the smallest draws on the boat. Another winner is the Mastervolt inverter, which draws very little idle current, I think about 30 mA. Compared to my last Xantrex Prosine 2.0, which draws about 4 amps at idle - so much that it frequently runs its cooling fan even when idle. I leave the Mastervolt on pretty much all of the time.

We have no generator, but the large alternator can charge 280 amps @24V so when the engine is running and the batteries are low, recharge is pretty quick at 3-4 AH/minute. The small alternator only charges about 55 amps, but makes less noise so I run it when there is no need for a heavy charge. There has been so little wind in the Great Lakes that we have almost never had to run the engine just to charge batteries. That may change out in the Atlantic, especially with the reputation for fog in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia which is going to cut solar power.

I have no way to mount a wind generator (mizzen boom would clean it off), and in any case where we have been, it would have done little good.

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