Ive sailed all my life in all types of sailboats, Ive also learned to sail
on a sailboat with a broken down engine so that we had to be super
conservative with power on our 30ft cat during trips.

My experience has taught me one thing. From what I remember you should have
about 20-25%(cant seem to remember if this is right though....) of your
capacity in rating your alternator, and make sure you have a good controler,
run that thing at full steam to charge your batteries and youll fry them.
The only true reason to get a big alternator is to run a converter to get
some 115V AC or for other high consumption items such as a 12v refrigeration
system. Beyond that there is no real reason to spend the money on a bigger
alternator.


"Larry" wrote in message
...
Lew Hodgett wrote in
nk.net:

Having myself been involved in the low voltage DC business for a while,
thought he gave me pretty good advice.

Lew


What always amazes me is how a sailboater thinks he can recharge his house
batteries in 20 minutes with a 500A alternator.....It just isn't gonna
happen!

--
Larry