We cut the dock lines without one. When we got stuck in Marathon waiting for weather to cross to Isla Mujeres for 3 weeks, too much wind and no sun convinced us that our solar (225 watts) and KISS wind generator would have times when they just wouldn't keep us topped up. Like Mike, by far our biggest draw is our refrigerator. We added a Honda 2000, thinking we'd not need it very often. Turned out there are MANY times when there's either not enough wind or not enough sun that we can't keep the batteries topped up. We run it when we need topped off, usually a half hour a day - unfortunately the hour that our batteries are the lowest is first thing in the morning ... just the time when I needed topped off batteries for the SSB to be net control. So, we once a week, we had to make sure we were anchored so that our port side was away from everyone so we could run it the half hour before the net.

Rarely do we have to run it long, but then we have solar and wind. If we had it to do over again, we'd have 450 watts of solar, not 225. Like Mike, we empty the gas completely and store it below during the six months we're not cruising. Underway it resides in the cockpit in front of the pedestal, in the way, but worth the hassle.

Cheers! Jan