On May 12, 8:50 pm, "Shaun Van Poecke"
wrote:
Not mentioned as an alternative is a piece of rope with a propeller on
the end dragged behind the boat and fastened to the shaft of a DC
generator. The "rope" must be of sufficient size and material to be
up to the job and the propeller should be on the end of a 3 to 4 foot
metal shaft so as to give it stability.

thats absolutely brilliant! did you hook it direct to the shaft, or via a
pulley? Thats so simple it almost hurts that i didnt think of it first ;-)

Shaun

The flexible line is connected directly to the shaft and directly to
the alternator. It has to be a low speed alternator. There are
designs for making an alternator low speed in places like The Mother
Earth News and other "back to the earth" publications. They do it for
direct drive wind generators. Any non geared wind generator motor
should do. The alternator is mounted on the aft rail or thereabouts.
I have a surplus 12V DC motor. I use the same motor on the wind
generator so there is only one set of spare bearings to carry.