Watt needs charging now?!

Katie Burgess
4 days ago
2 min read

When we were last aboard Blake and sailing in the Bahamas sometimes I started to wonder watt (!) needs charging now!! Something was nearly always dead and it felt like we were always having to charge something up with a USB plug we could never find!

We use an Ecoflow Delta in the saloon as a kind of charging hub and with a whole locker dedicated to plugs/adaptors/wires/cables so we took a note of all the items that needed charging aboard:

Laptop x2	vacuum cleaner
Cell phone x 2	Thermacell Rechargeable Mosquito Repeller
GoPro camera	High powered flashlight x2
Ipad	Kids tablet x2
drone	Headtorch x4
Bluetooth speaker

That's not to mention all the items that need power, usually directly from the house battery bank.

Fridge	Freezer
AIS	Autopilot
VHF	Navigation instruments
Chartplotter	Fans
Lights	Nav lights
Radar	Watermaker

We're more power hungry than the days of old with an ice box, kerosene lanterns & some good books!

For most sailors life aboard has become more power hungry than the days of old with an ice box, kerosene lanterns some good books and a sextant! It's possible to complete a power audit of life aboard. We suggest dividing it into four scenarios and seeing how your power consumption changes:

Sailing in the day
Sailing at night
Anchored / on mooring in the day
Anchored / on mooring at night

This is a good exercise and a good way to better understand your power usage aboard and more importantly how you can recharge. Is that with solar, wind generator, running the engine or a generator? How is your battery bank? Do you have enough Ah capacity to see you through a night or two or maybe just an hour or two?!

Something else to consider is when you are in a marina and plugged in, there's ways that you can still use your solar whilst on the dock. Maybe you can unplug completely, or you flick the breaker on the pedestal each night for a few hours. With some of the newer Victron inverter/chargers you can now engage "solar priority". Click the button below to read our blog post for full details but in summary it allows you to only pull from the marina when required and the solar takes priority and still allows solar to charge the batteries even when you are plugged in to the dock.

Learn about "Solar Priority"