OsoGato Goes (a little bit) Green

May 5th, 2016
Fort Burt Marina, Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Major boat surgery usually involves power tools, lots of power tools

One of the upgrades that Janet and I have been discussing for OsoGato is the addition of solar panels to supplement having to run the engines to charge the batteries that we use for just about everything on the boat, from keeping the beer cold in the fridge to running the freezer so we can have a steak every now and then.

Removal of the roof support and an improvised
jack stand during installation

After much discussion with Mark at our charter company TMM  and Dave at BVI Solar Solutions, we decided on a solar package that we think will meet a bunch of criteria that we agreed were important to have a package that would not only actually deliver some juice to the batteries but would be bullet-proof so that our charter guests wouldn't have to worry about the details of their operation. We decided on a couple of Kyocera panels and an Outback Model FM80 power controller.  The panels will be mounted on the coach roof, which is hopefully out of the way for most guests.

Hole cut in the roof support to allow wires to be pulled
to hook up the solar panels

Dodging the rainy, monsoon-like weather turned out to be one of the most daunting parts of this project, but we were finally greeted with some dry, sunny days to do the installation.

While Dave handled most of the details of the installation and hookup of the panels, Tim and Rory from TMM worked on running the wires and mounting the panels to the roof.  One of the most frustrating parts of the process was removing the roof support from the boat so it could be modified to be able to run the solar panel wires through it and into the engine room to the charge controller. Salt water rusts everything, eventually.

Dave installing the charge controller in the engine
room.  To ward off dehydration he drinks lots of
coconut juice. Keordy from TMM is emptying the dinghy
which has filled up with water from the latest monsoon

Working in the engine compartment in the tropical sun isn't something that I would do right after arrival from the States, that's for sure.  As an interesting aside, we were told by Dave that it's not good to drink just water to stay hydrated, but try drinking coconut water (not coconut cream!) that they sell as a rehydration drink.  Janet ran over to the RiteWay store down the street and grabbed a couple cans to try it out.  While it is an acquired taste, it does seem to help with replacing lost electrolytes.

Tools, tools and more tools, but the guys did a great
job on the installation!

After about an afternoon and a morning's worth of work, Dave made the final hookup of the panels to the controller and checked on the output of the panels to the batteries.  With full-on sun, he was seeing around 28A @ 13.5V being delivered.  Pretty close to the specs we expected, which is comforting!

Once Tim had found the mounting brackets, the installation
went pretty smoothly.

So, is that going to be enough to power all the electrical on the boat?  Great question, but the jury is still out.  We estimate that we consume around 140A per day with the fridge and freezer running, along with all the other incidental draws on the system, ie, fans, lights, anchor lights, charging computers and iPads and phones, etc.

Dave hooking up the panels.  The wires will be run
through the traveller beam and down the roof support to
the engine room.

We think that the system, on a nice sunny day, will provide around 75% of the power we consume in a day.  That means we'll still need to run the engine (mostly in the morning) a bit to keep up with demand, but it's a real nice change from the 2-3 hours of running the engines each day that was needed before we installed the system.  It's nice to know we have done something to lower our carbon footprint in a small way!

Iris says "Can we get out of this hot marina and go
back to one of those nice cool anchorages that you guys
are so good at finding?  One with a nice beach that I can run
on, please?"