I arrived in the Caribbean, in March 2022, after sailing from the UK. My boat is a 1979 Cobra 1050 with a bilge keel and electric drive.
This post is an in-sight and how I feel the renewable energy system and the electric engine is helping after almost 3 years of use.
The Caribbean has lots of sun and wind.
The weather in the Caribbean has lots of sun and trade winds. Perfect for charging via renewable energy systems. Some places aren’t so good. I used marinas in the UK to back up my solar and wind power.
A lot of folks don’t like wind generators. My personal opinion is that you should use both, especially if you have an electric drive motor.
You don’t need a degree in Physics.
I don’t have a degree in Physics but I do have a good practical understanding of how solar and wind generation are performing on my boat. I’ve sat at anchor for months in Grenada and only now had the time to contemplate the actual benefits I’m recouping.
Both solar and wind power make a limited amount of energy, but because there working most of the time, they make a huge difference to the state of charge in your batteries. Actually charging your batteries as you’re using them.
Here in the Caribbean, we get daylight on most days, for say 11 hours a day. A lot of that daylight has sunshine, so solar is very good here. But we also get nighttime for half the day. I have only 400 watts of solar power on the boat, not really enough for my basic needs but very close.
Next is my Rutland 1200 48v/493w wind generator. There are a lot of wind generators that don’t seem to work well. At least that’s what I’m told. The Rutland 1200 works very well and is quiet, what sound there is, is a good sound.
Renewable energy can give you the power you need.
The Caribbean has trade winds day and night, but not always. My wind generator contributes when it spins, and when it’s really windy it’s awesome.
Both solar and wind power together give me the power I need to live a decent sustainable life at anchor. They’re both free after you’ve brought the equipment and provide environmentally clean energy. I know they eventually become trash, which isn’t perfect. But I firmly believe it’s a better option than fossil fuel.
My Victron BMV 700 battery monitor shows the charge in my batteries. As long as I have over 90% I’m happy. Most of the time it shows 100%. The voltage goes up and down as the weather changes but I’m used to that now.
I don’t need fossil fuel.
I also have an electric outboard (Torqeedo 1103). It’s so much more satisfying to me to know I don’t need to buy fossil fuel and am living as clean as I can.
My Lynch Marlin drive is the icing on my cake.
The Lynch Marlin electric drive is the icing on the cake. My renewable energy system charges the batteries which power my home/boat and my engine. I would never go back to diesel, electric propulsion is reliable and easy to use.
I can use my electric drive whenever I need to without worrying about buying fuel.
We will get used to wind and electricity driving our boats, not diesel. I’m sure eventually we will have to.
I’ve lived on boats for a long while (35 years now) and genuinely used to have the feeling in the back of my mind that my Diesel engine wouldn’t start, empty tank, or contaminated fuel. That thought is dramatically reduced now I use electricity, I have better information through the battery monitor, it’s so reliable and I know the clean fuel is there.
Keep it simple.
If you sail and are thinking about using an electric drive, keep it simple and use good batteries, the range with electric propulsion is absolutely enough. So when the time is right, do the research and see if it could work for you.
