Today it's wet and gray here on a mooring float in Northeast Harbor, but we're enjoying a distinctly non-electronic improvement to Gizmo's gear list. It's a new awning that stretches from the cabin brow to the bow pulpit, letting us keep the hatches open despite the rain bursts. Yesterday, when it was sunny and fairly hot, the awning shaded the forward cabin top and the main cabin's large forward windows. If it gets really hot, I'm pretty sure that the combination of the awning plus the see-through "Florida curtains" over the other big windows and maybe a small fan will make the boat as comfortable as the air conditioning unit. Actually, more so at anchor or moored, since we won't have to run the generator (that's no longer aboard anyway)...
Check out the evening gleam on Gizmo's flared bow. I think it's impressive for a gelcoat surface that's seen a lot of weather over 14 years and better yet, the pros who applied the "nano polymer wax replacement" were also impressed. There's more detail on the new coating called Ocean Armor Pro Maxi All Gloss further along in this entry and also my experience with an initial application of Pettit HydroCoat Eco bottom paint, which seems like another winner so far...
If you browse to the bottom of the Panbo monthly archives, you'll see that the very first entry went up on February 4, 2004. So Panbo is 10 years old today, which may be a century in Internet years? In fact, one motivation for founder Yme Bosma was an interest in what was then the new-fangled "blog" content management format. While he soon had to focus back on his high tech work and I took over Panbo in 2005, the boating geek bug is often incurable, as many of us know. It seems more than coincidental -- and very cool -- that Panbo's 120th month is also the debut of Yme's all electric, solar powered, and iPad instrumented cruiser design, the Arviro 10.
While I once again found IBEX rich with interesting people and products, it was a mere light fixture that may have sparked the moment of maximum excitement! Please check out my April entry about perfect LED interior lighting before we take a gander at the new Lumitec Touch Dome seen above, plus a report on the LED's already in use on Gizmo...
Happy day! You may recall that I planned to put solar panels on Gizmo last summer, but in fact I didn't know what to expect in terms of output or even if that output would support my Sea Frost refrigeration system. Well, wow, you're looking at 17.3 amps of solar juice at around local apparent noon today, and I'm seeing 12 amps as I write this four hours later. And though I've been running all sorts of gear all day, and the refrigeration for two days, the battery bank is at 12.6v, which is a healthy number I rarely see unless I've just been out cruising. I'm thinking of having a cold beer to celebrate!...
This is not the scene most boaters want to see in the middle of their salon going into Memorial Day Weekend, but at least I can look forward to checking out how well that Victron MultiPlus 12/2000/80 charges and inverts. It may seem crazy to replace the perfectly functional Xantrex Freedom 25 that used to occupy this spot, but it's part of an aggressive "re-power" plan that's had me busy recently. Besides the Xantrex has already replaced the broken one on my in-law's M/V Brilliant -- which partially subsidized this upgrade -- and I'm nearly as happy pulling cables as I would be lounging on the fine settee that will eventually go back here...
Switching Gizmo's interior lighting to LEDs seems like a no-brainer, especially given the horridly inefficient incandescent lighting she came with. For instance, I ran that either/or dual dome light comparison at lower left all last season and it was hard to tell the difference between the light outputs of the two bulbs, except that the $30 Imtra "Tower" LED replacement bulb is slightly warmer in color and draws only about 2 Watts (.23 amps at 12.4v) while the freaking filament bulb draws 15! But though there are more and more choices in replacement bulbs and fixtures -- with prices down and LED light output up -- there are still numerous issues to consider and I don't think that boats like mine have seen the perfect LED choice yet...
Daylight today was at the minimum, at least in my hemisphere, and I was also fiddling with various holiday lights (which might be related phenomenon). So it seems like a good time to write about these SolLight solar-powered LED fixtures that have been lighting up my life for years. I started testing that LightShip model in early 2007 and when Gizmo came along in the spring of 2009 I stuck it to the hatch in the head, where it's served well for three seasons. It's left so that the dim red LED comes on at night and then we often switch to the brighter white when using the facilities...
About two months ago I received a Torqeedo Travel 1003 for long term testing, I've used it almost every day since, and, well, the title tells the story. I simply adore this electric outboard! Admittedly certain personal traits may be in play. Historically small gas outboards are a significant exception to my generally high success rate with mechanical boating issues; possibly related is my annoyance with the smell and noise of the damn things (and the hearing aids don't help); and, finally, a faulty shoulder makes starting even a lawn mower somewhat painful. But then again I did not fall so hard for the original Travel 801 model that I tried in 2009...
So maybe this is an all-about-Gizmo week. Given her multitude of electronics partly described on Monday, and the fact that the boat rarely sees shore power, plus how helpful readers were in spec'n out the ChartTable21 discussed yesterday (and yet more strain on the 12v bank), I'm keen to add some solar panels and I again seek advice. Oh, and while Gizmo does have a 6 kW generator, I don't like running it, and would enjoy removing it altogether. I created the drawing above (PDF here) in an effort to explain to a solar salesman in Arizona what I was up to, but I haven't purchased anything yet...
Today it's wet and gray here on a mooring float in Northeast Harbor, but we're enjoying a distinctly non-electronic improvement to Gizmo's gear list. It's a new awning that stretches from the cabin brow to the bow pulpit, letting us keep the hatches open despite the rain bursts. Yesterday, when it was sunny and fairly hot, the awning shaded the forward cabin top and the main cabin's large forward windows. If it gets really hot, I'm pretty sure that the combination of the awning plus the see-through "Florida curtains" over the other big windows and maybe a small fan will make the boat as comfortable as the air conditioning unit. Actually, more so at anchor or moored, since we won't have to run the generator (that's no longer aboard anyway)...
