Happy New Year! To start the year off, I wanted to share a recent solar testimonial from our friends Scott and Melissa aboard Kaimana! They have a catamaran with:
4 x Kyocera 255W for a total of just over 1000Watts (1.02kW)
The panels are attached to the hardtop bimini with "L" foot aluminum custom cut pieces that they fabricated just for the panels. It allows the frame to sit off the top of the hard top, allowing airflow underneath to keep panels cooler, also makes wiring easier.
They have two Victron Energy MPPT charge controllers, each servicing two panels wired in series.
Scott, thanks for sending in your thoughts on the benefits from having solar aboard Kaimana! It's so helpful to have people share their stories and inspire others go solar aboard. If you want to tell others about your sun powered yacht, email us info@sunpoweredyachts.com and we will feature your story, and link to your website, in a blog post just like this:
"I wanted to write to you and let you know how happy we are now that we are a sun powered yacht. It has opened up so many doors in our cruising lifestyle and has allowed us to live on the hook for up to 8 months at a time while never tying into shore power. This has been a dream of mine for a long time and now with our solar powered yacht it is totally feasible, as it can be for anyone desiring this freedom and independence.
When we purchased Kaimana she had a 6KW diesel generator that the previous owner used to power the yacht's electrical needs. At the time, I thought it was great, however, over time, I realized that marine generators come with endless amount of problems and continual maintenance which made it costly to maintain and repair. It also burned diesel, which is costly and bad for the environment as we all know. At a certain point, having a solar powered yacht made much more financial sense and was also more beneficial for the environment.
So we invested in solar and got rid of the troublesome genset and now we harvest the free energy of the sun for all of our power needs. We do have high output alternators that supplement the solar power if we have multiple days of cloudy weather, but that is something that all vessels already have in some form.
The dream of harnessing the wind to sail, explore, and live, in remote locations has always been the goal of sailors around the world. Now we can take that a step further and use the sun to power the electrical needs of our vessel leading to more independence while promoting our mission of environmental responsibility that I hope all sailors take into consideration.
The beauty of the panels and the inverter/charge controllers is that there are no moving parts. So, once installed properly, there is little or no maintenance required to take advantage of all the free energy provided by the sun.
I highly recommend that all sailing vessel owners and builders incorporate this simple technology to make life easier and more maintenance free thus allowing more freedom to enjoy the experience of living at sea.
Please let me know if you have any further questions about our experiences with our sun powered yacht, and check out our website www.kaimanaadventures.com
Aloha,
Scott Saville
S/Y Kaimana
French Polynesia