Here’s a product I’ve been meaning to write about for awhile: the Solar Stik, a robust solar panel mounting system for cruising boats and other applications. The advantages of solar are compelling: less reliance on fossil fuels; less wear and tear on engines being run to generate electricity; quiet and non-polluting energy; and the simplicity of no moving parts. However, panels that produce useful amounts of power need to be pretty big, and deck space is often limited on cruising boats. In Mexico, I’ve seen panels mounted in all kinds of inventive, sometimes precarious ways. The better ones are on arches, hard-top biminis, or davits, where they are generally up and out of the way. Others are cantilevered off of lifelines or held in a spider web of rigging. And some are custom folding brackets that allow panels to be turned toward the sun for maximum power output. The Solar Stik folks have taken the specially designed bracket approach to a new, and welcome height.

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When I bought my cruising cat a few years back, the un-loved, raw-water cooled 18hp Volvo diesels were one of my biggest concerns, and I set aside some cash for new diesels and saildrives. As luck would have it, I found a couple new, still-in-their-crates, 27hp Yanmar diesels with matching saildrives, being sold by an inventor who decided he’d rather not build his own catamaran. Since then, the crates have been sitting in my shop waiting for the old Volvos to give up their places. But, lately, I’ve been thinking seriously about going diesel/electric hybrid instead.

Electric drives for sailboats have been gaining noticeable momentum in the last few years, and it no longer seems to be such a bleeding edge proposition. Here are some of the systems I know about:

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The Duogen convertible wind- or water-driven generator is one heckuva transformer. The unusual design caught my eye at the boat show, and it was a little confusing figuring out how it works. Many cruisers have set off with wind generators to increase their energy independence, only to discover that they make a negligible amount of power on passage, because the apparent wind on downwind routes is so light. Some have turned to water generators that make lots of power from an impeller towed behind the vessel, but these have some interesting issues, e.g. sharks seem to be attracted by the giant lure, and—I’m not making this up—bite them off the line! Duogen’s convertible looks to be a successful combination generator, but using a shaft driven prop instead of the shark bait impeller. (more…)