[This message forwarded from their sailmail status report.]

Day 2 - Maine Passage

Hello from the Gulf Stream, at 32*58'N 77*05'W at 7 PM, Wednesday
July 30

We understand that the SPOT system has been down for a while -
you may not be able to track us at this time, unfortunately.
Perhaps they'll relax their rules about displaying only a 24-hour
track in light of the failure, and leave the tracks up from when
their server went down...

As we left you we were on the edge of the Gulf Stream, and making
very good time. I forgot to mention that yesterday I saw not
only many porpoises who came to play around the boat, but a very
large, green, turtle.

As I took my shift, the period from 6-10 PM was pretty rolly, but
we were making good enough time that I was reluctant to jibe, as
the jibe would take us further north just as the stream started
going east in earnest.

However, the rolls increased significantly in the 10-12 midnight
period, and the winds were totally flaky, with ranges from 6 to
20 knots and back again, as the wind clocked around and I had to
continually adjust our direction to keep the sails full. For all
that, we were making from 7-8.8 knots, so we were getting good
lift from the Stream.

About the time we were heading due east, and rolling violently
(with the risk of a jibe, let alone the stress on the rig as it
emptied and filled again, I jibed at 12:30, which settled Flying
Pig immediately. Now the waves were mostly with us in a
following sea, and our speed stabilized at mostly 8.4 knots.

Lydia relieved me briefly at 2, and in her time, the wind clocked
some more, allowing a 42 degree made-good, with many periods of 9
or more knots over ground. Clearly we were in the Stream at that
point. However, by the time I got up for weather checks (of
which all of the frequencies our router, Chris Parker uses, none
were audible for the first 2 hours), the wind had shifted and we
were on a course in the 20s, taking us near the edge, or out of
the Gulf Stream.

The good news is that, while I was correct in my guess about our
relative position for the Gulf Stream, when I finally reached
Chris, he said we'd avoided squalls last night by our course.
However, we'll have to jibe again and proceed due east for
several hours before we find the Stream again.

And... With only a slight following wind, and most of our first
day being rainy, we were dangerously (55%) low on our batteries,
our solar and wind generation not getting much work up until now.
Yesterday the sun kept up with our usage, but didn't replace any
we'd had the prior night - and, of course, we continued to use it
last night. So....

As much as I hated to do it, I cranked up Perky for a brief shot
of amps. Oops. Blew an exhaust hose. That was exciting!
Engine room full of smoke and water! However, those repairs were
made in short order, and charging commenced. If we're going to
run the engine, we're sure going to push the boat, too. However,
at cruising RPM, with a 10 knot extremely broad reach, we're
making only 6.8 knots - not much different than if we were
motoring only. So, off to another jibe, and heading east, we
sought out the Gulf Stream's lift again at 9AM...

As long as we were running the engine, and because the winds were
light enough, and the seas rolly enough that the sails weren't
stopping the crashing, at 11 we stowed the genoa and used the
main, sheeted blade tight in the center, as a flopper-stopper.
Things were much more comfortable that way, but eventually we got
back into the Gulf Stream as evidenced by the sharp difference in
the heading and the actual course made good.

We looked at the charts, and our course along the Gulf Stream
would take us at about 43 degrees. However, we were still just
on the edge of it, so a slightly higher angle would work well for
us. Since the wind was forecast - and in fact, was - directly
aft of about a course of travel of 60 degrees, at 1 PM we went
wing and wing, poling out the genoa and putting a preventer on
the mainsail on the other side. That allowed both sails to
remain full as the boat rolled, without crashing around and
stressing the rig.

Ah, bliss. Our course made good is about 50 degrees, and with
only 7 knots of wind, we're making well over 8 knots toward our
destination. While I napped briefly in the afternoon before
trying to raise Herb Helgenberg, Southbound II, the hobby weather
forecaster who's served mariners for all these years, Lydia saw a
large pod of porpoises swimming around the boat. That reminds us
of why we're here - all the glories of nature.

Tonight I cooked the remainder of the Mahi-Mahi and King
Mackerel, and we had some of the Mackerel over cole slaw. All
the remaining (cooked) fish went in our freezer, because we still
had one meal of steak and a couple meals of chicken waiting for
our salads or veggies for dinner. Because it had been cooked
quite a while ago, we need to eat that first before diving back
into the fish!

So, all is well aboard Flying Pig, as we continue on our way.
The weather is forecast to be much of the same for the next
several days, and our route should take us away from some minor
squall activities forming to the southeast. We'll come again,
this time, tomorrow.


L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power
to make it come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in
its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts."
(Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah)

Couple of questions:

You talk about the danger of jibing. Have you rigged a preventer?

What ran your batteries down to 50% in a day? That seems pretty low to me.

Paul Cassel wrote in
:

What ran your batteries down to 50% in a day? That seems pretty low to
me.



Skip's Morgan 46 is more like a 3BR 2BA house than a barebones sloop
with a handheld GPS on a lap board. There are plenty of electrical
loads on the 660AH (I think) house battery bank...fridge, freezer,
lighting, computers he reports to us on, a fine array of radios, sailing
instruments, navigational tools anyone would be proud to own. He
doesn't need puny WEFAX charts, though he can produce them on any
frequency, because there is an automatically receiving direct GOES 137
Mhz weather satellite system aboard.

It's one of the nicest-equipped sailboats I've ever been aboard. This
all takes power...lots of power. He charges from large solar panels
over the stern above the davits for the dingy, a nicely installed wind
charger which I think from his recent posts is the reason power has
drained out....because with a FOLLOWING wind, wing-n-wing sailing
downwind, the apparent wind over the wind charger is near zero...not the
constant 15-25 amps he normally creates from it. So, he's made a
mistake that's my pet peeve with sailors...."I can charge the batteries
in 30 minutes at 5000A", which is simply not possible due to physics and
chemistry, whether sailors like it or not...

The wind'll shift around to a more favorable charging position in the
wind genny after he rounds the Cape, I hope....giving him back his 15-
25A nice slow, but persistent, charging, 24/7.

Until then, he whould be slowly recharging at 1500 RPM from the Perkins
idling away in the bilge....whether it powers the boat much or not.

I believe he also has a 2KW Honda EU2000i superquiet gas genset aboard
he can deploy to run the 40A main charger he installed with me watching
while they were in Charleston last. That would also give him AC power
to run the fridge/freezer/computers and other loads that should be
running on AC to give the house batteries more time to properly
recharge. That would be my choice. Mine is only an EU1000i and it has
charged for many hours at sea very nicely on little fuel.

TURN HER INTO THE WIND, SKIP! LET THE WIND GENNY WORK A WHILE!

On 2008-07-31 23:19:47 -0400, Larry said:

Paul Cassel wrote in
:

What ran your batteries down to 50% in a day? That seems pretty low to
me.

Skip's Morgan 46 is more like a 3BR 2BA house than a barebones sloop
with a handheld GPS on a lap board. snip

It's one of the nicest-equipped sailboats I've ever been aboard.

I agree Flying Pig is beautiful, beautifully equipped (even beyond the
lovely mate/Admiral), and I love all the gadgets, but I'm not sure I
use as much power at home.

I'm more of a GPS with a laptop type of guy and the laptop's still optional.

Danged, I'd hate to maintain all those systems. (and all this ain't
news to Skip and Lydia.)

--
Jere Lull
Xan-à-Deux -- Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

Jere Lull wrote in news:2008080102564175249-
jerelull@maccom:

Danged, I'd hate to maintain all those systems. (and all this ain't
news to Skip and Lydia.)



If you've hung around Skip for a day, you know how calm he is. Most people
would have gone crazy from what they've been through, but not Skip. Life
throws something nasty at him, and he just carrys on solving whatever is
broke to whatever works, hardly losing his smile.

When we were in the throes of the alternator disaster, he worked in that
hot engine room on top of the hot Perkins for hours. The boat has no AC.
I nearly died of the South Carolina heat handing him tools and stuff as he
just carried on, calmly without any apparent frustration I could see. When
we found out the battery charger had been eaten by a leaky seawater hose
dripping on it, we walked down the dock and I took him to Waste Marine for
another one.....cooly and calmly.

It's unnatural not to just stand and curse once in a while. I'd explode
and wipe out a small city if I kept it bottled up like he does.

He's absolutely the calmest person on the planet. He should have been a
diplomat or poker player because you just can't read him by his smiling
face....(c;

Larry wrote:
Paul Cassel wrote in
:

What ran your batteries down to 50% in a day? That seems pretty low to
me.



Skip's Morgan 46 is more like a 3BR 2BA house than a barebones sloop
with a handheld GPS on a lap board.

He's running a reefer with battery power?

I'd personally object to running an engine at any rpm just to keep all
this load going. I find the noise of an engine, even my well insulated
one, quite objectionable and the stink of the polluting diesel
disgusting esp in a following wind. I can't see that as a solution which
would bring about a peaceful cruise.

I suppose if you must have all this electrical stuff, you have to do as
you say. I"ve heard of reefer compressors which are engine driven so you
run the engine for a short time & that freezes the plates & you are good
for another 2 days.Or you can have a 120 v output alternator which
powers the reefer to the same effect meaning I run the engine to freeze
the plates / cool the reefer but I"m not saddled with the *#& running
always.

Paul Cassel wrote in news:Ir-
:

Larry wrote:
Paul Cassel wrote in
:

What ran your batteries down to 50% in a day? That seems pretty low
to
me.



Skip's Morgan 46 is more like a 3BR 2BA house than a barebones sloop
with a handheld GPS on a lap board.

He's running a reefer with battery power?

Ice box has a 12V cooler in it and so dies the chest freezer he put that
fish into a couple of days ago. If Skip isn't going constantly downwind
where there's little apparent wind over the wind charger, that thing
makes 25A at 14.8V even if the sun doesn't shine on the solar panel
array that shades the whole dingy and aft deck of the Morgan 46. The
solar array was putting out nearly 15A screwing up our test of the
charging system at the dock in Charleston, so we had to go throw some
blankets over it to stop it screwing up the tests. He was making more
power than we were loading.....

It's a very nice installation with great instrumentation in the portside
passageway over the engine room hatch behind his workbench and more
instrumentation at the breaker panel at the nav station through the next
hatch forward....at the "comm and weather center".

Like I say, unless he's in a following wind to screw up the wind power,
he's got plenty of watts to power his refridgeration units.

I'm for wind chargers 100%, myself. I think they need more engineering
using the technology the mountain men invented at www.otherpower.com
Their multiphase, rare earth magnet powered altenators made out of the
wheels of disk braked cars creates an amazing amount of power with NO
GEARS, NO FAILURE MODES at incredibly low RPM because the magnets are SO
strong!

I continue to see marine uses for this alternator:
http://www.otherpower.com/wardalt.html
I can see it being directly driven by the freewheeling shaft that's not
on Lionheart (Amel Sharki 41) driving a flat belt and special Motorola
alternator that's always given us trouble starting and not anywhere near
as efficient. If the flat alternator won't fit on the shaft end of the
transmission in the boat, Otherpower has models they have plans for that
wrap magnets around the spinning shaft with stator coils wrapped around
longwise.

But, just for a moment, ponder how much power could be extracted for
your yacht if this flat, homemade alternator were encased in a box
bolted to the stern of your boat. The shaft sticking out through a
stuffing box had a universal joint on the end of it so I can fold up the
driveshaft to a stowed position for docking and in port. A lifting line
runs down from the top of the mast behind the boom topping lift to make
lifting the driveshaft and drive screw out of the water when it's not
appropriate to a vertical stowed position, perhaps a little bracket
coming off the after stern rail to lock it in place once lifted.

Set down into the water, the drag that powers the driving screw, a prop
set backwards to catch the water out behind the boat to create the
rotational driving force for this alternator, catches the unused current
running by setting the whole thing to spinning....creating 3-phase AC
power to be rectified into charging current by some big diodes (6) just
like they do on their wind turbines big blades driving the brake disk on
that big, but really cheap, car bearing and shaft INSIDE the box, out of
sight. Look around at the POWER this thing develops at very low RPM! A
sailboat can easily make that RPM happen dragging a screw through the
water astern of the rudder offshore to power your lives...IT MAKES NO
NOISE TO KEEP YOU AWAKE BECAUSE IT HAS ONE MOVING PART, no gears whining
away at some god awful RPM like the boat wind machines do!

You can even leave it in the water, churning away the AMPS, with the
engine running, although that's not too efficient, probably....(c;

From the webpage:
"The completed unit. It's already been attached to a homebrew wind
generator with an 8-foot diameter, 3-bladed rotor--and is up and flying!
See it HERE! We've already seen peaks of over 60 amps into a 12 volt
battery bank, and it survived 60-mph winds last week. Steady output of
30 amps in 28 mph winds, and reaches charging voltage at around 12 mph."

Now what in the world would you guys do with an extra 20, 30, 40, 60
amps of CONSTANT charging under sail?? You could have that nice fridge,
never run the motor at sea unless becalmed, the house batteries would
overcharge if you weren't careful! (Otherpower has charge controllers
for sale, by the way.) You'd have to leave the inverter running all
day!

Yes, I can see a lot of nice marine uses for this flat little alternator
that's TOTALLY SELF POWERED! It uses NO battery current to excite
it...just very powerful permanent magnets....sorta close to these coils
sealed in epoxy....(c;

I bet if you got them interested they would build a 'Marine Kit', ready
for assembly and installation...

Some they just stuck in the creek....
http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_hydro.html

On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:19:47 +0000, Larry wrote:

a nicely installed wind
charger which I think from his recent posts is the reason power has
drained out....because with a FOLLOWING wind, wing-n-wing sailing
downwind, the apparent wind over the wind charger is near zero...not the
constant 15-25 amps he normally creates from it.

Larry,

What kind of wind gen does Skip have? Or what kind of winds is he
normally in to get 15-25 Amps?

I'm not being a smart-A#$ here. I just never saw consistant power that
high with mine. I had 2 AirMarines on 'Final Step'. In 3 years, about
2 years of that cruising and on the hook, I seldom saw more than a few
Amps. Rarely would I see 10, 15, 20 or even 35 Amps, this in 25 to 40
kt winds.

"Valkyrie" (current home) has 1 Air Marine mounted near the top of the
mizzen. I do see a bit more due to the height, but I'd say about 5
Amps or less in 12-15 Kt. winds.

I do have solar. 320 Watts at the moment and will be adding another
110 Watts, maybe 220 Watts. 'Final Step' had 300 Watts and handled the
fridge, watermaker and other normal stuff. 'Valkyrie' has a freezer
and larger watermaker. That's why I'm adding a bit.

To sumarize. From my experience, 4 years total, one can count on the
solar but wind is "lagnaipe" (cajun for something extra, like a
baker's dozen) and can't be counted on.

Rick

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

Rick Morel wrote in
:

What kind of wind gen does Skip have? Or what kind of winds is he
normally in to get 15-25 Amps?



Hmm....I don't think I ever looked to see what gen it was. At the time, we
were more worried about his engine alternator failures and the rotted out
AC power battery charger down in the engine room. Sorry I can't help you
further. Skip will be back online as soon as he gets to the dock. They're
up in the Gulf Stream past Hatteras mucking about East of the entrace of
Chesapeake Bay at the moment.

Watch him on Spot:
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/f...ots.jsp?&glId=
0sKGa9AJRCF45FaX5L5g6PLcZGvSb3nMe
which gives us position continuously.

I got sailmail from the shore station, today. They've had some rough
weather and some 8-10ft seas in winds that keep flopping around. They're
back in the stream tonight with better weather and time enough Skip can get
some sleep. They had a failure with the spinnaker pole on wing-n-wing
holding out the Genoa that's been trouble, and a little flooding from a
clogged up drain in the boat, but they're fine he reported. The rain has
the boat clean as a whistle from the waves, now.

Track him on Spot at the webpage above and you can ask him about his genny
when he gets to port.

"Rick Morel" wrote in message
...
What kind of wind gen does Skip have? Or what kind of winds is he
normally in to get 15-25 Amps?


Hi, Rick,

KISSenergy.com...

US distributor is Hotwire enterprises. They have a wealth of info on
their site svhotwire.com.

This is very specifically designed for the Caribbean environment;
doesn't start ramping up until about 10k and hits close to30A at about
25k...

On the last day before we started tacking all the time, it was putting
out 20, and the solar 25, in clear skies, moderate wind.

--
L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to
make it come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its
hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts."
(Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah)