"Rosalie B." wrote in message

We have heard the same from folks that cruise in the tropics and near
tropics also. They do not like wind generators and take them off and
go exclusively with solar panels. We however like ours very well. It
works especially well at night when the sun doesn't shine and when it
is cloudy, which it sometimes is up here in the Chesapeake. It is not
dangerous or noisy, but it also does warn us when the wind is cranking
up.

Our KISS normally doesn't wake us up as it is very quiet. Plus it is mounted
on the stern and we sleep in the V-Berth.

When it's squall time at 3 am and the wind kicks up to 35 kts with
cold driving rain - who wants to go on deck to turn it out of the wind
and secure it. They all sound like a Cessna on the back deck trying to
do a short field takeoff. And they **** off you neighbors.

I just flick a switch from inside the boat to shut the wind generator
down.
Better yet, the charge controller senses the high wind situation and
shuts
it down automatically until the wind calms down to an acceptable level.
Swinging the mill by hand is both dangerous and archaic.

We don't have to go outside the boat either - the wind gen turns
itself off if the wind gets too high, or we have a switch inside that
we can turn it off when we are in a marina and don't want to disturb
our neighbors. Some neighbors are easier to disturb than others.
Some neighbors I'd like to disturb because they disturb me, but Bob
restrains me.

Running a wind generator in a marina is rude! Never any good reason
to do so.

We'd like to have a genset for among other things to refill the scuba
tanks. What we have now is engine driven refrigeration, which we run
twice a day.

12 volt belt driven holding plate systems work well. The genset is a
nice complement. We run our genset for an hour in the morning to pull
down the cold plates and recharge the batteries and make coffee. Run
it again in the early evening to pull down the plates, recharge the
batteries
and make hot water.

Doug
s/v Callista