On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:10:37 -0500, "KLC Lewis"
wrote:

No. To do so violates International Law, not to mention the beliefs of
several major religions.

And it will make your "Porta-Pail" smell.

Wind generator and Solar panels seem to be the things of the day.

Years ago solo sailors doing circumnavigation were using water trolling
impellers to charge their batteries.

At the time, the water impeller generator appear to produce enough
electrical power to operate short wave radio. The main problem was that
fishes or sharks would get attracted by the underwater trolling device and
eat it or damage it. Any tough on a newer design that could supplement
solar panels?


"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:10:37 -0500, "KLC Lewis"
wrote:

No. To do so violates International Law, not to mention the beliefs of
several major religions.

And it will make your "Porta-Pail" smell.

wrote in message
news
Wind generator and Solar panels seem to be the things of the day.

Years ago solo sailors doing circumnavigation were using water trolling
impellers to charge their batteries.

At the time, the water impeller generator appear to produce enough
electrical power to operate short wave radio. The main problem was that
fishes or sharks would get attracted by the underwater trolling device and
eat it or damage it. Any tough on a newer design that could supplement
solar panels?

I'm still waiting for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to give me the
thumbs up on an RTG.
--
Mike Harris
Austin TX

Mike Harris wrote:
I'm still waiting for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to give me the
thumbs up on an RTG.

The Russians have surplus remote site power RTGs available black
market. Would also provide plenty of heat if you're in a colder clime.

"Mark" wrote in news:1159760148.524731.250140
@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:


Mike Harris wrote:
I'm still waiting for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to give me the
thumbs up on an RTG.

The Russians have surplus remote site power RTGs available black
market. Would also provide plenty of heat if you're in a colder clime.



Go look around the Bellona Foundation's English website:
http://bellona.no/bellona.org
Lots of the RTGs are just laying next to their abandoned Russian navaids,
some laying in the water disassembled. Bellona has many interesting
pictures about Russian nuclear power the world needs to pay attention to
besides Chernobyl......



--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

"Mark" wrote in news:1159760148.524731.250140
@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:


Mike Harris wrote:
I'm still waiting for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to give me the
thumbs up on an RTG.

The Russians have surplus remote site power RTGs available black
market. Would also provide plenty of heat if you're in a colder clime.



Here's some interesting reading.....

http://bellona.org/filearchive/fil_T..._Challenge.pdf

Scary....very scary....

"just me" wrote in
:

I'm going to buy a wind generator at the Annapolis boat show. Leaning
hard towards an Air-X

Any thoughts? pros/cons? Who's using what?

I'm not a fan of Air-X generators. They whine, even the new ones with the
improved blades. I won't anchor near one and I can't imagine having one
onboard.

I have a KISS generator and while they're popular with the cruising
community, they certainly have their own problems. They have 3 internal
thermal circuit breakers that open when it generates too much power. Too
much power ends up being over 18 kts of continuous wind. The real problem
with this is that the blades then free-wheel and I really don't like having
free wheeling spinning right above my head.

There's a switch that's supposed to feather the blades, but once a thermal
breaker has opened it's almost impossible to electrically feather the blades
as once you flip the switch, you can almost bet that the other breakers will
open too. The only option then is to grab the line connected to the tail
and swing it sideways to the wind. That's a lot of fun when a squall is
coming through and the (*!&@ is hitting the fan and you're wrestling with the
wind generator. I managed to snap the tail off when the line caught a blade
and the boat hook hit the tail.

If I were to purchase a new wind generator I would strongly consider a
SuperWind ( http://www.superwind.com/swe/index.htm ) generator. I've seen
several of them on other cruising yachts and I was very impressed with the
construction, noise and output curves. They mechanically feather and produce
29 A at above 24 kts of wind. I sure wish that they had been available when
I bought my KISS.

Note that the need and/or usefullness of a wind generator is highly dependent
upon where you cruise. I spend 6-7 months a year in the Caribbean where the
trades average about 15 kts, so a wind generator is very useful. I also have
2 hard-dodger mounted solar panels that provide additional power. I don't
like flip-up wing solar panels that are mounted by the lifelines, as I've
seen these ripped off in big seas.

-- Geoff