|
All yer eggs
Reading about Skip and Lydia' Gundlatch's misadventure gets me
pondering all I have heard about people who spend years building a boat or saving for casting off only to go a little ways and finding it just doesnt work for them. It just seems like a shame to spend so much time only to have it all go to hell. Maybe it is better to not put it all into that boat but to make her simple and smaller so that if she gets wrecked or otherwise doesnt work out it isnt such a blow. I wonder what the statistics are on what fraction of people who do this sort of thing have it work out. My personal strastegy is that my own boat is sorta small but just large enough for me to cross the Gulf in good weather (28'). She is long ago paid for and isnt a modern beauty but she works well. I have no complicated stuff, no shorepower, no marine head, no chart plotter, nothing fancy at all. I do have a good hull, good sails , a good engine with fixed 3 bladed prop, new rigging and PAPER CHARTS. GPS is just a back-up for my personal navigation obsession. If she was wrecked, I'd shrug my shoulders and figger out what to do next and it wouldnt be too big a deal. People think they have JUST ONE ROLL OF THE DICE but it isnt like that at all. Good luck all |
All yer eggs
On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:48:50 -0800, Frogwatch wrote:
My personal strastegy is that my own boat is sorta small but just large enough for me to cross the Gulf in good weather (28'). She is long ago paid for and isnt a modern beauty but she works well. I have no complicated stuff, no shorepower, no marine head, no chart plotter, nothing fancy at all. I do have a good hull, good sails , a good engine with fixed 3 bladed prop, new rigging and PAPER CHARTS. GPS is just a back-up for my personal navigation obsession. If she was wrecked, I'd shrug my shoulders and figger out what to do next and it wouldnt be too big a deal. I'm with you on this. We used to keep our little boat on Lake Huron. From time to time as we were daysailing we'd watch Admiral Gotbucks sail his big Gozzard out of a 30' wide channel into the lake and I'd remind my mate that if we lost our boat, the insurance company would have to pay us 3X what we paid for her...and if Gotbucks went on the rocks?... Then we'd raise another glass of Veuve and wonder whether they were having any more fun than we were. Although I suppose it's all relative. If you can spend $3/4million on a boat and it doesn't hurt, why not? |
All yer eggs
You have the right stuff on this subject, IMHO. How did you keep VC
cold? |
All yer eggs
On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:08:58 -0800, rexbradley wrote:
You have the right stuff on this subject, IMHO. How did you keep VC cold? old school baby...cubes and lots of them! the only other things taking up space in the icebox were smoked salmon, caviar, capers and a big red onion. |
All yer eggs
On Feb 12, 7:17 pm, "mr.b" wrote:
On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:08:58 -0800, rexbradley wrote: You have the right stuff on this subject, IMHO. How did you keep VC cold? old school baby...cubes and lots of them! the only other things taking up space in the icebox were smoked salmon, caviar, capers and a big red onion. Being a 6th gen N. FL native, I figure even ice is a luxury and I rarely bother with it. If we got too hot, we'd flood the cockpit about 1/4 way and soak our feet. I'd drink hot coffee (from a thermos) in the summer figuring that when I cooled off from drinking it that even if it was 99 degrees out I'd feel cool. When underway, I dont eat much and subsist on Pop Tarts, apples and peanut butter sandwiches. Cooking on a sailboat, what a weird idea. I'll wait till safely anchored to cook. We cook on sterno cans shoved down into the burner wells of the old alcohol stove. Still, it is luxury compared to real camping. |
All yer eggs
In article .com,
"Frogwatch" wrote: It just seems like a shame to spend so much time only to have it all go to hell. Maybe it is better to not put it all into that boat but to make her simple and smaller so that if she gets wrecked or otherwise doesnt work out it isnt such a blow. I wonder what the statistics are on what fraction of people who do this sort of thing have it work out. I'd say that very few boaters get the boat that really works for them. So many spend so much for a boat that they're not comfortable with, that they can't take out on a whim. How many boats equipped for circumnavigation sit idle at the dock or in the yard? How many work megahours to pay for the beast they don't have time to visit? I'm with you, and the guy with the tagline that said something like "A small boat and a bag of cash will beat the boat tied to the bank every day." I can paint and commission Xan in a day, usually do. Sometimes I will also do some chores in the spring, but usually leave the brightwork and other piddling around for some nice day at anchor. "Inside" work gets done when it rains. Every 3 or 4 years, I might even put some wax on the hull. -- Jere Lull Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD) Xan's NEW Pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/ Our BVI FAQs (290+ pics) http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/ |
All yer eggs
On Feb 12, 5:48 pm, "Frogwatch" wrote:
Reading about Skip and Lydia' Gundlatch's misadventure gets me pondering all I have heard about people who spend years building a boat or saving for casting off only to go a little ways and finding it just doesnt work for them. It just seems like a shame to spend so much time only to have it all go to hell. Maybe it is better to not put it all into that boat but to make her simple and smaller so that if she gets wrecked or otherwise doesnt work out it isnt such a blow. I wonder what the statistics are on what fraction of people who do this sort of thing have it work out. My personal strastegy is that my own boat is sorta small but just large enough for me to cross the Gulf in good weather (28'). She is long ago paid for and isnt a modern beauty but she works well. I have no complicated stuff, no shorepower, no marine head, no chart plotter, nothing fancy at all. I was with you until you got to the no marine head part ;-) I'm guessing you are a singlehandler.... What if you want to go farther than just the bahamas, what if you need more tankage (your boat carries about 20 gals of water?), what if you are going to live on this boat for years?? What if you don't want to get a divorce? That being said, a 40+ footer, while inviting at dock, is a bear under storm conditions if not reefed early enough. Ok, smaller can be better (really ... stop laughing... I'm being serious) but there is a point where it can be too small. Tom |
All yer eggs
The Pardey's don't have a head and they have sailed all over the planet.
==== "tom" wrote in message ups.com... On Feb 12, 5:48 pm, "Frogwatch" wrote: Reading about Skip and Lydia' Gundlatch's misadventure gets me pondering all I have heard about people who spend years building a boat or saving for casting off only to go a little ways and finding it just doesnt work for them. It just seems like a shame to spend so much time only to have it all go to hell. Maybe it is better to not put it all into that boat but to make her simple and smaller so that if she gets wrecked or otherwise doesnt work out it isnt such a blow. I wonder what the statistics are on what fraction of people who do this sort of thing have it work out. My personal strastegy is that my own boat is sorta small but just large enough for me to cross the Gulf in good weather (28'). She is long ago paid for and isnt a modern beauty but she works well. I have no complicated stuff, no shorepower, no marine head, no chart plotter, nothing fancy at all. I was with you until you got to the no marine head part ;-) I'm guessing you are a singlehandler.... What if you want to go farther than just the bahamas, what if you need more tankage (your boat carries about 20 gals of water?), what if you are going to live on this boat for years?? What if you don't want to get a divorce? That being said, a 40+ footer, while inviting at dock, is a bear under storm conditions if not reefed early enough. Ok, smaller can be better (really ... stop laughing... I'm being serious) but there is a point where it can be too small. Tom |
All yer eggs
I've come to agree that smaller is better. How small? Well, guess it's
up to the person or persons. Ramblings: Go back quite a few years, to 1963 or so. I had just got out of highschool and wanted some adventure. Got an old 16-footer. I think it was a Petrel? No bucks, you know! Repaired and such and put in a _gasoline_ stove and small outboard. Stocked up and spent a mostly wonderful 6 months. Ah, the wonders of youth. Using a bucket. Well two buckets actually; one for bodily functions (no holding tank requirement then) and the other for baths, washing dishes and so forth. Fast forward to 1972. A bit more bucks. Bought a brand new Southcoast 22 trailer sailer kit. Mostly great weekends. Got married. More mostly great weekends. Looked at the bank account. We did some extensive mods, bought a bunch of charts (a LOT cheaper then), a sextant and learned how to use it, stocked up and sailed off. The two of us spent a mostly wonderful year. One of the downsides was getting caught in a hurricane several hundred miles offshore! Still pretty young and invincible, you know. That was not a pleasant experience at all. It was just a little cat 1 hurricane and I don't even remember the name. But still had seas considerably higher than out 35-ft mast. Being in a few thousand feet of water was a plus. The years go on with quite a few sailboats in and out, all weekend and vacation stuff while making money and all that other necessary stuff. 1999. A live-aboard cruiser friend who raised his two kids aboard was ready to pack in in. We bought his rather neglected, but structuraly sound Coronado 35 ketch. Now the Coronado is HUGE inside and handles much "larger", so think of it as a 45-footer with a 10 foot "air" stern. Spent a year and threw a bunch of boat bucks at her. Installed: 400 Watts of solar, 2 wind generators, autopilot, redundant GPS, electronic charting on redundant laptops, icebox to fridge conversion, Lectra/San, watermaker. Sold the house and business, and spent 2 1/2 years living aboard and cruising. Ended when a week after our 29th anniversery wife informed me she was leaving me for another woman. In a state of depression I did about the stupidest thing in my life - sold the boat at a big loss. A bit later I found a Morgan 302 (30-ft) that needs inside work at a ridiculously low price. Has a 1,200 hour Universal diesel. A couple weeks later met my wonderful now wife. We spent a couple years out in the bay on weekends and are now getting it all together to to spiff the Morgan up, equip with icebox to fridge conversion (that is NICE!), watermaker and solar. I can retire next Sept. If the boat is ready we'll set sail. If not, I'll work until it is ready. Okay, I'm 61. Now it doesn't sound like much difference between a 35 and a 30, but remember space changes more as the cube of LOA. Add in the famous, or infamous if you prefer, Coronado 35 layout and I'd say we have closer to half the room in the Morgan. But we do have a roomy vee-berth (neither of us minds bouncing), a head with soon to be shower, a soon to be dinette, a galley, a comfortable cockpit and a surprisingly lot of stowage space. We almost bought a friend's slightly damaged Gulfstar 44 after Rita. Now that is one monster! Really a floating condo. Decided against it for several reasons. One, it's really a motorsailer (NOT the 43 real sailboat). Two and most importantly it can be VERY expensive to maintain. Cost to own also goes up with the cube of the LOA. As far a going offshore "only in good weather". I disagree. A well-founded boat will handle it, assuming a thoughtful, prepared and experienced crew. I wouldn't do it in a Macgregor say, or even most Hunters. Nor in a stock Southcoast (it had all new, heavier standing rigging and other things). The larger the boat, the somewhat less uncomfortable. I say "somewhat less" because I've been more uncomfortble skippering that Gulfstar in rough weather than ever in life, including the hurricane in the 22-footer! People routinely cross oceans in 24-footers more or less. Not to say one should seek out storms, but we all know it's going to happen. In our travels we've met couples on 50-footers that wouldn't think of anything smaller and mention they couldn't get by spending less than $10,000 a month living expense. We've met couples with a couple kids living on 24-footers that wouldn't have anything larger if you gave it to them and say they spend $200 - $300 a month. And everything in between. I gotta have standing headroom (even when young it was a pain to walk crouched over); a place to sit and eat or work at a table and a comfortable place to sleep. I suppose add in solar (I wasn't impressed by my wind gens), watermaker and stowage for provisions and such for extended away-from-it-all cruising (IOW self-contained). My wife has to have standing headroom, a comfortable place to sleep and a stand-up shower (Solar heating or stove heating in a solar bag is fine for her). So a 30-footer fits the bill nicely. Some 28's would as well. Yep, a small boat and a suitcase full of money beats a large boat welded to the dock. Rick |
All yer eggs
Rick Morel wrote: I've come to agree that smaller is better. How small? Well, guess it's up to the person or persons. Ramblings: Go back quite a few years, to 1963 or so. I had just got out of highschool and wanted some adventure. Got an old 16-footer. I think it was a Petrel? No bucks, you know! Repaired and such and put in a _gasoline_ stove and small outboard. Stocked up and spent a mostly wonderful 6 months. Ah, the wonders of youth. Using a bucket. Well two buckets actually; one for bodily functions (no holding tank requirement then) and the other for baths, washing dishes and so forth. Fast forward to 1972. A bit more bucks. Bought a brand new Southcoast 22 trailer sailer kit. Mostly great weekends. Got married. More mostly great weekends. Looked at the bank account. We did some extensive mods, bought a bunch of charts (a LOT cheaper then), a sextant and learned how to use it, stocked up and sailed off. The two of us spent a mostly wonderful year. One of the downsides was getting caught in a hurricane several hundred miles offshore! Still pretty young and invincible, you know. That was not a pleasant experience at all. It was just a little cat 1 hurricane and I don't even remember the name. But still had seas considerably higher than out 35-ft mast. Being in a few thousand feet of water was a plus. The years go on with quite a few sailboats in and out, all weekend and vacation stuff while making money and all that other necessary stuff. 1999. A live-aboard cruiser friend who raised his two kids aboard was ready to pack in in. We bought his rather neglected, but structuraly sound Coronado 35 ketch. Now the Coronado is HUGE inside and handles much "larger", so think of it as a 45-footer with a 10 foot "air" stern. Spent a year and threw a bunch of boat bucks at her. Installed: 400 Watts of solar, 2 wind generators, autopilot, redundant GPS, electronic charting on redundant laptops, icebox to fridge conversion, Lectra/San, watermaker. Sold the house and business, and spent 2 1/2 years living aboard and cruising. Ended when a week after our 29th anniversery wife informed me she was leaving me for another woman. In a state of depression I did about the stupidest thing in my life - sold the boat at a big loss. A bit later I found a Morgan 302 (30-ft) that needs inside work at a ridiculously low price. Has a 1,200 hour Universal diesel. A couple weeks later met my wonderful now wife. We spent a couple years out in the bay on weekends and are now getting it all together to to spiff the Morgan up, equip with icebox to fridge conversion (that is NICE!), watermaker and solar. I can retire next Sept. If the boat is ready we'll set sail. If not, I'll work until it is ready. Okay, I'm 61. Now it doesn't sound like much difference between a 35 and a 30, but remember space changes more as the cube of LOA. Add in the famous, or infamous if you prefer, Coronado 35 layout and I'd say we have closer to half the room in the Morgan. But we do have a roomy vee-berth (neither of us minds bouncing), a head with soon to be shower, a soon to be dinette, a galley, a comfortable cockpit and a surprisingly lot of stowage space. We almost bought a friend's slightly damaged Gulfstar 44 after Rita. Now that is one monster! Really a floating condo. Decided against it for several reasons. One, it's really a motorsailer (NOT the 43 real sailboat). Two and most importantly it can be VERY expensive to maintain. Cost to own also goes up with the cube of the LOA. As far a going offshore "only in good weather". I disagree. A well-founded boat will handle it, assuming a thoughtful, prepared and experienced crew. I wouldn't do it in a Macgregor say, or even most Hunters. Nor in a stock Southcoast (it had all new, heavier standing rigging and other things). The larger the boat, the somewhat less uncomfortable. I say "somewhat less" because I've been more uncomfortble skippering that Gulfstar in rough weather than ever in life, including the hurricane in the 22-footer! People routinely cross oceans in 24-footers more or less. Not to say one should seek out storms, but we all know it's going to happen. In our travels we've met couples on 50-footers that wouldn't think of anything smaller and mention they couldn't get by spending less than $10,000 a month living expense. We've met couples with a couple kids living on 24-footers that wouldn't have anything larger if you gave it to them and say they spend $200 - $300 a month. And everything in between. I gotta have standing headroom (even when young it was a pain to walk crouched over); a place to sit and eat or work at a table and a comfortable place to sleep. I suppose add in solar (I wasn't impressed by my wind gens), watermaker and stowage for provisions and such for extended away-from-it-all cruising (IOW self-contained). My wife has to have standing headroom, a comfortable place to sleep and a stand-up shower (Solar heating or stove heating in a solar bag is fine for her). So a 30-footer fits the bill nicely. Some 28's would as well. Yep, a small boat and a suitcase full of money beats a large boat welded to the dock. Rick Interesting post Rick. I'd never get my wife to go cruising in our Catalina 27, and she thinks the Irwin 38 is too small. For myself, I think the 38 is ok for two people, but crowed for three or four. To each their own I guess. Also, it depends on how long you are out for. Don W. |
All yer eggs
Rick Morel wrote: I've come to agree that smaller is better. How small? Well, guess it's up to the person or persons. SNIP On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 22:43:28 GMT, Don W wrote: Interesting post Rick. I'd never get my wife to go cruising in our Catalina 27, and she thinks the Irwin 38 is too small. For myself, I think the 38 is ok for two people, but crowed for three or four. To each their own I guess. Also, it depends on how long you are out for. Don W. Thanks Don. I think... In each case I mentioned there was no set time limit. Well the first sorta' was. Back then by the time one turned 18 there was a choice of continue education and get a deferment, join the military or shortly get drafted. Not to get political, but I think one of the worst things that happened in this country was shutting down the draft. Yes, to each their own. But honestly, how much space does one really require? Another thing to think about is how that limited space is set up. For instance a place to sleep. Very important. If you have to squeeze in and contort life ain't gonna be pleasant. If it's hard and/or wet a lot life ain't gonna be pleasant. One boat comes to mind. An S2 30-ft center cockpit. The aft cabin and passage way back is "hunkered over" headroom. Minus #1. The berth is pretty comfy but, and a big BUT, it's crosswise. So that means the aft person has to get in first and out last, or crawl over the forward person. Minus #2. Both sound kind of minor and are if we're talking a weekend or vacation cruise, but try it day in and day out. On the other hand, the Coronado had a KING-SIZE aft berth and jumping-jack headroom. As mentioned before the Morgan has an adequate sized vee-berth with good cushions and our memory foam pad will be put on it when we sail off. We've spend 2 years worth of 3-day weekends, plus the night before, aboard quite comfortably. The Southcoast 22 also had a 2-adult sized vee-berth that did fine for a year. The king-size Coronado berth really was no better. Just bigger which actually was a disadvantage heeled over in rough seas. Think about it. One more thing. It seems the manufacturers think it a big selling point to sleep many. The Morgan stock sleeps 7. Now other than the space this takes up, where in heck are you going to put 7 people on a 30-foot boat when they're not sleeping? In the stateroom, bedroom, sleeping area, whatever you want to call it, you do need some drawers and an adequate size hanging locker. How much depends upon your fashion tastes. If you really-really-really need that walk-in closet at home with the 150-shoe rack, then you're gonna need a bigger boat. Seriously, if you have to live out of a duffel bag it's going to get old pretty fast (well, not to some, but to most). We actually passed on buying one 33-footer because the two hanging lockers were each about 8-inches wide! Ya gotta eat. So that means you have to have a place to keep the food, prepare and cook it. And something with which to cook it. A stove with oven beats the heck out of a stove-top only. A gimbaled one with rails and clamps beats a fixed one. I've left soup cooking on its own, in a pressure cooker with the pressure thingy off, in 10-ft seas on the latter. Oh yes, propane is the way to go. A microwave is nice. Yes it takes about 100-AMPS at 12V from the inverter to run it, but it doesn't run that long, so figure 10 to 20 AMP-Hours max per "cook". Sufficient counter-top space. Actually kind of hard to obtain, but then that's the complaint in a lot of houses. A deep sink. Stowage for pots and pans that you don't have to kneel down and dig every time. Why is it in these cases what you want is always waaaay back at the bottom of the pile? How many of said pots and pans do you really need and use? I've seen folks with four sizes of skillets for different things. Par that down to just one, or maybe two? Enough cabinet for the food-stuffs you're going to use in the next few days. Enough stowage for food you're going to use in the next ???? days, months. If you're like us and like to go off into the wilds for months at a time it takes a lot, but not nearly as much as most folks think. We could cram about a year's worth under the vee-berth for two average folks. This of couse assuming you like or can live with things that survive at room temperature - canned, rice, dried beans, pasta. Amazing how one can learn to spiff up stuff from a can so that's it's a bit more then edible and sometimes pretty good. Again, to each his/her own. A hint: Crisco is the same thing as margerine without the yellow color. It, and margerine for that matter, will keep well at room temperature. So will fresh eggs if you turn them once a day. Other than room temperture I've become spoiled by a fridge. Had an icebox conversion in the Coronado and plan to do the same in the Morgan. This takes up less space. A stand-alone wouldn't be bad either if one has the space, and it should be able to be found. Then one can use the icebox for food or other stowage. In either case, space is limited so after a while you will run out of things that need to be kept cold until the next grocery stop. Of course that leaves more room for the fish and stuff you catch. Anyway, all are doable in most cases. A place to consume all that conveniently prepared food. It gets old very fast to most folks to have to balance a plate, glass and stuff while crouched on a settee; or trying to use a table that has to be lowered or raised each time and is more designed to fit the mast or bulkhead than a couple of adult human's tableware. Some kind of fixed dinette arrangement is really a must. Just plop the plates and stuff down, sit and proceed. It's okay if it's convertable to a berth for those rare guests, but when the table is a table it has to be SOLID. It's also useful for sitting and reading with coffee, or rum n coke, working/playing on the laptop, carving beautiful scrimshaw, rebuilding the waterpump, whatever. Okay, after comfortably preparing and consuming all that good food the time will come when you have to clean up and get rid of some of it. We found the best way, for us, is to have a raw water faucet in the galley and head. We washed dishes and first-rinsed with raw, then rinsed with fresh. Now we come to the head. Pretty much okay as it comes. If you have a not-energy-wastful way to run the waterheater while away from a marina, that's good. We really didn't on the Coronado. Got a Solar Shower Bag and extended the hose. If sunny heated the water that way; if not or in a hurry heated some water on the stove. Hung it up and used it in the shower. Worked fine. BTW, you can FORGET about those nice, long showers except when at a marina with showers. Well, unless you have a really big boat and spend a lot of time getting water or have a large watermaker and don't mind the fuel cost to run it. As an aside, we did have a "nice long" shower arrangement on the tiny Southcoast. I took one of those round, galvanized washtubs (we had room to stow it under the cockpit and it never did rust much), a square frame made of pipe, a hose and shower head mounted to the pipe, a shower curtain and a small bilge pump. Hang the pipe/showerhead/curtain from the boom, either over the hatch or cockpit; put the washtub under with a gallon or so of stove-heated water. Step inside and turn on the bilge pump. Viola! A recirculating shower. Sure, the water does get soapy but not really that much unless you go really crazy with the soap. Hmmmm... Might do a variation of that in the morgan. put a Y-valve to select overboard/shower on the sump pump. Do a final rinse with fresh. Okay, now we get to repleshing that water we have to conserve. Once someone asked us what we missed most about living ashore. My ex said, "Not moving!", meaning of course the motion of the boat, not moving from place to place. My answer was, "Being able to waste water!" There are other things of course, but these were the honest number ONE for each of us. There are five basic ways to get water: Tank up while fueling at a marina (most won't allow you to tie up and top off your water tank without topping off the fuel); Dinghy in with jerry cans and find some somewhere; Buy it from the dock (you have to do this in some countries even if you do fuel up);Some arrangement to collect rainwater (Not too reliable); Make your own from what you floating in. This is my choice. It is so wonderfull to not have to worry about running out or have to spend sometimes days to get to a source. Again, we are out-of-the-way-spend-months-there folks. To me a watermaker is worth it's weight in gold. Good thing because they certainly seem to be priced that way! Somewhere in the archives here should be a long piece I wrote about it, but suffice now to say rig up a silty water arrangement, size it so it runs a few hours a day, and no mater where you are and what kind of water you're floating in, top your water tank(s). You still have to conserve water - you don't want to run the thing 24/7 to keep up. Of course on a big boat with no concern for energy conservation you can do it. IOW, if you're a member of the $10,000-a-month crowd. Finally (Is it about time? I seem to get a bit windy, don't I?), you have to have an energy source. Others and myself have covered this, but basically you take how many AMPS each thing draws and multiply by the number of hours a day they're used. Add it all up and you have how many AMP-hours you need. Size your house bank to be able to supply it for 3 or 4 days. Run your engine daily to put it back or get sufficent solar panels to put it back daily. If you have room. Depending on where you are and the cloud cover or lack thereof, the AMP-hour output of the solar will be the Wattage divided by 4, 3 or 2. Figure on 4 for worse case. Yes, if you live aboard and especially live on the hook, there are things in life you have to give up. But you also gain a lot more. Maybe. The trick is to find what works for you and yours. If half of the couple is doing it because the other half wants two, it'll turn out really bad. No ifs, ands or buts. Well unless she or maybe even he in those rare cases is a saint. If you've never really spend a lot time aboard, do what you can, charter, borrow, whatever and try to spend a couple weeks or preferably a month living aboard away from the dock. If you return home with the urge to cruise make THE PlAN. If either or both of you are so relieved to get back home you're in a state of euphoria, then maybe life ashore with weekends aboard is the life for you. We're all different. Our choice of an ideal floating home is about a 75-foot motor yacht with all the bells and whistles, capable of crossing oceans. That ain't gonna happen, buddy! Not unless we win the lottery. Chances of that are 1 in 45-million. If you buy a ticket. Our chances are 0 in infinity because it ain't worth the buck with those odds. The small boat we got. The suitcase full of money. Well not quite. But I've done it before and I can do it again, by golly! Rick |
All yer eggs
Rick Morel wrote:
Yes, to each their own. But honestly, how much space does one really require? Another thing to think about is how that limited space is set up. Actually, adequate storage space for the "stuff" as well as the boat equipment is the primary issue for us. For instance a place to sleep. Very important. If you have to squeeze in and contort life ain't gonna be pleasant. If it's hard and/or wet a lot life ain't gonna be pleasant. Even our Catalina 27 has two good places to sleep. The aft quarterberth is quite large, and the table/settee makes down into nice double bed for two people who like to sleep close. The big problem is storage space. It seems the manufacturers think it a big selling point to sleep many. The Morgan stock sleeps 7. Now other than the space this takes up, where in heck are you going to put 7 people on a 30-foot boat when they're not sleeping? Tell me about it. I'd rather have a boat that sleeps four and has lots of well thought out storage. But they don't make them like that. Ya gotta eat. So that means you have to have a place to keep the food, prepare and cook it. And something with which to cook it. A stove with oven beats the heck out of a stove-top only. A gimbaled one with rails and clamps beats a fixed one. I've left soup cooking on its own, in a pressure cooker with the pressure thingy off, in 10-ft seas on the latter. Oh yes, propane is the way to go. A microwave is nice. Yes it takes about 100-AMPS at 12V from the inverter to run it, but it doesn't run that long, so figure 10 to 20 AMP-Hours max per "cook". I've been thinking about taking the propane system out of the Irwin, and replacing the gimballed propane 3-burner stove/oven with a gimbaled electric stovetop and seperate electric oven along with a built-in microwave. We would plan on running the (very quiet) genset when necessary for cooking. My theory is that fuel for the genset will be easier to obtain than propane, and that we will need the same fuel for the outboard anyway. That way we don't have the possibility of a propane leak in the cabin. We can dispense with the propane detector, and just detect CO in the cabin. We need the CO detector for the main motor anyway. Before you tell me that we won't be able to cook when the genset is on the fritz, let me add that I'm thinking of having two small 3KW gensets, and an 110VAC generator slaved off of the propellor. shaft to allow for cooking while underway without using the genset. This is still in the idea stage, so if you feel I'm overlooking something please tell me. Sufficient counter-top space. Actually kind of hard to obtain That's one reason for the flat electric stovetop. When the gimbal is locked it is just additional counterspace. Right now we put a cutting board over the Gas stovetop to get the same thing. At home we've been doing almost all of our oven cooking in a large toaster oven due to the fact that we are currently remodeling the kitchen. You know what? You can cook almost anything in that little toaster oven that you can do in the big oven, and it takes a _lot_ less space. We're not talking about cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 12 here. Of course you need someplace to store your pots and pans anyway...;-) Had an icebox conversion in the Coronado and plan to do the same in the Morgan. This takes up less space. A stand-alone wouldn't be bad either if one has the space, and it should be able to be found. Then one can use the icebox for food or other stowage. In either case, space is limited so after a while you will run out of things that need to be kept cold until the next grocery stop. Of course that leaves more room for the fish and stuff you catch. Anyway, all are doable in most cases. Agreed. We've got a toploader fridge/freezer in the Irwin right now. UGH! As soon as you pull something out to use it, the other stuff falls into the vacated space if the boat is moving around at all. I've got to make some little dividers or something... Okay, now we get to repleshing that water we have to conserve. Once someone asked us what we missed most about living ashore. My ex said, "Not moving!", meaning of course the motion of the boat, not moving from place to place. My answer was, "Being able to waste water!" There are other things of course, but these were the honest number ONE for each of us. Well, again to each their own. The larger boat allows space for the watermaker, and the genset provides the power to run it when you need it. The same power provides plenty of hot water. In fact (heresy warning) we plan on running the air conditioner from time to time if it is still too hot in the evening. Got to make sure that the genset is _really_ quiet. To me a watermaker is worth it's weight in gold. Good thing because they certainly seem to be priced that way! snip Agreed. You still have to conserve water - you don't want to run the thing 24/7 to keep up. Of course on a big boat with no concern for energy conservation you can do it. IOW, if you're a member of the $10,000-a-month crowd. Our H2O tank is only 70 gallons. A 25 GPH reverse osmosis watermaker should fill it from empty in 3 hours. While the genset is running the watermaker, it is also making hot water, charging the batteries, and providing power for cooking. So, 3 hours at 1/3 gallon per hour and the typical $5 per gallon means $5 per day for fuel when anchored out. That is $150/month, and less than our current slip fee, so not quite up to the $10,000-a-month crowds costs yet. In fact, I'm thinking it will typically be less than the bar tab--until my wife turns on the air conditioner ;-) Finally (Is it about time? I seem to get a bit windy, don't I?), you have to have an energy source. We have a wind generator, and plan on adding solar panels as well. I've done the math though, and that genset is going to have to run some. Better it than the Yanmar though, because the Yanmar makes a lot of noise and causes a fair amount of vibration. Yes, if you live aboard and especially live on the hook, there are things in life you have to give up. But you also gain a lot more. Maybe. The trick is to find what works for you and yours. If half of the couple is doing it because the other half wants two, it'll turn out really bad. No ifs, ands or buts. Well unless she or maybe even he in those rare cases is a saint. If you've never really spend a lot time aboard, do what you can, charter, borrow, whatever and try to spend a couple weeks or preferably a month living aboard away from the dock. If you return home with the urge to cruise make THE PlAN. If either or both of you are so relieved to get back home you're in a state of euphoria, then maybe life ashore with weekends aboard is the life for you. We're going to spend a month on the Irwin later this year, and then we'll see. My spouse of 24 years has her doubts, but I'll wager she ends up really liking it. We're all different. Our choice of an ideal floating home is about a 75-foot motor yacht with all the bells and whistles, capable of crossing oceans. Make mine a 125 footer that will do 35kts and carries a 23' tender you can water ski behind :) Oh yeah, and a big offshore bank account to wire the fuel money from. Nah... I think that would spoil everything. That ain't gonna happen, buddy! Not unless we win the lottery. Chances of that are 1 in 45-million. If you buy a ticket. Our chances are 0 in infinity because it ain't worth the buck with those odds. The small boat we got. The suitcase full of money. Well not quite. But I've done it before and I can do it again, by golly! I like your attitude. Rick Don W. |
All yer eggs
On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 15:42:55 -0600, Don W
wrote: Actually, adequate storage space for the "stuff" as well as the boat equipment is the primary issue for us. And an issue it will always be and always has. Seriously, there's more than we think, but it usually requires some wood butchery. Also, we tend to bring along a lot more stuff than we need or even really want. With the exception of spares for the engine and such and _REQUIRED_ tools, if you haven't used it in 6 months, a year max, get rid of it! After almost a year on the Coronado we unloaded 3, that is THREE, pickup truck loads of stuff we never used and in some cases forgot existed. Back to tools. Make sure you have every size socket you may need, along with box/open ends, etc. I got rid of an entire toolbox full. Why did I have torx drivers when there wasn't one torx head on the vessel? Duhhhhh.... Even our Catalina 27 has two good places to sleep. The aft quarterberth is quite large, and the table/settee makes down into nice double bed for two people who like to sleep close. The big problem is storage space. Don, Don, you weren't listening. If you have to construct your bed, table/settee, every night is ain't gonna work for longer than a vacation. Note tone of write here is with a big smile. However, it's true. But if you do use it just think of all the potential stowage space under, on and over that vee-berth! Ya gotta eat.... I've been thinking about taking the propane system out of the Irwin, and replacing the gimballed propane 3-burner stove/oven with a gimbaled electric stovetop and seperate electric oven along with a built-in microwave. We would plan on running the (very quiet) genset when necessary for cooking. SNIP Before you tell me that we won't be able to cook when the genset is on the fritz, let me add that I'm thinking of having two small 3KW gensets, and an 110VAC generator slaved off of the propellor. shaft to allow for cooking while underway without using the genset. This is still in the idea stage, so if you feel I'm overlooking something please tell me. Sounds okay to me. Now, I don't really agree with it 100% for me, mainly because of the efficiency losses. Using propane, or any other stove fuel, the fuel is burned directly to create heat. Has to be at least 75 to 80%. Even if 50%. Heck might even be 100% or close to it. But, burning fuel in an internal combustion engine gives about 18% as I recall, with the rest going to.... HEAT. Factor in an 85% efficiency for the generator part. I don't think you're going to run anything else of the genset while cooking. 3KW I think should run one burner. As I recall a friend's 6.5KW could run two or the oven on his Gulfstar. Might be wrong. I'm getting all this from memory. I've got all the BTU/Watts/HP info someplace. Okay. Let's try it this way. Cooking two meals a day 5-gal of propane lasted on average four months or about 0.16666 qts a day. Let's be way generous and say each meal took 15 minutes, or about 1/2 hour a day cooking. Let's stay generous and say the genset will burn 1 qt an hour, so 1/2 qt of gas per day to cook. That's 3 times the fuel. Using the efficency figures above it comes out to 6.5 times as much, which I think might be accurate. The bottom line is it will work and if you're happy with it that's all that counts. I think I would buy one of those one-burner propane camp stoves for backup. A lot cheaper and less stowage space than a second genset :-) If you do it I'd like first chance to buy your propane stove. Seriously. I am looking for one. At home we've been doing almost all of our oven cooking in a large toaster oven due to the fact that we are currently remodeling the kitchen. You know what? You can cook almost anything in that little toaster oven that you can do in the big oven, and it takes a _lot_ less space. We're not talking about cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 12 here. Of course you need someplace to store your pots and pans anyway...;-) I came across some 12V ovens on the web. For use in trucks. I'm going to look closer at that. They claim 300-deg heat and are quite inexpensive. I'll go anyday for something practical that uses renewable energy to use the buzz word. Probably draw waaaay too much current, though. Had an icebox conversion Agreed. We've got a toploader fridge/freezer in the Irwin right now. UGH! As soon as you pull something out to use it, the other stuff falls into the vacated space if the boat is moving around at all. I've got to make some little dividers or something... Hee-hee. Laughing because been there, done that. The close to it answer was a couple of sliding grill shelves and stuff placement. Still better energy-wise though with top loading. Takes up a lot of room, but a friend's Beneteu (SP?) had a long, shallow built in frige and freezer. Oh well, one can expect some convenience aboard a $300,000 boat! Okay, now we get to repleshing that water we have to conserve.... Well, again to each their own. The larger boat allows space for the watermaker, and the genset provides the power to run it when you need it. The same power provides plenty of hot water. In fact (heresy warning) we plan on running the air conditioner from time to time if it is still too hot in the evening. Got to make sure that the genset is _really_ quiet. A/C at anchor!!! Ohhhhh noooooo! Just kidding. Our H2O tank is only 70 gallons. A 25 GPH reverse osmosis watermaker should fill it from empty in 3 hours. While the genset is running the watermaker, it is also making hot water, charging the batteries, and providing power for cooking. So, 3 hours at 1/3 gallon per hour and the typical $5 per gallon means $5 per day for fuel when anchored out. That is $150/month, and less than our current slip fee, so not quite up to the $10,000-a-month crowds costs yet. In fact, I'm thinking it will typically be less than the bar tab--until my wife turns on the air conditioner ;-) Uh Don. Don baby! You better get a bigger genset! No. Really. I'm serious. The water heater is half your 3K, the stove is all of it, the 25 GPH watermaker is about 1KW (About 3 AH, or 29 W per gallon). So to do all at once you need a 5.5KW plus a bit of overhead. And you're up to about .9 GPH for gasoline, .6 GPH for diesel. That's the rub with this energy thing. It takes a lot more then people realize. And when you convert one energy type to another, i.e. burn gasoline to convert to torque and motion to convert to electricity to convert to heat, there's going to be losses. Sometime great losses. I think I recall solar panels are about 6% efficient. Just think when and if they come up with a breakthrough and get 48% - 1/8 the panel size for the same energy! When I built my electric car in the early 90's, I had 1,125 lbs of batteries. Gave be 34 KWH. Sounds like an awful lot, doesn't it? Well 1 gallon of gasoline will yield 34.5 KWH if you do the BTU to KWH conversion. Of course if your gasoline engine and generator on the 3 KW genset were 100% efficient you could run it a bit over 10 hours instead of 3. Because of the efficiency of the electric motor in the car, I got about 120 miles from that electrical "gallon" of battery. Works out pretty close to the propane stove vs. genset/electric stove stuff above. Please don't get a 25 GPH watermaker, unless you plan on using at least 50 Gallons of water per day! We had a 1.5 GPH. Honestly I'd like a 3 GPH or there abouts, but I'd be happy with another 1.5 or even a 1. As above, it's going to energy cost you 3 AH per gallon, whether it makes that gallon in 2 seconds, 2 minutes or 2 hours. You should have something that will run several hours a day, otherwise it tends to give trouble. Take the money you save on the watermaker and use it for 6 months to a year in the Bahamas! Or to buy a bigger genset :-) We had one couple offer to trade their 8 GPH one for our 1.5, another guy offered us his 15 GPH one and $1,000 (Paid $2,250 or ours at the time). That should say something. Mainly that they watched us fill our tank every day with no hassle and they had nothing but hassle. We have a wind generator, and plan on adding solar panels as well. I've done the math though, and that genset is going to have to run some. Better it than the Yanmar though, because the Yanmar makes a lot of noise and causes a fair amount of vibration. I've pointed out the experience and reasoning before, so I can flatly say I'm not spending a dime on a wind generator. The only reason I kept the two on the Coronado is because they were already there and they looked neat. They supplied maybe 10% of the power, with solar doing the other 90. Actually 100% almost always. Yes there are places where wind is great, but not those nice protected anchorages. We're going to spend a month on the Irwin later this year, and then we'll see. My spouse of 24 years has her doubts, but I'll wager she ends up really liking it. I hope so! Remember our mantra, "We'll get used to it!" Yes, it is different, but if one can set up things so it's mostly living in a different place and not camping out. Rick |
All yer eggs
On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 18:16:45 -0600, Rick Morel
wrote: About 3 AH, or 29 W per gallon Oops. Typo, should be about 3 AH or 39 W per gallon. This figuring 13V on the battery bank. Probably be easier to put it at 40 W. It is an average. So 25 GPH times 40 W is 1,000 W or 1 KW. Rick |
All yer eggs
On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 18:16:45 -0600, Rick Morel
wrote: About 3 AH, or 29 W per gallon Oops. Typo, should be about 3 AH or 39 W per gallon. This figuring 13V on the battery bank. Probably be easier to put it at 40 W. It is an average. So 25 GPH times 40 W is 1,000 W or 1 KW. Rick |
All yer eggs
Rick Morel wrote:
Even our Catalina 27 has two good places to sleep. The aft quarterberth is quite large, and the table/settee makes down into nice double bed for two people who like to sleep close. The big problem is storage space. Don, Don, you weren't listening. If you have to construct your bed, table/settee, every night is ain't gonna work for longer than a vacation. Note tone of write here is with a big smile. However, it's true. But if you do use it just think of all the potential stowage space under, on and over that vee-berth! Hey, I know that the v-berth is unusable for sleeping at sea in anything but benign conditions anyway. Ask me how I know ;-) Might as well use it as a big (well... sorta) walk in closet. As far as making up the settee, which is what we do on the Irwin right now, we'll see. The problem is that the aft cabin is pretty low, and my wife can not seem to remember to not bang her head on it for more than two weeks at a time. Since she's slightly claustrophobic anyway, but doesn't seem to mind folding the bedding, I figure that we've got _two_ walk in closets, and no eating after bedtime. Of course, if you just want to catch a quick nap, there is the qtr-berth on the other side of the aisle from the settee, and its always available. Ya gotta eat.... I've been thinking about taking the propane system out of the Irwin, and replacing the gimballed propane 3-burner stove/oven with a gimbaled electric stovetop and seperate electric oven along with a built-in microwave.snip Sounds okay to me. Now, I don't really agree with it 100% for me, mainly because of the efficiency losses. Using propane, or any other stove fuel, the fuel is burned directly to create heat. Has to be at least 75 to 80%. Even if 50%. Heck might even be 100% or close to it. But, burning fuel in an internal combustion engine gives about 18% as I recall, with the rest going to.... HEAT. Factor in an 85% efficiency for the generator part. I don't think you're going to run anything else of the genset while cooking. 3KW I think should run one burner. Actually, you'd be surprised. Here's a quick rundown of what's in the kitchen at our house right now: Toaster Oven - 1380W Microwave - 1560W Coffee Maker - 1050W Electric Griddle - 1400W 5 Burner Electric Range - 6700W So if you turn on _everything_ at the same time at max heat, you need 12KW, but that's not realistic for the way you cook even at home. Typically, for a big breakfast, we use two burners on the range with one at 70% and the other at 30% (Hashbrowns and Eggs). The griddle is cycling on and off to keep the surface temp to 350F (Pancakes), and the coffee pot is brewing a pot of coffee. Once the brew cycle is done (~5 min) it goes to about 35% for the carafe warmer. So you have essentially one burner at 100% for 15 minutes, + the griddle (at say 75%) for 15 minutes, plus the coffeepot at 100% for 5 minutes, and then 35% for 10 minutes. Doing the math, you get a peak load of (6500W/5)+(1400W*75%)+(1050W)= 3400W. You are just above the capacity of the 3KW genset, so you either have to make the coffee first, and then do the cooking, or, alternatively, light off the second genset. Note that the entire cooking time is only 1/4 hour at 1/3 gal/hr so you use a little over a pint of fuel to cook breakfast. At $5/gallon this works out to 72 cents for fuel. The potato probably cost that much! I could go through lunch and dinner, but for us they would typically be even less, since the griddle and coffee maker are not in use. Often for dinner we have a salad, or heat up homemade soup in the microwave. Lunches are typically sandwiches, or a salad or re-heated soup. After breakfast is cooked, the genset can power the watermaker and the hot water heater while we eat and do dishes. Our water heater is a 11 gallon Force 10 which draws 1500W. If the watermaker draws 1000W like you say down below, we've got 500W left over (12V @ 41A!) to charge the batteries for the day. Also, I don't really expect to use anywhere near 70 Gallons per day of water, but don't really know for sure. As I recall a friend's 6.5KW could run two or the oven on his Gulfstar. Might be wrong. I'm getting all this from memory. I've got all the BTU/Watts/HP info someplace. Okay. Let's try it this way. Cooking two meals a day 5-gal of propane lasted on average four months or about 0.16666 qts a day. Let's be way generous and say each meal took 15 minutes, or about 1/2 hour a day cooking. Let's stay generous and say the genset will burn 1 qt an hour, so 1/2 qt of gas per day to cook. Amazingly we came really close to the same answer for fuel burn. Must be right ;-) The bottom line is it will work and if you're happy with it that's all that counts. Well, I'd like to minimize the number of different fuels I have to deal with, so that's part of the equation. I think I would buy one of those one-burner propane camp stoves for backup. A lot cheaper and less stowage space than a second genset :-) I've got a real nice two burner camp stove with a built in oven, but then I'd have to carry propane again. At least part of my motivation is to avoid that unexpected BOOOOOOMMMM when you forgot to change the batteries in the propane detector and that last big wave with the stove ungimballed sprung your propane fitting on the back of the stove. If you do it I'd like first chance to buy your propane stove. Seriously. I am looking for one. okay, I'll post if/when we pull the stove. Probably be a while though because we're swamped with other projects right now. At home we've been doing almost all of our oven cooking in a large toaster oven due to the fact that we are currently remodeling the kitchen. You know what? You can cook almost anything in that little toaster oven that you can do in the big oven, and it takes a _lot_ less space. We're not talking about cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 12 here. Of course you need someplace to store your pots and pans anyway...;-) I came across some 12V ovens on the web. For use in trucks. I'm going to look closer at that. They claim 300-deg heat and are quite inexpensive. I'll go anyday for something practical that uses renewable energy to use the buzz word. Probably draw waaaay too much current, though. Probably. Okay, now we get to repleshing that water we have to conserve.... Well, again to each their own. The larger boat allows space for the watermaker, and the genset provides the power to run it when you need it. The same power provides plenty of hot water. In fact (heresy warning) we plan on running the air conditioner from time to time if it is still too hot in the evening. Got to make sure that the genset is _really_ quiet. A/C at anchor!!! Ohhhhh noooooo! Just kidding. Our H2O tank is only 70 gallons. A 25 GPH reverse osmosis watermaker should fill it from empty in 3 hours. While the genset is running the watermaker, it is also making hot water, charging the batteries, and providing power for cooking. So, 3 hours at 1/3 gallon per hour and the typical $5 per gallon means $5 per day for fuel when anchored out. That is $150/month, and less than our current slip fee, so not quite up to the $10,000-a-month crowds costs yet. In fact, I'm thinking it will typically be less than the bar tab--until my wife turns on the air conditioner ;-) Uh Don. Don baby! You better get a bigger genset! No. Really. I'm serious. The water heater is half your 3K, the stove is all of it, the 25 GPH watermaker is about 1KW (About 3 AH, or 29 W per gallon). So to do all at once you need a 5.5KW plus a bit of overhead. And you're up to about .9 GPH for gasoline, .6 GPH for diesel. See my discussion above. Bottom line is don't turn on everything at the same time. That's the rub with this energy thing. It takes a lot more then people realize. And when you convert one energy type to another, i.e. burn gasoline to convert to torque and motion to convert to electricity to convert to heat, there's going to be losses. Sometime great losses. I think I recall solar panels are about 6% efficient. Just think when and if they come up with a breakthrough and get 48% - 1/8 the panel size for the same energy! Agreed. The aussies have some triple junction research solar cells that reach in the low 60% efficiency IIRC. Now if somebody would just start massive production to get the cost down. BTW, I had to take thermodynamics to get the degree, so I'm with you on the energy conversion losses. Entropy always wins. When I built my electric car in the early 90's, I had 1,125 lbs of batteries. Neat project. You were ahead of your time. Please don't get a 25 GPH watermaker, unless you plan on using at least 50 Gallons of water per day! We had a 1.5 GPH. Honestly I'd like a 3 GPH or there abouts, but I'd be happy with another 1.5 or even a 1. As above, it's going to energy cost you 3 AH per gallon, whether it makes that gallon in 2 seconds, 2 minutes or 2 hours. You should have something that will run several hours a day, otherwise it tends to give trouble. Take the money you save on the watermaker and use it for 6 months to a year in the Bahamas! Or to buy a bigger genset :-) We had one couple offer to trade their 8 GPH one for our 1.5, another guy offered us his 15 GPH one and $1,000 (Paid $2,250 or ours at the time). That should say something. Mainly that they watched us fill our tank every day with no hassle and they had nothing but hassle. Well, hassles are not what I want for sure. I've already had enough for one lifetime. However, we've got a 50GPH RO system under our sink at home, and it's feeding into a tiny 3.5 gallon reservoir. I don't think that little spigot on the sink can even flow 50GPH! The reason it's got the 50GPH membrane instead of the 12.5GPH membrane it came with was that when I replaced the membrane and filters a few years back I found a source for the membranes where I could get the 50GPH membrane for what I was paying for the 12.5GPH. I'm considering buying the membrane and pump(s) and constructing my own watermaker--and yes, I'm aware that the sea water membranes are quite different from freshwater ones like I have under the sink at home. It's not rocket science though, and that way when it breaks down, I'll have a clue how to go about fixing it. We have a wind generator, and plan on adding solar panels as well. I've done the math though, and that genset is going to have to run some. Better it than the Yanmar though, because the Yanmar makes a lot of noise and causes a fair amount of vibration. I've pointed out the experience and reasoning before, so I can flatly say I'm not spending a dime on a wind generator. The only reason I kept the two on the Coronado is because they were already there and they looked neat. They supplied maybe 10% of the power, with solar doing the other 90. Actually 100% almost always. Yes there are places where wind is great, but not those nice protected anchorages. I agree. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out where I can put any significant square footage of solar panels unless someone comes up with ones you can walk on that are efficient. I'll probably end up with the requisite two on the arch over the bimini. We're going to spend a month on the Irwin later this year, and then we'll see. My spouse of 24 years has her doubts, but I'll wager she ends up really liking it. I hope so! Remember our mantra, "We'll get used to it!" :) That is... "Sweety, you'll get used to it. And remember you don't have to go to work in the morning either." Yes, it is different, but if one can set up things so it's mostly living in a different place and not camping out. Thanks for your thoughts Rick. You've obviously been there/done that ;-) Don W. |
All yer eggs
Don W wrote:
Rick Morel wrote: Even our Catalina 27 has two good places to sleep. The aft quarterberth is quite large, and the table/settee makes down into nice double bed for two people who like to sleep close. The big problem is storage space. Don, Don, you weren't listening. If you have to construct your bed, table/settee, every night is ain't gonna work for longer than a vacation. Note tone of write here is with a big smile. However, it's true. But if you do use it just think of all the potential stowage space under, on and over that vee-berth! Hey, I know that the v-berth is unusable for sleeping at sea in anything but benign conditions anyway. Ask me how I know ;-) Might as well use it as a big (well... sorta) walk in closet. As far as making up the settee, which is what we do on the Irwin right now, we'll see. The problem is that the aft cabin is pretty low, and my wife can not seem to remember to not bang her head on it for more than two weeks at a time. Since she's slightly claustrophobic anyway, but doesn't seem to mind folding the bedding, I figure that we've got _two_ walk in closets, and no eating after bedtime. Of course, if you just want to catch a quick nap, there is the qtr-berth on the other side of the aisle from the settee, and its always available. Ya gotta eat.... I've been thinking about taking the propane system out of the Irwin, and replacing the gimballed propane 3-burner stove/oven with a gimbaled electric stovetop and seperate electric oven along with a built-in microwave.snip Sounds okay to me. Now, I don't really agree with it 100% for me, mainly because of the efficiency losses. Using propane, or any other stove fuel, the fuel is burned directly to create heat. Has to be at least 75 to 80%. Even if 50%. Heck might even be 100% or close to it. But, burning fuel in an internal combustion engine gives about 18% as I recall, with the rest going to.... HEAT. Factor in an 85% efficiency for the generator part. I don't think you're going to run anything else of the genset while cooking. 3KW I think should run one burner. Actually, you'd be surprised. Here's a quick rundown of what's in the kitchen at our house right now: Toaster Oven - 1380W Microwave - 1560W Coffee Maker - 1050W Electric Griddle - 1400W 5 Burner Electric Range - 6700W So if you turn on _everything_ at the same time at max heat, you need 12KW, but that's not realistic for the way you cook even at home. Typically, for a big breakfast, we use two burners on the range with one at 70% and the other at 30% (Hashbrowns and Eggs). The griddle is cycling on and off to keep the surface temp to 350F (Pancakes), and the coffee pot is brewing a pot of coffee. Once the brew cycle is done (~5 min) it goes to about 35% for the carafe warmer. So you have essentially one burner at 100% for 15 minutes, + the griddle (at say 75%) for 15 minutes, plus the coffeepot at 100% for 5 minutes, and then 35% for 10 minutes. Doing the math, you get a peak load of (6500W/5)+(1400W*75%)+(1050W)= 3400W. You are just above the capacity of the 3KW genset, so you either have to make the coffee first, and then do the cooking, or, alternatively, light off the second genset. Note that the entire cooking time is only 1/4 hour at 1/3 gal/hr so you use a little over a pint of fuel to cook breakfast. At $5/gallon this works out to 72 cents for fuel. The potato probably cost that much! I could go through lunch and dinner, but for us they would typically be even less, since the griddle and coffee maker are not in use. Often for dinner we have a salad, or heat up homemade soup in the microwave. Lunches are typically sandwiches, or a salad or re-heated soup. After breakfast is cooked, the genset can power the watermaker and the hot water heater while we eat and do dishes. Our water heater is a 11 gallon Force 10 which draws 1500W. If the watermaker draws 1000W like you say down below, we've got 500W left over (12V @ 41A!) to charge the batteries for the day. Also, I don't really expect to use anywhere near 70 Gallons per day of water, but don't really know for sure. As I recall a friend's 6.5KW could run two or the oven on his Gulfstar. Might be wrong. I'm getting all this from memory. I've got all the BTU/Watts/HP info someplace. Okay. Let's try it this way. Cooking two meals a day 5-gal of propane lasted on average four months or about 0.16666 qts a day. Let's be way generous and say each meal took 15 minutes, or about 1/2 hour a day cooking. Let's stay generous and say the genset will burn 1 qt an hour, so 1/2 qt of gas per day to cook. Amazingly we came really close to the same answer for fuel burn. Must be right ;-) The bottom line is it will work and if you're happy with it that's all that counts. Well, I'd like to minimize the number of different fuels I have to deal with, so that's part of the equation. I think I would buy one of those one-burner propane camp stoves for backup. A lot cheaper and less stowage space than a second genset :-) I've got a real nice two burner camp stove with a built in oven, but then I'd have to carry propane again. At least part of my motivation is to avoid that unexpected BOOOOOOMMMM when you forgot to change the batteries in the propane detector and that last big wave with the stove ungimballed sprung your propane fitting on the back of the stove. If you do it I'd like first chance to buy your propane stove. Seriously. I am looking for one. okay, I'll post if/when we pull the stove. Probably be a while though because we're swamped with other projects right now. At home we've been doing almost all of our oven cooking in a large toaster oven due to the fact that we are currently remodeling the kitchen. You know what? You can cook almost anything in that little toaster oven that you can do in the big oven, and it takes a _lot_ less space. We're not talking about cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 12 here. Of course you need someplace to store your pots and pans anyway...;-) I came across some 12V ovens on the web. For use in trucks. I'm going to look closer at that. They claim 300-deg heat and are quite inexpensive. I'll go anyday for something practical that uses renewable energy to use the buzz word. Probably draw waaaay too much current, though. Probably. Okay, now we get to repleshing that water we have to conserve.... Well, again to each their own. The larger boat allows space for the watermaker, and the genset provides the power to run it when you need it. The same power provides plenty of hot water. In fact (heresy warning) we plan on running the air conditioner from time to time if it is still too hot in the evening. Got to make sure that the genset is _really_ quiet. A/C at anchor!!! Ohhhhh noooooo! Just kidding. Our H2O tank is only 70 gallons. A 25 GPH reverse osmosis watermaker should fill it from empty in 3 hours. While the genset is running the watermaker, it is also making hot water, charging the batteries, and providing power for cooking. So, 3 hours at 1/3 gallon per hour and the typical $5 per gallon means $5 per day for fuel when anchored out. That is $150/month, and less than our current slip fee, so not quite up to the $10,000-a-month crowds costs yet. In fact, I'm thinking it will typically be less than the bar tab--until my wife turns on the air conditioner ;-) Uh Don. Don baby! You better get a bigger genset! No. Really. I'm serious. The water heater is half your 3K, the stove is all of it, the 25 GPH watermaker is about 1KW (About 3 AH, or 29 W per gallon). So to do all at once you need a 5.5KW plus a bit of overhead. And you're up to about .9 GPH for gasoline, .6 GPH for diesel. See my discussion above. Bottom line is don't turn on everything at the same time. That's the rub with this energy thing. It takes a lot more then people realize. And when you convert one energy type to another, i.e. burn gasoline to convert to torque and motion to convert to electricity to convert to heat, there's going to be losses. Sometime great losses. I think I recall solar panels are about 6% efficient. Just think when and if they come up with a breakthrough and get 48% - 1/8 the panel size for the same energy! Agreed. The aussies have some triple junction research solar cells that reach in the low 60% efficiency IIRC. Now if somebody would just start massive production to get the cost down. BTW, I had to take thermodynamics to get the degree, so I'm with you on the energy conversion losses. Entropy always wins. When I built my electric car in the early 90's, I had 1,125 lbs of batteries. Neat project. You were ahead of your time. Please don't get a 25 GPH watermaker, unless you plan on using at least 50 Gallons of water per day! We had a 1.5 GPH. Honestly I'd like a 3 GPH or there abouts, but I'd be happy with another 1.5 or even a 1. As above, it's going to energy cost you 3 AH per gallon, whether it makes that gallon in 2 seconds, 2 minutes or 2 hours. You should have something that will run several hours a day, otherwise it tends to give trouble. Take the money you save on the watermaker and use it for 6 months to a year in the Bahamas! Or to buy a bigger genset :-) We had one couple offer to trade their 8 GPH one for our 1.5, another guy offered us his 15 GPH one and $1,000 (Paid $2,250 or ours at the time). That should say something. Mainly that they watched us fill our tank every day with no hassle and they had nothing but hassle. Well, hassles are not what I want for sure. I've already had enough for one lifetime. However, we've got a 50GPH RO system under our sink at home, and it's feeding into a tiny 3.5 gallon reservoir. I don't think that little spigot on the sink can even flow 50GPH! The reason it's got the 50GPH membrane instead of the 12.5GPH membrane it came with was that when I replaced the membrane and filters a few years back I found a source for the membranes where I could get the 50GPH membrane for what I was paying for the 12.5GPH. I'm considering buying the membrane and pump(s) and constructing my own watermaker--and yes, I'm aware that the sea water membranes are quite different from freshwater ones like I have under the sink at home. It's not rocket science though, and that way when it breaks down, I'll have a clue how to go about fixing it. We have a wind generator, and plan on adding solar panels as well. I've done the math though, and that genset is going to have to run some. Better it than the Yanmar though, because the Yanmar makes a lot of noise and causes a fair amount of vibration. I've pointed out the experience and reasoning before, so I can flatly say I'm not spending a dime on a wind generator. The only reason I kept the two on the Coronado is because they were already there and they looked neat. They supplied maybe 10% of the power, with solar doing the other 90. Actually 100% almost always. Yes there are places where wind is great, but not those nice protected anchorages. I agree. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out where I can put any significant square footage of solar panels unless someone comes up with ones you can walk on that are efficient. I'll probably end up with the requisite two on the arch over the bimini. We're going to spend a month on the Irwin later this year, and then we'll see. My spouse of 24 years has her doubts, but I'll wager she ends up really liking it. I hope so! Remember our mantra, "We'll get used to it!" :) That is... "Sweety, you'll get used to it. And remember you don't have to go to work in the morning either." Yes, it is different, but if one can set up things so it's mostly living in a different place and not camping out. Thanks for your thoughts Rick. You've obviously been there/done that ;-) Don W. Don, Don't you have a cutoff solenoid in your propane locker to make sure there can be no propane in the cabin if the line were to break? Propane should be in a locker sealed from the cabin and vented to the outside of the boat with a shutoff valve. I and many others have used it for years with no booom. krj |
All yer eggs
On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:24:19 GMT, Don W
wrote: Hey, I know that the v-berth is unusable for sleeping at sea in anything but benign conditions anyway. Ask me how I know ;-) Might as well use it as a big (well... sorta) walk in closet. Don't have to ask. I know :-) As an aside, my ex could take anything short period, in shallow water. Offshore she got very seasick. To the point of considering her flying to the next from-offshore destination. She found a fix - stay in the forward stateroom and sleep on the vee-berth. It was the sloooow up and down that got to her; no problem with the FAST up and down. Vee-berth will be our "bedroom" cause it's the only double. Settee berth will be the single off-watch berth when needed. With added, what are they called, rod and canvas thing that comes up and attaches so you don't roll out. As far as making up the settee, which is what we do on the Irwin right now, we'll see. The problem is that the aft cabin is pretty low, and my wife can not seem to remember to not bang her head on it for more than two weeks at a time. Since she's slightly claustrophobic anyway, but doesn't seem to mind folding the bedding, I figure that we've got _two_ walk in closets, and no eating after bedtime. Of course, if you just want to catch a quick nap, there is the qtr-berth on the other side of the aisle from the settee, and its always available. One reason we passed on the S2 30 center cockpit. The other is that one had to sit on the shelf of the tiny bathtub and hunker over to take a shower. As I recall, lots of room between the dinette and settee - a friend has an Irwin 37. Folding table at the settee? "Dinette" for two? Leave the bed made? Just rambling.... Actually, you'd be surprised. Here's a quick rundown of what's in the kitchen at our house right now: Toaster Oven - 1380W Microwave - 1560W Coffee Maker - 1050W Electric Griddle - 1400W 5 Burner Electric Range - 6700W So if you turn on _everything_ at the same time at max heat, you need 12KW, but that's not realistic for the way you cook even at home. Typically, for a big breakfast, we use two burners on the range with one at 70% and the other at 30% (Hashbrowns and Eggs). The griddle is cycling on and off to keep the surface temp to 350F (Pancakes), and the coffee pot is brewing a pot of coffee. Once the brew cycle is done (~5 min) it goes to about 35% for the carafe warmer. So you have essentially one burner at 100% for 15 minutes, + the griddle (at say 75%) for 15 minutes, plus the coffeepot at 100% for 5 minutes, and then 35% for 10 minutes. Doing the math, you get a peak load of (6500W/5)+(1400W*75%)+(1050W)= 3400W. You are just above the capacity of the 3KW genset, so you either have to make the coffee first, and then do the cooking, or, alternatively, light off the second genset. I did some checking. Princess 3-burner Marine Stove, which seems typical. 1 simmer (550 watt) and 2 high speed (1100 watt) burners 1250 watt bake element 1300 watt broiler element So less than I was thinking. Dang, I do remember a factory printed placard next to my friend's stove listing combinations of burners/oven. But then the stove in that monster was more of a home type! Anyway it's 1,876 BTU, 3,753 BTU and 4,265 BTU respectively, leaving out the broiler and assuming 100% electric to heat conversion. Doing the conversion propane, with 5,000 BTU and 8,000 BTU burners, and 6500-16250 BTU oven (from checking) works out to 1,465 W, 2,344 W, 1,905-4,762 W output respectively. Okay, so looking at the marine electric vs. propane, and factoring in the home electric, it seems the marine electric is designed more to fit the genset and shore power socket. Specs on home electric stoves are harder to find. In any event, electric should give better heat tranfer to the pot, no airpace under to radiate heat, and one seldom uses a propane stove full blast except to quickly bring to a boil. Where am I going with this? Noplace, really. It's just information. Note that the entire cooking time is only 1/4 hour at 1/3 gal/hr so you use a little over a pint of fuel to cook breakfast. At $5/gallon this works out to 72 cents for fuel. The potato probably cost that much! I could go through lunch and dinner, but for us they would typically be even less, since the griddle and coffee maker are not in use. Often for dinner we have a salad, or heat up homemade soup in the microwave. Lunches are typically sandwiches, or a salad or re-heated soup. After breakfast is cooked, the genset can power the watermaker and the hot water heater while we eat and do dishes. Our water heater is a 11 gallon Force 10 which draws 1500W. If the watermaker draws 1000W like you say down below, we've got 500W left over (12V @ 41A!) to charge the batteries for the day. Sounds like a well thought out plan! $5 a gallon for gas? Is this what the marinas are charging these days? Wow! I'd consider dinghying in with a few jerry cans and looking for a regular auto gas station! Also, I don't really expect to use anywhere near 70 Gallons per day of water, but don't really know for sure. We used 4 to 6 gallons a day. High compared to many. One of the most wasteful water things is running the hot water tap, waiting for the hot to get there. Some folks put a valve in the line and route it back to the tank until it gets hot, close the valve and turn on the hot water tap. Don't know if it's true, but was told of a big powerboat at an anchorage. They had a big watermaker. Every day when they cranked up to recharge and run the watermaker they put out a "water call" on the VHF for folks to dinghy over with jugs or whatever to run their tanks down. Obviously they knew they had to run it awhile. Okay. Let's try it this way. Cooking two meals a day (SNIP) Amazingly we came really close to the same answer for fuel burn. Must be right ;-) Oh, us engineering types :-) If you do it I'd like first chance to buy your propane stove. Seriously. I am looking for one. okay, I'll post if/when we pull the stove. Probably be a while though because we're swamped with other projects right now. Maybe not. You said 3-burner. Don't think I'd have room :-( That's the rub with this energy thing. It takes a lot more then people realize. And when you convert one energy type to another, i.e. burn gasoline to convert to torque and motion to convert to electricity to convert to heat, there's going to be losses. Sometime great losses. I think I recall solar panels are about 6% efficient. Just think when and if they come up with a breakthrough and get 48% - 1/8 the panel size for the same energy! Agreed. The aussies have some triple junction research solar cells that reach in the low 60% efficiency IIRC. Now if somebody would just start massive production to get the cost down. BTW, I had to take thermodynamics to get the degree, so I'm with you on the energy conversion losses. Entropy always wins. Agreed. I came across the following: "Today, commonly available solar panels are 12% efficient, which is four times greater than only a few years ago." and "Silicon solar cell efficiencies vary from 6% for amorphous silicon-based solar cells to 40.7% with multiple-junction research lab cells. Solar cell energy conversion efficiencies for commercially available mc-Si solar cells are around 14-16%. The highest efficiency cells have not always been the most economical -- for example a 30% efficient multijunction cell based on exotic materials such as gallium arsenide or indium selenide and produced in low volume might well cost one hundred times as much as an 8% efficient amorphous silicon cell in mass production, while only delivering about four times the electrical power." Also came across a company claiming they've got 22%, "up to 50% more", that are available now. Couldn't find a price anywhere. Their size specs show they're about 71% of the area of the others. Bottom line for us is try to find the space needed for "regular" panels. I have a source for inexpensive removals from our offshore oil industry. Please don't get a 25 GPH watermaker, unless you plan on using at least 50 Gallons of water per day! SNIP Well, hassles are not what I want for sure. I've already had enough for one lifetime. However, we've got a 50GPH RO system under our sink at home, and it's feeding into a tiny 3.5 gallon reservoir. I don't think that little spigot on the sink can even flow 50GPH! The reason it's got the 50GPH membrane instead of the 12.5GPH membrane it came with was that when I replaced the membrane and filters a few years back I found a source for the membranes where I could get the 50GPH membrane for what I was paying for the 12.5GPH. I'm considering buying the membrane and pump(s) and constructing my own watermaker--and yes, I'm aware that the sea water membranes are quite different from freshwater ones like I have under the sink at home. It's not rocket science though, and that way when it breaks down, I'll have a clue how to go about fixing it. Lot's of stuff on the web by Brent Swain re rolling your own. No details except "buy my book". Ran across at least one web site with details. Most are high output with a pressure washer pump. Right, it's not rocket science. I'm looking at what it would take to build that ideal-for-me 3 GPH one with a 12V drive. Yes, the home and seawater ones are diffenent and as I understand seawater requires about 800 PSI and a finer membrane as opposed to the home 30 or 40 PSI regular water pressure. However, I did come across something that makes me wonder. First, PUR says "Salt Rejection: 98.4% average (96% minimum).." GE has a new home RO and says, "GE Infrastructure Water and Process Technologies has achieved a revolutionary breakthrough in the water treatment industry." 720 GPD and $400. They use salt for the TDS specs and it is, "TDS Rejection (NaCl) 90% Min, 99% Max, 93% Average." Okay. Never tasted salt or anything in those years of drinking RO from a PUR. Did taste salty at some marinas in FL (guess it was in the ground water). So taking worse case, maybe twice the salt left with the GE. How "tasty" is twice no taste? GE says the "Inlet TDS" is from 50 MG/L to 2 G/L. A quick check finds seawater is 35 G/L. Oh oh! 17.5 times the max! Is the max really the max? Or is it a convient and/or tested figure because that's the most ever expected from city and/or well water? What happens if seawater were used? Would it clog/ruin the membrane? Would it remove 1/17 or 1/X as much TDS? What is the criteria for TDS? The above presented really to point out one has to research things all the way, as you've done. Not very difficult these days with the internet. How I remember spending hours, even days at libraries in the past. Hmmm... Another research project. If one has say 25 GPH membranes, can one run less water through them, say from a 12V pump, and get 2 or 3 or 8 or whatever GPH? Say an engine driven or AC genset driven, if you have one, high volume pump and a 12V low volume? Less efficient? Would it even work? I honestly don't understand everything I know about RO! I notice there are two RO manufacturers within 30 minutes from here. They do the BIG stuff for the oil industry, 10,000 GPD. I think I might visit one or both. Okay Rick. Next project is to research and learn everything currently known about RO watermakers. I've pointed out the experience and reasoning before, so I can flatly say I'm not spending a dime on a wind generator. The only reason I kept the two on the Coronado is because they were already there and they looked neat. They supplied maybe 10% of the power, with solar doing the other 90. Actually 100% almost always. Yes there are places where wind is great, but not those nice protected anchorages. I agree. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out where I can put any significant square footage of solar panels unless someone comes up with ones you can walk on that are efficient. I'll probably end up with the requisite two on the arch over the bimini. Our Cornado's aft deck, under the mizzen boom, had a solar "patio roof". Took up the whole aft deck and hung a bit over the sides on the aft end. 5 X 7 feet as I recall. The new owner moved them to the lifelines. He added stainless tubing and fashioned mounts so they could swing down, vertically. Seems to work. This is probably what I'll have to do with at least a couple. The other two can go on an arch over the davits. I hope so! Remember our mantra, "We'll get used to it!" :) That is... "Sweety, you'll get used to it. And remember you don't have to go to work in the morning either." Psych 101. "WE'LL get used to it." (Just got a mental picture of a smug Don standing over his sitting, fuming wife saying, "Sweety, ...") Honestly, don't pretend you're 100% in heaven. In truth you'll have to get used to it too. Well, unless your idea of comfort is a 30-day canoe trip down the Amazon. :-) Thanks for your thoughts Rick. You've obviously been there/done that ;-) Thanks! Yep. Been there done that. Gonna do it again!!!! Hot dawg!!!! Speaking of there. I'm in New Iberia, LA. Middle of the state about as close as you can get to the coast without living with the gators. I saw in another post you're Texas coast. What part? Just curious. Rick |
All yer eggs
Rick Morel wrote:
On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:24:19 GMT, Don W wrote: Hey, I know that the v-berth is unusable for sleeping at sea in anything but benign conditions anyway. Ask me how I know ;-) Might as well use it as a big (well... sorta) walk in closet. Don't have to ask. I know :-) As an aside, my ex could take anything short period, in shallow water. Offshore she got very seasick. To the point of considering her flying to the next from-offshore destination. She found a fix - stay in the forward stateroom and sleep on the vee-berth. It was the sloooow up and down that got to her; no problem with the FAST up and down. Vee-berth will be our "bedroom" cause it's the only double. Settee berth will be the single off-watch berth when needed. With added, what are they called, rod and canvas thing that comes up and attaches so you don't roll out. Lee cloth As far as making up the settee, which is what we do on the Irwin right now, we'll see. The problem is that the aft cabin is pretty low, and my wife can not seem to remember to not bang her head on it for more than two weeks at a time. Since she's slightly claustrophobic anyway, but doesn't seem to mind folding the bedding, I figure that we've got _two_ walk in closets, and no eating after bedtime. Of course, if you just want to catch a quick nap, there is the qtr-berth on the other side of the aisle from the settee, and its always available. One reason we passed on the S2 30 center cockpit. The other is that one had to sit on the shelf of the tiny bathtub and hunker over to take a shower. As I recall, lots of room between the dinette and settee - a friend has an Irwin 37. Folding table at the settee? "Dinette" for two? Leave the bed made? Just rambling.... Actually, you'd be surprised. Here's a quick rundown of what's in the kitchen at our house right now: Toaster Oven - 1380W Microwave - 1560W Coffee Maker - 1050W Electric Griddle - 1400W 5 Burner Electric Range - 6700W So if you turn on _everything_ at the same time at max heat, you need 12KW, but that's not realistic for the way you cook even at home. Typically, for a big breakfast, we use two burners on the range with one at 70% and the other at 30% (Hashbrowns and Eggs). The griddle is cycling on and off to keep the surface temp to 350F (Pancakes), and the coffee pot is brewing a pot of coffee. Once the brew cycle is done (~5 min) it goes to about 35% for the carafe warmer. So you have essentially one burner at 100% for 15 minutes, + the griddle (at say 75%) for 15 minutes, plus the coffeepot at 100% for 5 minutes, and then 35% for 10 minutes. Doing the math, you get a peak load of (6500W/5)+(1400W*75%)+(1050W)= 3400W. You are just above the capacity of the 3KW genset, so you either have to make the coffee first, and then do the cooking, or, alternatively, light off the second genset. I did some checking. Princess 3-burner Marine Stove, which seems typical. 1 simmer (550 watt) and 2 high speed (1100 watt) burners 1250 watt bake element 1300 watt broiler element So less than I was thinking. Dang, I do remember a factory printed placard next to my friend's stove listing combinations of burners/oven. But then the stove in that monster was more of a home type! Anyway it's 1,876 BTU, 3,753 BTU and 4,265 BTU respectively, leaving out the broiler and assuming 100% electric to heat conversion. Doing the conversion propane, with 5,000 BTU and 8,000 BTU burners, and 6500-16250 BTU oven (from checking) works out to 1,465 W, 2,344 W, 1,905-4,762 W output respectively. Okay, so looking at the marine electric vs. propane, and factoring in the home electric, it seems the marine electric is designed more to fit the genset and shore power socket. Specs on home electric stoves are harder to find. In any event, electric should give better heat tranfer to the pot, no airpace under to radiate heat, and one seldom uses a propane stove full blast except to quickly bring to a boil. Where am I going with this? Noplace, really. It's just information. Note that the entire cooking time is only 1/4 hour at 1/3 gal/hr so you use a little over a pint of fuel to cook breakfast. At $5/gallon this works out to 72 cents for fuel. The potato probably cost that much! I could go through lunch and dinner, but for us they would typically be even less, since the griddle and coffee maker are not in use. Often for dinner we have a salad, or heat up homemade soup in the microwave. Lunches are typically sandwiches, or a salad or re-heated soup. After breakfast is cooked, the genset can power the watermaker and the hot water heater while we eat and do dishes. Our water heater is a 11 gallon Force 10 which draws 1500W. If the watermaker draws 1000W like you say down below, we've got 500W left over (12V @ 41A!) to charge the batteries for the day. Sounds like a well thought out plan! $5 a gallon for gas? Is this what the marinas are charging these days? Wow! I'd consider dinghying in with a few jerry cans and looking for a regular auto gas station! Also, I don't really expect to use anywhere near 70 Gallons per day of water, but don't really know for sure. We used 4 to 6 gallons a day. High compared to many. One of the most wasteful water things is running the hot water tap, waiting for the hot to get there. Some folks put a valve in the line and route it back to the tank until it gets hot, close the valve and turn on the hot water tap. Don't know if it's true, but was told of a big powerboat at an anchorage. They had a big watermaker. Every day when they cranked up to recharge and run the watermaker they put out a "water call" on the VHF for folks to dinghy over with jugs or whatever to run their tanks down. Obviously they knew they had to run it awhile. Okay. Let's try it this way. Cooking two meals a day (SNIP) Amazingly we came really close to the same answer for fuel burn. Must be right ;-) Oh, us engineering types :-) If you do it I'd like first chance to buy your propane stove. Seriously. I am looking for one. okay, I'll post if/when we pull the stove. Probably be a while though because we're swamped with other projects right now. Maybe not. You said 3-burner. Don't think I'd have room :-( That's the rub with this energy thing. It takes a lot more then people realize. And when you convert one energy type to another, i.e. burn gasoline to convert to torque and motion to convert to electricity to convert to heat, there's going to be losses. Sometime great losses. I think I recall solar panels are about 6% efficient. Just think when and if they come up with a breakthrough and get 48% - 1/8 the panel size for the same energy! Agreed. The aussies have some triple junction research solar cells that reach in the low 60% efficiency IIRC. Now if somebody would just start massive production to get the cost down. BTW, I had to take thermodynamics to get the degree, so I'm with you on the energy conversion losses. Entropy always wins. Agreed. I came across the following: "Today, commonly available solar panels are 12% efficient, which is four times greater than only a few years ago." and "Silicon solar cell efficiencies vary from 6% for amorphous silicon-based solar cells to 40.7% with multiple-junction research lab cells. Solar cell energy conversion efficiencies for commercially available mc-Si solar cells are around 14-16%. The highest efficiency cells have not always been the most economical -- for example a 30% efficient multijunction cell based on exotic materials such as gallium arsenide or indium selenide and produced in low volume might well cost one hundred times as much as an 8% efficient amorphous silicon cell in mass production, while only delivering about four times the electrical power." Also came across a company claiming they've got 22%, "up to 50% more", that are available now. Couldn't find a price anywhere. Their size specs show they're about 71% of the area of the others. Bottom line for us is try to find the space needed for "regular" panels. I have a source for inexpensive removals from our offshore oil industry. Please don't get a 25 GPH watermaker, unless you plan on using at least 50 Gallons of water per day! SNIP Well, hassles are not what I want for sure. I've already had enough for one lifetime. However, we've got a 50GPH RO system under our sink at home, and it's feeding into a tiny 3.5 gallon reservoir. I don't think that little spigot on the sink can even flow 50GPH! The reason it's got the 50GPH membrane instead of the 12.5GPH membrane it came with was that when I replaced the membrane and filters a few years back I found a source for the membranes where I could get the 50GPH membrane for what I was paying for the 12.5GPH. I'm considering buying the membrane and pump(s) and constructing my own watermaker--and yes, I'm aware that the sea water membranes are quite different from freshwater ones like I have under the sink at home. It's not rocket science though, and that way when it breaks down, I'll have a clue how to go about fixing it. Lot's of stuff on the web by Brent Swain re rolling your own. No details except "buy my book". Ran across at least one web site with details. Most are high output with a pressure washer pump. Right, it's not rocket science. I'm looking at what it would take to build that ideal-for-me 3 GPH one with a 12V drive. Yes, the home and seawater ones are diffenent and as I understand seawater requires about 800 PSI and a finer membrane as opposed to the home 30 or 40 PSI regular water pressure. However, I did come across something that makes me wonder. First, PUR says "Salt Rejection: 98.4% average (96% minimum).." GE has a new home RO and says, "GE Infrastructure Water and Process Technologies has achieved a revolutionary breakthrough in the water treatment industry." 720 GPD and $400. They use salt for the TDS specs and it is, "TDS Rejection (NaCl) 90% Min, 99% Max, 93% Average." Okay. Never tasted salt or anything in those years of drinking RO from a PUR. Did taste salty at some marinas in FL (guess it was in the ground water). So taking worse case, maybe twice the salt left with the GE. How "tasty" is twice no taste? GE says the "Inlet TDS" is from 50 MG/L to 2 G/L. A quick check finds seawater is 35 G/L. Oh oh! 17.5 times the max! Is the max really the max? Or is it a convient and/or tested figure because that's the most ever expected from city and/or well water? What happens if seawater were used? Would it clog/ruin the membrane? Would it remove 1/17 or 1/X as much TDS? What is the criteria for TDS? The above presented really to point out one has to research things all the way, as you've done. Not very difficult these days with the internet. How I remember spending hours, even days at libraries in the past. Hmmm... Another research project. If one has say 25 GPH membranes, can one run less water through them, say from a 12V pump, and get 2 or 3 or 8 or whatever GPH? Say an engine driven or AC genset driven, if you have one, high volume pump and a 12V low volume? Less efficient? Would it even work? I honestly don't understand everything I know about RO! I notice there are two RO manufacturers within 30 minutes from here. They do the BIG stuff for the oil industry, 10,000 GPD. I think I might visit one or both. Okay Rick. Next project is to research and learn everything currently known about RO watermakers. I've pointed out the experience and reasoning before, so I can flatly say I'm not spending a dime on a wind generator. The only reason I kept the two on the Coronado is because they were already there and they looked neat. They supplied maybe 10% of the power, with solar doing the other 90. Actually 100% almost always. Yes there are places where wind is great, but not those nice protected anchorages. I agree. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out where I can put any significant square footage of solar panels unless someone comes up with ones you can walk on that are efficient. I'll probably end up with the requisite two on the arch over the bimini. Our Cornado's aft deck, under the mizzen boom, had a solar "patio roof". Took up the whole aft deck and hung a bit over the sides on the aft end. 5 X 7 feet as I recall. The new owner moved them to the lifelines. He added stainless tubing and fashioned mounts so they could swing down, vertically. Seems to work. This is probably what I'll have to do with at least a couple. The other two can go on an arch over the davits. I hope so! Remember our mantra, "We'll get used to it!" :) That is... "Sweety, you'll get used to it. And remember you don't have to go to work in the morning either." Psych 101. "WE'LL get used to it." (Just got a mental picture of a smug Don standing over his sitting, fuming wife saying, "Sweety, ...") Honestly, don't pretend you're 100% in heaven. In truth you'll have to get used to it too. Well, unless your idea of comfort is a 30-day canoe trip down the Amazon. :-) Thanks for your thoughts Rick. You've obviously been there/done that ;-) Thanks! Yep. Been there done that. Gonna do it again!!!! Hot dawg!!!! Speaking of there. I'm in New Iberia, LA. Middle of the state about as close as you can get to the coast without living with the gators. I saw in another post you're Texas coast. What part? Just curious. Rick |
All yer eggs
krj wrote: Don, Don't you have a cutoff solenoid in your propane locker to make sure there can be no propane in the cabin if the line were to break? Propane should be in a locker sealed from the cabin and vented to the outside of the boat with a shutoff valve. I and many others have used it for years with no booom. krj Yes, we have the solenoid, but solenoids can stick open, or a small gas leak while cooking can go undetected. I know that propane can be used safely, and is by many people. I've also seen the pictures of at least two different cruising boats that blew up at anchor or the dock due to propane. It was a nasty scene. My thinking is that since I need the genset anyway, why not just eliminate one fuel source, and the necessity of finding a place to fill the propane bottle in the boonies. I've got a large built in diesel tank on board, and I have to keep gasoline for the dinghy outboard anyway. Why add a third fuel source to the mix? The only reason I see to keep the propane stuff is that you can then run the outside BBQ grill off of propane--which would be handy. Don W. |
All yer eggs
Rick Morel wrote:
On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:24:19 GMT, Don W wrote: Hey, I know that the v-berth is unusable for sleeping at sea in anything but benign conditions anyway. Ask me how I know ;-) Might as well use it as a big (well... sorta) walk in closet. Don't have to ask. I know :-) As an aside, my ex could take anything short period, in shallow water. Offshore she got very seasick. To the point of considering her flying to the next from-offshore destination. She found a fix - stay in the forward stateroom and sleep on the vee-berth. It was the sloooow up and down that got to her; no problem with the FAST up and down. Wow, who would have thought. Myself I had a problem with the weightlessness, and then crashing back into the mattress. It kept waking me up ;-) Vee-berth will be our "bedroom" cause it's the only double. Settee berth will be the single off-watch berth when needed. With added, what are they called, rod and canvas thing that comes up and attaches so you don't roll out. "Lee cloths"? As far as making up the settee, which is what we do on the Irwin right now, we'll see. The problem is that the aft cabin is pretty low, and my wife can not seem to remember to not bang her head on it for more than two weeks at a time. Since she's slightly claustrophobic anyway, but doesn't seem to mind folding the bedding, I figure that we've got _two_ walk in closets, and no eating after bedtime. Of course, if you just want to catch a quick nap, there is the qtr-berth on the other side of the aisle from the settee, and its always available. One reason we passed on the S2 30 center cockpit. The other is that one had to sit on the shelf of the tiny bathtub and hunker over to take a shower. As I recall, lots of room between the dinette and settee - a friend has an Irwin 37. Folding table at the settee? "Dinette" for two? Leave the bed made? Just rambling.... Our Irwin is a Citation 38, and its got a really stupid setup for the table (Sorry Ted, but its true.) Our C27 seats four comfortably for dinner, but you can't even get four placemats on the IC38 table :( One of my projects is to redesign it, where it is big enough for six and quickly and easily folds up around the mast out of the way. I did some checking. Princess 3-burner Marine Stove, which seems typical. 1 simmer (550 watt) and 2 high speed (1100 watt) burners 1250 watt bake element 1300 watt broiler element So less than I was thinking. Dang, I do remember a factory printed placard next to my friend's stove listing combinations of burners/oven. But then the stove in that monster was more of a home type! Anyway it's 1,876 BTU, 3,753 BTU and 4,265 BTU respectively, leaving out the broiler and assuming 100% electric to heat conversion. Doing the conversion propane, with 5,000 BTU and 8,000 BTU burners, and 6500-16250 BTU oven (from checking) works out to 1,465 W, 2,344 W, 1,905-4,762 W output respectively. Okay, so looking at the marine electric vs. propane, and factoring in the home electric, it seems the marine electric is designed more to fit the genset and shore power socket. Specs on home electric stoves are harder to find. In any event, electric should give better heat tranfer to the pot, no airpace under to radiate heat, and one seldom uses a propane stove full blast except to quickly bring to a boil. Where am I going with this? Noplace, really. It's just information. No doubt propane is nicer to cook with. I'm just trying to eliminate one whole system from the boat, and regain some usable counterspace at the same time. BTW, the wattages I wrote up above came right off of the placards in our kitchen 5 minutes before I posted. I've still got the post-it with the notes I jotted down while checking them all. Note that the entire cooking time is only 1/4 hour at 1/3 gal/hr so you use a little over a pint of fuel to cook breakfast. At $5/gallon this works out to 72 cents for fuel. The potato probably cost that much! I could go through lunch and dinner, but for us they would typically be even less, since the griddle and coffee maker are not in use. Often for dinner we have a salad, or heat up homemade soup in the microwave. Lunches are typically sandwiches, or a salad or re-heated soup. After breakfast is cooked, the genset can power the watermaker and the hot water heater while we eat and do dishes. Our water heater is a 11 gallon Force 10 which draws 1500W. If the watermaker draws 1000W like you say down below, we've got 500W left over (12V @ 41A!) to charge the batteries for the day. Sounds like a well thought out plan! $5 a gallon for gas? Is this what the marinas are charging these days? Wow! I'd consider dinghying in with a few jerry cans and looking for a regular auto gas station! We're paying about $2/gallon here at the gas station, but I'm assuming it will be a lot more in Turks and Caicos, the Caymans, or Martinique. Anyone have any current info? Also, I don't really expect to use anywhere near 70 Gallons per day of water, but don't really know for sure. We used 4 to 6 gallons a day. High compared to many. One of the most wasteful water things is running the hot water tap, waiting for the hot to get there. Some folks put a valve in the line and route it back to the tank until it gets hot, close the valve and turn on the hot water tap. Well, you didn't have a watermaker either, so you were trying to conserve a lot. I measured what we used at home for showers one time, and was really surprised. Something like 20+ gallons each even with the low flow shower head. I could easily see us using 30-50 GPD with the two of us, and more with guests. Okay. Let's try it this way. Cooking two meals a day (SNIP) Amazingly we came really close to the same answer for fuel burn. Must be right ;-) Oh, us engineering types :-) LOL Agreed. The aussies have some triple junction research solar cells that reach in the low 60% efficiency IIRC. Now if somebody would just start massive production to get the cost down. BTW, I had to take thermodynamics to get the degree, so I'm with you on the energy conversion losses. Entropy always wins. Agreed. I came across the following: "Today, commonly available solar panels are 12% efficient, which is four times greater than only a few years ago." and "Silicon solar cell efficiencies vary from 6% for amorphous silicon-based solar cells to 40.7% with multiple-junction research lab cells. Solar cell energy conversion efficiencies for commercially available mc-Si solar cells are around 14-16%. The highest efficiency cells have not always been the most economical -- for example a 30% efficient multijunction cell based on exotic materials such as gallium arsenide or indium selenide and produced in low volume might well cost one hundred times as much as an 8% efficient amorphous silicon cell in mass production, while only delivering about four times the electrical power." Also came across a company claiming they've got 22%, "up to 50% more", that are available now. Couldn't find a price anywhere. Their size specs show they're about 71% of the area of the others. Bottom line for us is try to find the space needed for "regular" panels. I have a source for inexpensive removals from our offshore oil industry. That is a nice source. Solar is great except for the initial cost, and that cost is coming down. Please don't get a 25 GPH watermaker, unless you plan on using at least 50 Gallons of water per day! SNIP I'm considering buying the membrane and pump(s) and constructing my own watermaker--and yes, I'm aware that the sea water membranes are quite different from freshwater ones like I have under the sink at home. It's not rocket science though, and that way when it breaks down, I'll have a clue how to go about fixing it. Lot's of stuff on the web by Brent Swain re rolling your own. No details except "buy my book". Ran across at least one web site with details. Most are high output with a pressure washer pump. Right, it's not rocket science. I'm looking at what it would take to build that ideal-for-me 3 GPH one with a 12V drive. With an engineering background you should be able to do it easily. Its just a matter of maintaining pressure and flow across the membrane. The rest is filtering and flow to keep the sludge off of the membrane. Yes, the home and seawater ones are diffenent and as I understand seawater requires about 800 PSI and a finer membrane as opposed to the home 30 or 40 PSI regular water pressure. You are correct about the pressures, but the difference is not so much that the membrane is finer, but that it is a different composition to be able to withstand the higher pressure. However, I did come across something that makes me wonder. First, PUR says "Salt Rejection: 98.4% average (96% minimum).." GE has a new home RO and says, "GE Infrastructure Water and Process Technologies has achieved a revolutionary breakthrough in the water treatment industry." 720 GPD and $400. They use salt for the TDS specs and it is, "TDS Rejection (NaCl) 90% Min, 99% Max, 93% Average." Okay. Never tasted salt or anything in those years of drinking RO from a PUR. Did taste salty at some marinas in FL (guess it was in the ground water). So taking worse case, maybe twice the salt left with the GE. How "tasty" is twice no taste? GE says the "Inlet TDS" is from 50 MG/L to 2 G/L. A quick check finds seawater is 35 G/L. Oh oh! 17.5 times the max! Is the max really the max? Or is it a convient and/or tested figure because that's the most ever expected from city and/or well water? What happens if seawater were used? Would it clog/ruin the membrane? Would it remove 1/17 or 1/X as much TDS? What is the criteria for TDS? I'm not an expert on RO, but I believe that the higher the salt concentration the higher the osmotic pressure, and therefore the higher the pressure required to reverse the osmotic process. I've done some initial research, but need to do more. The above presented really to point out one has to research things all the way, as you've done. Not very difficult these days with the internet. How I remember spending hours, even days at libraries in the past. Isn't that the truth. I used to go down to the UT engineering library to research patents on microfilm. Now you can pull them up for free off the internet. Hmmm... Another research project. If one has say 25 GPH membranes, can one run less water through them, say from a 12V pump, and get 2 or 3 or 8 or whatever GPH? Say an engine driven or AC genset driven, if you have one, high volume pump and a 12V low volume? Less efficient? Would it even work? I honestly don't understand everything I know about RO! You have to have enough pressure to reverse the natural osmosis. Basically, its pre-filtering, pressure across the membrane, and flow on the "dirty" side of the membrane to keep the "debris" moving along so as not to clog the membrane. I notice there are two RO manufacturers within 30 minutes from here. They do the BIG stuff for the oil industry, 10,000 GPD. I think I might visit one or both. Okay Rick. Next project is to research and learn everything currently known about RO watermakers. Cruise ships have some monstrous systems, and I had the opportunity to view and discuss one with the chief engineer a few years back. The requirement for generating clean water on ships goes all the way back to the water used in steam boilers. The Navy was doing it back in WWII--probably before. Our Cornado's aft deck, under the mizzen boom, had a solar "patio roof". Took up the whole aft deck and hung a bit over the sides on the aft end. 5 X 7 feet as I recall. The new owner moved them to the lifelines. He added stainless tubing and fashioned mounts so they could swing down, vertically. Seems to work. This is probably what I'll have to do with at least a couple. The other two can go on an arch over the davits. I've seen boats outfitted like that. I always wonder what's going to happen to those panels when they catch a good boarding wave over the bow, but maybe they just plan on not doing that. Psych 101. "WE'LL get used to it." Gotcha ;-) Honestly, don't pretend you're 100% in heaven. In truth you'll have to get used to it too. Well, unless your idea of comfort is a 30-day canoe trip down the Amazon. :-) Well, I'm not 100% sure that I'll like living on the sailboat and cruising although I think I will. We're going to try it in small doses for a while and see how it goes. Thanks! Yep. Been there done that. Gonna do it again!!!! Hot dawg!!!! Well, _you_ must have liked it... Speaking of there. I'm in New Iberia, LA. Middle of the state about as close as you can get to the coast without living with the gators. I saw in another post you're Texas coast. What part? Just curious. We're in Austin, but the boat is in Palacios on the northern side of Matagorda Bay. Rick Don W. |
All yer eggs
Don W wrote:
Rick Morel wrote: On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:24:19 GMT, Don W wrote: Hey, I know that the v-berth is unusable for sleeping at sea in anything but benign conditions anyway. Ask me how I know ;-) Might as well use it as a big (well... sorta) walk in closet. Don't have to ask. I know :-) As an aside, my ex could take anything short period, in shallow water. Offshore she got very seasick. To the point of considering her flying to the next from-offshore destination. She found a fix - stay in the forward stateroom and sleep on the vee-berth. It was the sloooow up and down that got to her; no problem with the FAST up and down. Wow, who would have thought. Myself I had a problem with the weightlessness, and then crashing back into the mattress. It kept waking me up ;-) Vee-berth will be our "bedroom" cause it's the only double. Settee berth will be the single off-watch berth when needed. With added, what are they called, rod and canvas thing that comes up and attaches so you don't roll out. "Lee cloths"? As far as making up the settee, which is what we do on the Irwin right now, we'll see. The problem is that the aft cabin is pretty low, and my wife can not seem to remember to not bang her head on it for more than two weeks at a time. Since she's slightly claustrophobic anyway, but doesn't seem to mind folding the bedding, I figure that we've got _two_ walk in closets, and no eating after bedtime. Of course, if you just want to catch a quick nap, there is the qtr-berth on the other side of the aisle from the settee, and its always available. One reason we passed on the S2 30 center cockpit. The other is that one had to sit on the shelf of the tiny bathtub and hunker over to take a shower. As I recall, lots of room between the dinette and settee - a friend has an Irwin 37. Folding table at the settee? "Dinette" for two? Leave the bed made? Just rambling.... Our Irwin is a Citation 38, and its got a really stupid setup for the table (Sorry Ted, but its true.) Our C27 seats four comfortably for dinner, but you can't even get four placemats on the IC38 table :( One of my projects is to redesign it, where it is big enough for six and quickly and easily folds up around the mast out of the way. I did some checking. Princess 3-burner Marine Stove, which seems typical. 1 simmer (550 watt) and 2 high speed (1100 watt) burners 1250 watt bake element 1300 watt broiler element So less than I was thinking. Dang, I do remember a factory printed placard next to my friend's stove listing combinations of burners/oven. But then the stove in that monster was more of a home type! Anyway it's 1,876 BTU, 3,753 BTU and 4,265 BTU respectively, leaving out the broiler and assuming 100% electric to heat conversion. Doing the conversion propane, with 5,000 BTU and 8,000 BTU burners, and 6500-16250 BTU oven (from checking) works out to 1,465 W, 2,344 W, 1,905-4,762 W output respectively. Okay, so looking at the marine electric vs. propane, and factoring in the home electric, it seems the marine electric is designed more to fit the genset and shore power socket. Specs on home electric stoves are harder to find. In any event, electric should give better heat tranfer to the pot, no airpace under to radiate heat, and one seldom uses a propane stove full blast except to quickly bring to a boil. Where am I going with this? Noplace, really. It's just information. No doubt propane is nicer to cook with. I'm just trying to eliminate one whole system from the boat, and regain some usable counterspace at the same time. BTW, the wattages I wrote up above came right off of the placards in our kitchen 5 minutes before I posted. I've still got the post-it with the notes I jotted down while checking them all. Note that the entire cooking time is only 1/4 hour at 1/3 gal/hr so you use a little over a pint of fuel to cook breakfast. At $5/gallon this works out to 72 cents for fuel. The potato probably cost that much! I could go through lunch and dinner, but for us they would typically be even less, since the griddle and coffee maker are not in use. Often for dinner we have a salad, or heat up homemade soup in the microwave. Lunches are typically sandwiches, or a salad or re-heated soup. After breakfast is cooked, the genset can power the watermaker and the hot water heater while we eat and do dishes. Our water heater is a 11 gallon Force 10 which draws 1500W. If the watermaker draws 1000W like you say down below, we've got 500W left over (12V @ 41A!) to charge the batteries for the day. Sounds like a well thought out plan! $5 a gallon for gas? Is this what the marinas are charging these days? Wow! I'd consider dinghying in with a few jerry cans and looking for a regular auto gas station! We're paying about $2/gallon here at the gas station, but I'm assuming it will be a lot more in Turks and Caicos, the Caymans, or Martinique. Anyone have any current info? Also, I don't really expect to use anywhere near 70 Gallons per day of water, but don't really know for sure. We used 4 to 6 gallons a day. High compared to many. One of the most wasteful water things is running the hot water tap, waiting for the hot to get there. Some folks put a valve in the line and route it back to the tank until it gets hot, close the valve and turn on the hot water tap. Well, you didn't have a watermaker either, so you were trying to conserve a lot. I measured what we used at home for showers one time, and was really surprised. Something like 20+ gallons each even with the low flow shower head. I could easily see us using 30-50 GPD with the two of us, and more with guests. Okay. Let's try it this way. Cooking two meals a day (SNIP) Amazingly we came really close to the same answer for fuel burn. Must be right ;-) Oh, us engineering types :-) LOL Agreed. The aussies have some triple junction research solar cells that reach in the low 60% efficiency IIRC. Now if somebody would just start massive production to get the cost down. BTW, I had to take thermodynamics to get the degree, so I'm with you on the energy conversion losses. Entropy always wins. Agreed. I came across the following: "Today, commonly available solar panels are 12% efficient, which is four times greater than only a few years ago." and "Silicon solar cell efficiencies vary from 6% for amorphous silicon-based solar cells to 40.7% with multiple-junction research lab cells. Solar cell energy conversion efficiencies for commercially available mc-Si solar cells are around 14-16%. The highest efficiency cells have not always been the most economical -- for example a 30% efficient multijunction cell based on exotic materials such as gallium arsenide or indium selenide and produced in low volume might well cost one hundred times as much as an 8% efficient amorphous silicon cell in mass production, while only delivering about four times the electrical power." Also came across a company claiming they've got 22%, "up to 50% more", that are available now. Couldn't find a price anywhere. Their size specs show they're about 71% of the area of the others. Bottom line for us is try to find the space needed for "regular" panels. I have a source for inexpensive removals from our offshore oil industry. That is a nice source. Solar is great except for the initial cost, and that cost is coming down. Please don't get a 25 GPH watermaker, unless you plan on using at least 50 Gallons of water per day! SNIP I'm considering buying the membrane and pump(s) and constructing my own watermaker--and yes, I'm aware that the sea water membranes are quite different from freshwater ones like I have under the sink at home. It's not rocket science though, and that way when it breaks down, I'll have a clue how to go about fixing it. Lot's of stuff on the web by Brent Swain re rolling your own. No details except "buy my book". Ran across at least one web site with details. Most are high output with a pressure washer pump. Right, it's not rocket science. I'm looking at what it would take to build that ideal-for-me 3 GPH one with a 12V drive. With an engineering background you should be able to do it easily. Its just a matter of maintaining pressure and flow across the membrane. The rest is filtering and flow to keep the sludge off of the membrane. Yes, the home and seawater ones are diffenent and as I understand seawater requires about 800 PSI and a finer membrane as opposed to the home 30 or 40 PSI regular water pressure. You are correct about the pressures, but the difference is not so much that the membrane is finer, but that it is a different composition to be able to withstand the higher pressure. However, I did come across something that makes me wonder. First, PUR says "Salt Rejection: 98.4% average (96% minimum).." GE has a new home RO and says, "GE Infrastructure Water and Process Technologies has achieved a revolutionary breakthrough in the water treatment industry." 720 GPD and $400. They use salt for the TDS specs and it is, "TDS Rejection (NaCl) 90% Min, 99% Max, 93% Average." Okay. Never tasted salt or anything in those years of drinking RO from a PUR. Did taste salty at some marinas in FL (guess it was in the ground water). So taking worse case, maybe twice the salt left with the GE. How "tasty" is twice no taste? GE says the "Inlet TDS" is from 50 MG/L to 2 G/L. A quick check finds seawater is 35 G/L. Oh oh! 17.5 times the max! Is the max really the max? Or is it a convient and/or tested figure because that's the most ever expected from city and/or well water? What happens if seawater were used? Would it clog/ruin the membrane? Would it remove 1/17 or 1/X as much TDS? What is the criteria for TDS? I'm not an expert on RO, but I believe that the higher the salt concentration the higher the osmotic pressure, and therefore the higher the pressure required to reverse the osmotic process. I've done some initial research, but need to do more. The above presented really to point out one has to research things all the way, as you've done. Not very difficult these days with the internet. How I remember spending hours, even days at libraries in the past. Isn't that the truth. I used to go down to the UT engineering library to research patents on microfilm. Now you can pull them up for free off the internet. Hmmm... Another research project. If one has say 25 GPH membranes, can one run less water through them, say from a 12V pump, and get 2 or 3 or 8 or whatever GPH? Say an engine driven or AC genset driven, if you have one, high volume pump and a 12V low volume? Less efficient? Would it even work? I honestly don't understand everything I know about RO! You have to have enough pressure to reverse the natural osmosis. Basically, its pre-filtering, pressure across the membrane, and flow on the "dirty" side of the membrane to keep the "debris" moving along so as not to clog the membrane. I notice there are two RO manufacturers within 30 minutes from here. They do the BIG stuff for the oil industry, 10,000 GPD. I think I might visit one or both. Okay Rick. Next project is to research and learn everything currently known about RO watermakers. Cruise ships have some monstrous systems, and I had the opportunity to view and discuss one with the chief engineer a few years back. The requirement for generating clean water on ships goes all the way back to the water used in steam boilers. The Navy was doing it back in WWII--probably before. Our Cornado's aft deck, under the mizzen boom, had a solar "patio roof". Took up the whole aft deck and hung a bit over the sides on the aft end. 5 X 7 feet as I recall. The new owner moved them to the lifelines. He added stainless tubing and fashioned mounts so they could swing down, vertically. Seems to work. This is probably what I'll have to do with at least a couple. The other two can go on an arch over the davits. I've seen boats outfitted like that. I always wonder what's going to happen to those panels when they catch a good boarding wave over the bow, but maybe they just plan on not doing that. Psych 101. "WE'LL get used to it." Gotcha ;-) Honestly, don't pretend you're 100% in heaven. In truth you'll have to get used to it too. Well, unless your idea of comfort is a 30-day canoe trip down the Amazon. :-) Well, I'm not 100% sure that I'll like living on the sailboat and cruising although I think I will. We're going to try it in small doses for a while and see how it goes. Thanks! Yep. Been there done that. Gonna do it again!!!! Hot dawg!!!! Well, _you_ must have liked it... Speaking of there. I'm in New Iberia, LA. Middle of the state about as close as you can get to the coast without living with the gators. I saw in another post you're Texas coast. What part? Just curious. We're in Austin, but the boat is in Palacios on the northern side of Matagorda Bay. Rick Don W. Learn how to take boat showers. Turn shower on, wet body, turn shower off, wash body, turn shower on and rinse off soap. Use maybe 2 gallons. Our 196 gallons will last about 2 weeks, not counting the bottle water we drink. We use sea water for washing dishes and depending where we are bathe in the sea and come aboard and rinse in fresh. krj |
All yer eggs
Learn how to take boat showers. Turn shower on, wet body, turn shower off, wash body, turn shower on and rinse off soap. Use maybe 2 gallons. Our 196 gallons will last about 2 weeks, not counting the bottle water we drink. We use sea water for washing dishes and depending where we are bathe in the sea and come aboard and rinse in fresh. krj I'm with you in theory, but in practice its just one more thing to not like about cruising. Its much easier to put in the _big_ RO watermaker, and not have to complain about how long the shower runs when she is doing her hair. Also, our 70 gallon tank would only last you 5 days at your rate of consumption, so on our boat you would either have to stay pretty close to a water tap, or have a good catchment system and only sail in rainy areas if you wanted to get by without a watermaker. YMMV, Don W. |
All yer eggs
"Don W" wrote I'm with you in theory, but in practice its just one more thing to not like about cruising. Its much easier to put in the _big_ RO watermaker, and not have to complain about how long the shower runs when she is doing her hair. Every girl wants a man like you. Easy to control! Also, our 70 gallon tank would only last you 5 days at your rate of consumption, so on our boat you would either have to stay pretty close to a water tap, or have a good catchment system and only sail in rainy areas if you wanted to get by without a watermaker. Don't forget to buy her a dishwasher, washer/drier, and an ice maker while you're at it. There's a good little boy! Freaking wimp! There's plenty of hot water at home in the shower. A boat's a boat - not a floating condo. And if it isn't a sailboat then it's worthless to begin with. Cheers, Ellen |
All yer eggs
Ellen MacArthur wrote:
"Don W" wrote I'm with you in theory, but in practice its just one more thing to not like about cruising. Its much easier to put in the _big_ RO watermaker, and not have to complain about how long the shower runs when she is doing her hair. Every girl wants a man like you. Easy to control! Also, our 70 gallon tank would only last you 5 days at your rate of consumption, so on our boat you would either have to stay pretty close to a water tap, or have a good catchment system and only sail in rainy areas if you wanted to get by without a watermaker. Don't forget to buy her a dishwasher, washer/drier, and an ice maker while you're at it. There's a good little boy! Freaking wimp! There's plenty of hot water at home in the shower. A boat's a boat - not a floating condo. And if it isn't a sailboat then it's worthless to begin with. Cheers, Ellen **** you Ellen. How long have _you_ been married? For me its been nearly 1/4 century so far and I like her and she likes me. I'm not going to tie her to the mast and flog her if she complains. Cheerfully, Don W. |
All yer eggs
Charlie Morgan wrote:
Don't forget to buy her a dishwasher, washer/drier, and an ice maker while you're at it. There's a good little boy! Freaking wimp! There's plenty of hot water at home in the shower. A boat's a boat - not a floating condo. And if it isn't a sailboat then it's worthless to begin with. Cheers, Ellen **** you Ellen. How long have _you_ been married? For me its been nearly 1/4 century so far and I like her and she likes me. I'm not going to tie her to the mast and flog her if she complains. Cheerfully, Don W. Before you get too excited, here's Ellen's website and photo: http://www.homestead.com/captneal/Captain.html CWM LOL. Charlie, If someone really annoys me, I just killfile them and move on. That banter was just a little "newsgroup sex" ;) Don W. |
All yer eggs
I'm glad that mystery is solved.
-- Roger Long |
All yer eggs
On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:06:52 GMT, Don W
wrote: We used 4 to 6 gallons a day. High compared to many. One of the most wasteful water things is running the hot water tap, waiting for the hot to get there. Some folks put a valve in the line and route it back to the tank until it gets hot, close the valve and turn on the hot water tap. Well, you didn't have a watermaker either, so you were trying to conserve a lot. I measured what we used at home for showers one time, and was really surprised. Something like 20+ gallons each even with the low flow shower head. I could easily see us using 30-50 GPD with the two of us, and more with guests. No. Well actually yes we did have a watermaker. Of course we could have run it 24/7 and made 40 GPD, but the whole idea is it "costs" energy to run. Over about 8 to 10 GPD it would have overdrawn the solar "bank". Add in it was fairly noisy. "Navy" showers are the way to go. Wet, push the button on the shower head to turn it off. Soap, push the button and rinse. We used about a gallon. Okay, sometimes 2 gallons :-) You have to have enough pressure to reverse the natural osmosis. Basically, its pre-filtering, pressure across the membrane, and flow on the "dirty" side of the membrane to keep the "debris" moving along so as not to clog the membrane. Watermakers 101 (maybe we should change the subject line!): Not a real lot of system type info out there, but some neat equations and stuff. Yep, pressure is a function of molecular weight, dissociation and solute concentration, and in the case of salt the "osmotically effective" concentration of solute. All that to determine the osmotic pressure of seawater is approx 460 PSI and that it takes a higher pressure than that for it all to work. Note "higher", not a specific pressure. All the talk about reducing pressure for brackish water, etc., is not due to the process directly, but to the second requirment. To properly wash off stuff from the membrane. Some sources say 5% of the water should go through, others, specifically membrane manufacturers, say something else. One says a range of 10% to 20%. As an aside and real world observation, PUR said for the 40E it didn't matter - they said run in in the lake or canal (fresh), in the bay (brackish) or in the ocean (salt). And we did, with no damage or noticable increase or drop in product water output. Guess it was "made" to operate at the percentages encountered under all those conditions. Sooooo... One has to supply the proper volume of water per time unit at the proper pressure for a given size membrane/pressure vessel. Make that within a low to high range for both. That says a piston or plunger pump of X volume per stroke, operating at Y strokes per minute to supply that volume. So nice that water is incompressible :-) Force required to the piston/plunger = PSI required / area of piston/plunger. Strokes per minute = volume required / volume per stroke. Next is some way to regulate the brine flow out of the pressure vessel to maintain that pressure at that volume. Apparently the most used method is an orifice or needle valve. Adjust it to "bleed off" the brine at such a rate to maintain pressure from the properly sized pump. Another way I ran across is a pressure regulator. This on one that had an engine driven pump. The reason was that the pump output would vary with engine RPM. Even so the engine had to be run within certain RPM ranges. So now to my "ideal" 3 GPH, 12V watermaker. Research pumps. Maybe do some experimentation with a plain old pressure washer pump. Noticed Walmart has a cheap 1,600 PSI 3.8 GPM pressure washer. Little bitty thing. Must have a small motor. No, I'm not advocating turning it into a watermaker pump. Probably would turn to rust in weeks, if not days. Just shows high pressure water pumps are no big deal. Come to think of it, I've seen some really neat little plunger pumps around here. Back to the good old oil industry. 3 GPH output should take 20 GPH, .33 GPM at 15% product water. Subject to adjustment. Build a pump from scratch? Why not. I've got a metal lathe and other stuff in the shop. Have built stuff that operated at 10,000 PSI. Have built steam engines and very small, less than 1 CI, model diesel engines. Got a geared down wheelchair motor that'll run all day on 12V at 5 to 15 AMPS. Oops. Sorry to use this group for a napkin!!! Rick |
All yer eggs
Rick Morel wrote:
Well, you didn't have a watermaker either, so you were trying to conserve a lot. I measured what we used at home for showers one time, and was really surprised. Something like 20+ gallons each even with the low flow shower head. I could easily see us using 30-50 GPD with the two of us, and more with guests. No. Well actually yes we did have a watermaker. Of course we could have run it 24/7 and made 40 GPD, but the whole idea is it "costs" energy to run. Over about 8 to 10 GPD it would have overdrawn the solar "bank". Add in it was fairly noisy. That noise is the worst problem in my estimation. I don't mind paying to run the genset or the watermaker, I just don't want to hear it or feel it. "Navy" showers are the way to go. Wet, push the button on the shower head to turn it off. Soap, push the button and rinse. We used about a gallon. Okay, sometimes 2 gallons :-) We'll give it a try. I can see how it works, but won't know if it will work for us until we're actually doing it. Right now, the marina we're in has nice hot showers available, so guess where we go to shower on mornings we sleep on the boat. You have to have enough pressure to reverse the natural osmosis. Basically, its pre-filtering, pressure across the membrane, and flow on the "dirty" side of the membrane to keep the "debris" moving along so as not to clog the membrane. Well, I was trying to be succinct. Watermakers 101 (maybe we should change the subject line!): Not a real lot of system type info out there, but some neat equations and stuff. Yep, pressure is a function of molecular weight, dissociation and solute concentration, and in the case of salt the "osmotically effective" concentration of solute. All that to determine the osmotic pressure of seawater is approx 460 PSI and that it takes a higher pressure than that for it all to work. Note "higher", not a specific pressure. Right. Although for a given effective size of membrane, you get more purified water out of it the higher the pressure is above the natural osmotic pressure. This works right up to the point where the membrane ruptures at which point you get a lot more water, but its not purified ;-) All the talk about reducing pressure for brackish water, etc., is not due to the process directly, but to the second requirment. To properly wash off stuff from the membrane. Some sources say 5% of the water should go through, others, specifically membrane manufacturers, say something else. One says a range of 10% to 20%. As an aside and real world observation, PUR said for the 40E it didn't matter - they said run in in the lake or canal (fresh), in the bay (brackish) or in the ocean (salt). And we did, with no damage or noticable increase or drop in product water output. Guess it was "made" to operate at the percentages encountered under all those conditions. Sooooo... One has to supply the proper volume of water per time unit at the proper pressure for a given size membrane/pressure vessel. Make that within a low to high range for both. That says a piston or plunger pump of X volume per stroke, operating at Y strokes per minute to supply that volume. So nice that water is incompressible :-) Force required to the piston/plunger = PSI required / area of piston/plunger. Strokes per minute = volume required / volume per stroke. Next is some way to regulate the brine flow out of the pressure vessel to maintain that pressure at that volume. Apparently the most used method is an orifice or needle valve. Adjust it to "bleed off" the brine at such a rate to maintain pressure from the properly sized pump. Another way I ran across is a pressure regulator. This on one that had an engine driven pump. The reason was that the pump output would vary with engine RPM. Even so the engine had to be run within certain RPM ranges. These are the basics. Obviously, the pressure regulator approach is better given a variable flow source. So now to my "ideal" 3 GPH, 12V watermaker. Research pumps. Maybe do some experimentation with a plain old pressure washer pump. Noticed Walmart has a cheap 1,600 PSI 3.8 GPM pressure washer. Little bitty thing. Must have a small motor. No, I'm not advocating turning it into a watermaker pump. Probably would turn to rust in weeks, if not days. Don't count on it. The pump in my pressure washer has a bronze housing, and 316 stainless balls and springs. Let's see. At 10% that would yield .38 GPM, or a little over 1 gal/3 minutes, so if mated with the appropriate membrane it would be a 20GPH system. Didn't you tell me not to get a 25GPH system?? ;-) Just shows high pressure water pumps are no big deal. Come to think of it, I've seen some really neat little plunger pumps around here. Back to the good old oil industry. 3 GPH output should take 20 GPH, .33 GPM at 15% product water. Subject to adjustment. 15% might be a little high, but not much. Maybe figure 10%. There you go again. We got the same number by different methods. Must be right ;-) Build a pump from scratch? Why not. I've got a metal lathe and other stuff in the shop. Have built stuff that operated at 10,000 PSI. Have built steam engines and very small, less than 1 CI, model diesel engines. Got a geared down wheelchair motor that'll run all day on 12V at 5 to 15 AMPS. Sounds like neat projects. My cousin Mark built a minature four cylinder steam or compressed air engine complete with cam and valve train in the engineering shop at WSU while I was there. The total displacement was about .2 CI. BTW, the high pressure pump on my airless sprayer is a kind of neat design. It basically has a spring loaded inlet valve, an spring loaded outlet valve, a liquid chamber, and a piston that intrudes into the liquid chamber. It is low flow rate, but puts out 2000PSI and will pump almost anything you want to run through it. You can adjust the pressure as well. The valves are ~$25 each, and the liquid chamber is milled aluminum. Really a pretty neat design all in all, and practically indestructible. Oops. Sorry to use this group for a napkin!!! Rick You can do it! But you will have to buy the membrane and filter housings. Remember that if you are going to pressurize the whole thing the pre-filter housings have to be stout as well. Of course, I don't know why you would do that... ;-) Don W. |
All yer eggs
On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 23:46:47 -0600, Don W
wrote: You can do it! But you will have to buy the membrane and filter housings. Remember that if you are going to pressurize the whole thing the pre-filter housings have to be stout as well. Of course, I don't know why you would do that... ;-) Don W. Oddly the membrane seems to be the cheapest part. Well next to the pre-filters. Smallest membrane I found was a 6 GPH for $147. Pressure vessel for same was around $400. Okay, so 6 GPH is workable at 12V. Gonna' rest my brain... Then pick brain of an oilfield friend quite familiar with high pressure pumps and visit the two nearby oil field RO manufacturers. Rick |
All yer eggs
Rick Morel wrote:
On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 23:46:47 -0600, Don W wrote: You can do it! But you will have to buy the membrane and filter housings. Remember that if you are going to pressurize the whole thing the pre-filter housings have to be stout as well. Of course, I don't know why you would do that... ;-) Don W. Oddly the membrane seems to be the cheapest part. Well next to the pre-filters. Smallest membrane I found was a 6 GPH for $147. Pressure vessel for same was around $400. Okay, so 6 GPH is workable at 12V. Gonna' rest my brain... Then pick brain of an oilfield friend quite familiar with high pressure pumps and visit the two nearby oil field RO manufacturers. Rick Good luck with it Rick. Let me know what you find out. Don W. |
| All times are GMT +1. The time now is 07:06 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004 - 2014 BoatBanter.com