I live on a narrowboat - a 45 foot long, 6 foot wide steel boat on a
canal in England. I have a British Rutland 913 wind turbine and it
delivers a pathetic amount of power. So, looking for more, preferably
a Lot more, I looked at South West Windpower's Air Breeze and Whisper.

Now, they apparently sell a Lot of Air Breezes, so a Lot of
development has gone into it and it's state of the art - new rotors,
neodymium, etc, etc. And it's a real sensible choice. And it weighs
only 6 kg. I don't know how they do it. And it charges your
batteries. Great. No problems fitting that on the boat - right on
the roof, with tethers.

But the Whisper gives you an insane amount of power which you can use
not only to charge your batteries, but also to heat water.
Fascinating. It weighs 21 kg so I can lift it into positon. It is a
bit Big, but I think I can handle that. It just occurs to me that all
wind turbines I've seen on any boats are all about the same diameter -
around 1.2 meters/about 3 feet. The Whisper is 2.1 metres/ 7 feet
rotor diameter.

So, would it be foolish of me to get a Whisper which far outreaches
this tradition? If so, why? Yes, I know it will rock the boat a
bit. And people I know who know about these things tell me it Won't
capsize it! Will it?

Most grateful for your thoughts.

Peter Smith

Where is JaxAshby when we really need him?


wrote in message
...
I live on a narrowboat - a 45 foot long, 6 foot wide steel boat on a
canal in England. I have a British Rutland 913 wind turbine and it
delivers a pathetic amount of power. So, looking for more, preferably
a Lot more, I looked at South West Windpower's Air Breeze and Whisper.

Now, they apparently sell a Lot of Air Breezes, so a Lot of
development has gone into it and it's state of the art - new rotors,
neodymium, etc, etc. And it's a real sensible choice. And it weighs
only 6 kg. I don't know how they do it. And it charges your
batteries. Great. No problems fitting that on the boat - right on
the roof, with tethers.

But the Whisper gives you an insane amount of power which you can use
not only to charge your batteries, but also to heat water.
Fascinating. It weighs 21 kg so I can lift it into positon. It is a
bit Big, but I think I can handle that. It just occurs to me that all
wind turbines I've seen on any boats are all about the same diameter -
around 1.2 meters/about 3 feet. The Whisper is 2.1 metres/ 7 feet
rotor diameter.

So, would it be foolish of me to get a Whisper which far outreaches
this tradition? If so, why? Yes, I know it will rock the boat a
bit. And people I know who know about these things tell me it Won't
capsize it! Will it?

Most grateful for your thoughts.

Peter Smith

brought forth on stone tablets:
I live on a narrowboat - a 45 foot long, 6 foot wide steel boat on a
canal in England. I have a British Rutland 913 wind turbine and it
delivers a pathetic amount of power. So, looking for more, preferably
a Lot more, I looked at South West Windpower's Air Breeze and Whisper.

Now, they apparently sell a Lot of Air Breezes, so a Lot of
development has gone into it and it's state of the art - new rotors,
neodymium, etc, etc. And it's a real sensible choice. And it weighs
only 6 kg. I don't know how they do it. And it charges your
batteries. Great. No problems fitting that on the boat - right on
the roof, with tethers.

But the Whisper gives you an insane amount of power which you can use
not only to charge your batteries, but also to heat water.
Fascinating. It weighs 21 kg so I can lift it into positon. It is a
bit Big, but I think I can handle that. It just occurs to me that all
wind turbines I've seen on any boats are all about the same diameter -
around 1.2 meters/about 3 feet. The Whisper is 2.1 metres/ 7 feet
rotor diameter.

So, would it be foolish of me to get a Whisper which far outreaches
this tradition? If so, why? Yes, I know it will rock the boat a
bit. And people I know who know about these things tell me it Won't
capsize it! Will it?

Most grateful for your thoughts.

Peter Smith


No matter how you orient it, it will extend beyond your bulwarks...
will this be hazard for passing boats?

wrote in news:f772335b-6052-4dec-8548-
:

I live on a narrowboat - a 45 foot long, 6 foot wide steel boat on a
canal in England.

How beautiful they are! I'd love to rent one for a vacation in the UK's
canal system.

The most amazing wind turbines I've ever seen come from a group of mountain
men with no engineering background, whatsoever, but a need for power in a
remote part of Colorado, USA, the power company....at first....refused to
bring power to. They've gone from a shop curiosity to a full blown
company, now. Their basic design has extremely-powerful rare earth magnets
mounted on a car disk brake disk slowly turned by large homemade blades.
the magnets turn in not-too-close proximity to a set of flat, homemade
coils epoxied to a plywood, non-magnetic, mount so that the magnets produce
massive multiphase AC they rectify into many kilowatts of DC to charge
massive battery banks to power their homes and the whole community! The
pure simplicity of these slow-turning powerful machines is a real credit to
their insight and homespun engineering.

Is your longboat semi-permanent tied to a quay or do you need something to
move around a lot. If you fairly much stay in one place, one of these
machines ashore could provide plenty of power for you alongside the quay
with a dropcord.

http://www.otherpower.com/

Of PARTICULAR great interest to you with your slow-turning diesel would be
their adaptation of their machines to a Listeroid diesel from India on
these webpages. The machines occupy almost no space bigger than a good
flywheel, as you can see from the pictures...an amazing power plant,
indeed.

They are even running their machine on a steam engine England is famous
for!

Peter,
I don't think this idea makes any sense. I know that height is a concern for
the canal tunnels and anything mounted on the cabin roof is a bad thing. You
are correct most of these wind turbines make pathetic power, unless they are
quite large. Unless you can mount the larger unit on shore, you should stick
to solar arrays. Here is another thought however. You may consider mounting
the larger unit on a mast with a tabernacle. Then with the use of an "A"
frame you could raise and lower the unit to a height that will not endanger
passing traffic as desired. You would never be able to leave the unit up
when under way though or in heavy winds.
Steve

wrote in message
...
I live on a narrowboat - a 45 foot long, 6 foot wide steel boat on a
canal in England. I have a British Rutland 913 wind turbine and it
delivers a pathetic amount of power. So, looking for more, preferably
a Lot more, I looked at South West Windpower's Air Breeze and Whisper.

Now, they apparently sell a Lot of Air Breezes, so a Lot of
development has gone into it and it's state of the art - new rotors,
neodymium, etc, etc. And it's a real sensible choice. And it weighs
only 6 kg. I don't know how they do it. And it charges your
batteries. Great. No problems fitting that on the boat - right on
the roof, with tethers.

But the Whisper gives you an insane amount of power which you can use
not only to charge your batteries, but also to heat water.
Fascinating. It weighs 21 kg so I can lift it into positon. It is a
bit Big, but I think I can handle that. It just occurs to me that all
wind turbines I've seen on any boats are all about the same diameter -
around 1.2 meters/about 3 feet. The Whisper is 2.1 metres/ 7 feet
rotor diameter.

So, would it be foolish of me to get a Whisper which far outreaches
this tradition? If so, why? Yes, I know it will rock the boat a
bit. And people I know who know about these things tell me it Won't
capsize it! Will it?

Most grateful for your thoughts.

Peter Smith

wrote in message
...
I live on a narrowboat - a 45 foot long, 6 foot wide steel boat on a
canal in England. I have a British Rutland 913 wind turbine and it
delivers a pathetic amount of power. So, looking for more, preferably
a Lot more, I looked at South West Windpower's Air Breeze and Whisper.

Now, they apparently sell a Lot of Air Breezes, so a Lot of
development has gone into it and it's state of the art - new rotors,
neodymium, etc, etc. And it's a real sensible choice. And it weighs
only 6 kg. I don't know how they do it. And it charges your
batteries. Great. No problems fitting that on the boat - right on
the roof, with tethers.

But the Whisper gives you an insane amount of power which you can use
not only to charge your batteries, but also to heat water.
Fascinating. It weighs 21 kg so I can lift it into positon. It is a
bit Big, but I think I can handle that. It just occurs to me that all
wind turbines I've seen on any boats are all about the same diameter -
around 1.2 meters/about 3 feet. The Whisper is 2.1 metres/ 7 feet
rotor diameter.

So, would it be foolish of me to get a Whisper which far outreaches
this tradition? If so, why? Yes, I know it will rock the boat a
bit. And people I know who know about these things tell me it Won't
capsize it! Will it?

Most grateful for your thoughts.

Peter Smith

You do not say which canal you are on.
If it is one of those that has tunnels then any windmill, let alone one 7'
diameter is going to get wiped away when you go through.
The tunnels were designed so that a person on a narrow boat could lie on his
back on the cabin roof and 'walk' it through the tunnel.
HTH

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:11:56 +0200, "Steve Lusardi"
wrote:

Unless you can mount the larger unit on shore, you should stick
to solar arrays.

Solar array? Have you ever been to England?