Slow Dance Going "Green"

March 29, 2012

Slow Dance Going "Green"        

What's new with Cap'n Lynn and Slow Dance?  Well....lot's, actually.  I am striving to Go Green; to make it possible to NEVER have to run an engine in order to charge the boat's "house" batteries.

          Former owners Bob and Janet Houle (he's likely related to an energetic and creative resident of my former home island, Islesboro, Maine) installed two large solar panels on the hard top bimini that shelters the cockpit.  Together, they are rated at 200 watts output, which I can't yet intelligently quantify for you, but is quite a lot.  However, even here on the GA/FL line, the sun doesn't shine EVERY day, and of course it plain just goofs off for half of every day, sunny or not!

          So I installed a wind turbine generator on a "tower" on the starboard stern.  The Air Breeze turbine and tower are both manufactured by Southwest Wind Power (SWWP) of Flagstaff, Arizona.  I spent a night in Flagstaff on my motorcycle trek last summer, and was struck by the friendliness of the people I met.  I also jogged & fast-walked on a marvelous miles-long wide exercise path the city maintains.  I wish I had visited the SWWP manufacturing facility there, but last summer I was riding fast on two wheels, enjoying the break from chipping paint on Simba, and still six months away from re-discovering sailing and catamarans.  (My first cat was a Hobie 16.)  Slow Dance wasn't "on my card", yet.

          If there is at least six mph of wind, the wind turbine goes into action.  It's hum is music to my ears, for it tells me it's producing amperes of electricity that flow into the batteries which store it to later dole it out to power the fridge, lights, nav instruments, and other boat equipment. The turbine's tune varies between a mere purr, a strong hum, and a "gentlemenly" howl.

          Of course, once installed, I was eager to measure the turbine's output, but in order to most efficiently connect it to the boat's system, I spurned the amp meter that came with the unit in favor of one with an "external shunt" (thank you, Ken Holland!) .  I therefore had to wait a week or two before a neat outfit, the Meter Center, could provide me with a shunt and meter with the scale I wanted (O-30 amps).  In the meantime, whenever I heard the turbine start to really hum, I would grab a handheld electrician's meter, reach into the hole in the wall I term my "Electric Locker" and clamp the meter's  yellow "claws" around the positive wire from the "Humming Bird" ( – that's what I'll call it!) – and craning my neck would attempt to see the LED readout on the meter.  Of course, my bird would invariably develop a sore throat, or a need to visit the turbine toilet, by the time I was poised to record its output, and I would miss the moment of momentous output (but, as when a boy fishing for perch in Armonk's Wampus Pond, I would jump to jerk the pole each time the dobber bobbed, I kept that meter with its claws close at hand.

          Finally the new meter (and shunt) arrived.  I mounted the meter in a hole I had created in the nav station panel and attached the wires running to the shunt which I had previously installed.  Somehow, I continued to keep my cool and following the electricians' "best practice" procedures, carefully mounted and wired the shunt on the electric locker's ceiling, while lying on my back with pencil flashlight clenched in my teeth.  I wired a fuse holder between the shunt and the positive battery buss, and popped in a "slow blow" fuse, thus closing the circuit and hopefully producing a reading on the meter out at the nav station's electric panel.  I pulled myself out of the electric locker, ready to scramble the dozen or so feet to the electric panel, but was stopped by an absence of any sound.  There was no howl, no hum, not even a darn purr, from that bird on top of that pole outside. Darn!  I picked up my tools and started to think about lunch, when I thought I heard a whisper.  I snapped my head around so my parabolic ears were directed toward the stern...  Yes! I heard a whisper, and then a hum!  I jumped down the steps into the nav station while staring toward the amp meter.  I saw it was alive, its needle quivering around the number 5! The discreet hum rose to a HUM, and the needle shot up to 10.  Ten amps!  Then it climbed to 15!  Wow!, Money in the bank...Hagan-Das Rum Raisin for all!

          I was ecstatic.  I quickly cleared equipment manuals off the nav station chair and sat there for an hour, watching the amp meter needle dance to the music of the Hummer.  The needle soared as high as 22 amps (wind must have gusted to near 30).  This was serious electricity production, auguring a Green Future for Slow Dance.  Great news, great fun, and a fitting reward for the planning and careful execution of the installation of the Humming  Bird and its tower. 

          And it wasn't many days before it occurred to me that, like pets and my Alpacas, a solitary wind turbine would likely be happier, (and hopefully even more productive), if it had the company of another of its ilk.  Humming Bird #2 is due to arrive at the boatyard tomorrow.