CHOICES: Batteries

I was looking around for some specs for battery terminal torque specs and came upon this chart at the MK Battery site:

I'm about to start my seventh season with the four 8A4D AGM batteries that make up my 48 volt electric propulsion bank. Somehow I instinctively used them in a way that should provide over a thousand life cycle charges.  I typically revert to Hybrid mode using the Honda 2000i generator once the battery bank has dropped to 70 to 80% from 100% full charge.  Turns out that looks like a good point to have a good charge life cycle for the bank.  So far so god. I still think I made the right decision in going with AGM batteries over the Lithium Ion batteries that were still fairly new back in 2008 when I did the conversion. The cost and availability were factors I considered. Today I think I would still go with the AGM's as they seem to be holding up well. I'll do some more in depth battery testing in a few weeks to see how well.    The following video is and example of my modus operandi using electric propulsion and when I operate in hybrid mode on an unusually windless day heading down the Hudson River:

A SAILOR LOOKS BACK AT 2012

It's New Years Eve hard to believe how fast this year has gone by.  I did not put as many miles (a little over two hundred) under the keel of BIANKA  this year compared to years past but, I did have a wonderful year of cruising. Though work and some unexpected maintenance issues did get in the way. I also bought 200 feet of long overdue replacement anchor chain. I also installed AIS on board  which I will write about in the new year. I also installed  a new battery instrumentation panel  at the helm. Which made monitoring the battery current and voltages much easier. All in all it was still another great year as I look back on it.

January found me in the Leeward Islands starting off in St. Thomas, St. Johns  and then sailing over to the Spanish Virgin Island of Culebra for a nice little warm water  break from the winter.


This was also the month that the Bianka Log Blog reached over one hundred thousand page views. So it was time to celebrate too.

In February I found one of the batteries in the 48 volt propulsion string was no longer taking a charge.

I spent the next several months investigating the issue and finally figured that a parasitic load from one of the battery meters was the cause of the problem. With careful charging and test the battery is once again up to snuff and worked fine all season. I was glad I did not have to purchase a new battery.

March found me in Ocean City Maryland. After seeing a nice little warm weather window my gal and I drove from DC to a beachfront hotel with an 11th floor balcony view of the Atlantic Ocean for a few days.

 We had the beach to ourselves and were able to dine without making reservations. The smell of the sea also gets one thinking about getting the boat back in the water.


April 12th was the one hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. It bought back memories of when I was living on board BIANKA at pier 59 in New York. That was the pier  that the rescue ship Carpathia bought the lifeboats from the ill fated Titanic and was only a few piers north of the peir where the Titanic was supposed to dock.

May found me and my gal in the Bahamas. The Exumas specifically via stopovers in Nassau.  A new area for me and one of some great memories and interesting sights.



I also worked on my first major repair of the electric propulsion system in five years by replacing the shaft coupling. Replacing the original steel one with stainless steel.

June was all about getting BIANKA ready for the season and launching. The battery issue had been solved the mast lights checked. The prop cleaned and polished and finally BIANKA was splashed.

In July work reared it's ugly head  eating up two weeks and my gal's beach vacation ate up another week. But, BIANKA was in the water with 200 feet of new anchor chain ready to go when time permitted. Also I worked on some finishing touches on the solar bimini.

August was another two weeks of work followed by another week on the beach. But, I was finally able to get back on board just in time to see another full moon a real treat.

September is usually the end of summer for many but, I view it as a new beginning. Some become melancholy with the end of the Labor Day weekend while I look at it as the time of less crowded anchorages  So I was looking forward to making my annual cruise to New York.

September 11th was also the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Since BIANKA and I were docked in New York then and actually felt the impact of the planes and witnessed the collapse of the buildings I felt somewhat of an obligation to try and be back in the harbor on the anniversary. But, it was not to be,  A broken pull cord and some frozen screws on the Honda 2000 generator soon put an end to those plans. Still I got to see another full moon on board so it was not all bad.

October had some of the highs and lows of the season. I saw a nice weather window and finally took BIANKA on the cruise to New York. I did something different regarding my electric propulsion system on this cruise. Which was to electro sail using about 10 amps to effectively negate the prop drag and actually propels the boat along a two knots when there is no wind. This technique worked really well and since EP is so quiet it does introduce the noise fatigue running and vibration that running a diesel would introduce.



After a night anchored by Ellis Island  it was a nice sail up the Hudson River:





where BIANKA and I anchored for a few days off of Hook Mountain enjoying the fall colors.



Two days after returning back to BIANKA's mooring Hurricane Sandy hit the area:


The storm surge lifted BIANKA and her mooring and dragged them across the channel. I found her over a thousand feet away across the harbor. Still floating and relatively undamaged. I was very lucky.  Since BIANKA had power available from her solar panels and wind generator I decided I would move back on her until power was restored back on the mainland. Which is where I spend most of the my time anyway during the season.  I had all the comforts of home even more so as I had power available.

The beginning of November still had the area recovering from super storm Sandy. Gas shortages had boat owners coming down to the docks draining there boat's fuel tanks so they could keep their home generators running. I recovered the Honda outboard that went to the bottom of the harbor when the dingy flipped during the storm. It will be a winter project to try and get it running again. There were a lot of  lessons learned from Sandy by me and many others too.

December was another month of a few weeks work that came my way. Just in time to pay some of the boatyard bills. Also it was time for holidays and looking back and also planning for the new year. I'm also way behind in some posts here on the Bianka Log Blog. So I will use the winter to catch up and publish about some of the projects I've been working on. Days are already starting to get longer and soon it will be time to starting thinking  the new year and season.

ELECTRIC SAILBOAT CRUISE TO NEW YORK 2012

Before Hurricane Sandy distracted me and ended the sailing season I was going to chronicle a recent cruise I made with BIANKA.  Originally I had planned to do this cruise to New York back in September. But, a little repair snafu with the Honda Generator in September curtailed that plan. I just about gave up on doing the cruise this year but, a nice weather window opened up in late October and I thought why not head out for a fall cruise. So I did.

I headed early out to take advantage of the flooding current into Long Island Sound winds were light for much of the trip so I electro-sailed BIANKA for forty nautical miles. It was after sundown as I sailed into Port Washington and picked up a free town mooring. Before I did  I had a gam with a fellow sailor already on another mooring. He was a 38 year old fellow who quit his job in September bought a 24 foot boat and was heading south for the winter. He wanted to do it now since he was single and the flexibility to do it.  Certainly sounds like a plan. We had a nice discussion about life, getting through Hell Gate and other things sailors might talk about. I wished him fair winds and then  motored off in the dark to find a mooring. One nice thing about fall cruising the mooring fields are pretty empty so it was pretty easy to pick one up. The next day had some nasty weather coming through. It was windy and wet so it was a lay day for me.  Sometime during the following night the other fellow headed off to travel down the East River through Hell Gate in the middle of the night. He wanted to make it to the Sandy Hook area during the day and meet up with friends. I can only wonder if the fellow made it through Hurricane Sandy which would hit the area a little over a week later.

After the weather cleared I headed toward New York.  Upon crossing under the Throgs Neck Bridge BIANKA left Long Island Sound behind and entered the East River which is actually a tidal strait. I made a video of the trip from Port Washington to the Battery via the East River:

I rounded the Battery a little after sunset and headed over to an anchorage a little north of Ellis Island. I had never anchored there before. It was getting dark and the winds were blowing 10 to 20 knots out of the west. I got as close to western shore and dropped anchor for the night. There was a little roll from the harbor traffic at first but, it calmed down later except for a 4 am roll that woke me up for a bit. But, the holding was good plus I had a real nice view of the lights of lower Manhattan:

Though in a little over a week all these lights would be plunged into darkness after Hurricane Sandy hits the area and knocked out power to all of lower Manhattan. Though  this night it was a very pretty scene from on board.

CAPT. MIKE IN THE LEEWARD ISLANDS PART TWO: ST. JOHNS...

After getting settled on board we were soon off heading toward St. Johns, motoring into to the trade winds.

We passed this discolored rock shoreline:

It is said this site was used for the Hollywood movie Guns of Navarone filmed in the early 1960's. They supposedly blew it up for the explosive climatic scene. Though I could not find any official confirmation that this was true.

Continuing on past St. Thomas we first stopped at Christmas Cove on Great St. James Island:

We jumped in for a snorkel around Fish Island and saw a ray, spotted eel and two turtles among the other fish on the reef around Fish Island. Not a bad way to start. Then it was off to Mingo Cay for lunch and another snorkel. Then another stop at a small cove between Lovongo Cay and Congo Cay where Captain Billy said we were lucky as the conditions here often made this stop impossible.

 But, the winds were cooperating and we took advantage of another wonderful snorkel. We then headed out past Carval Rock:

We motored on heading for the nights anchorage.  Occasionally reminded by the ruins on shore of the history of the area:

Like this sugar cane processing building on the former Annaberg Plantation:

Which was a good reminder that since we were in the islands of rum that some sun downer drinks are soon to be had after we anchored for the day. The nights anchorage was just off Waterlemon Cay in Leinster Bay.

All the moorings were taken so we dropped the hook and were enjoying some boat drinks. When we heard someone call out to Capt. Billy "Why you salty dog!" Turns out it was musician and sailor Michael Beans:


Billy asked what he was doing here? Beans said he got kicked out of the British Virgin Islands. You know there has to be a good story there. Unfortunately, we were not able to get the details in the time he sailed by.

The next morning we hoisted anchor around 9:30 am and motored past Beans anchored boat. Beans being a true musician was still not awake so we sailed on.

Our next stop was Cinnamon Bay.

Time for another snorkel.


This was not a great spot for snorkeling compared to some of the others we saw. So I played around with Capt. Mikes homemade GoPro camera snorkeling handle rig to get some other shots like this:


My snorkeling camera handle worked out real well with my Go Pro camera on this trip. I'll post about how I made it in a future post.

Back on board we noticed something was drifting toward the boat. As it got closer we were able to identify it:

Obviously a very "board" woman. Just another example of some of the things you can see from a boat. There was a discussion about how far we should let her drift out into the Windward Passage before we we would need to rescue her. Happily, she woke up not to long afterward and paddled her self back into the beach. After lunch and an obligatory afternoon nap we headed for Little St. James island and snorkeled some ledges there. Afterwards we headed back to Charlotte Amalie harbor for the night. In the morning we head toward the Spanish Virgin Islands.

CAPT. MIKE IN THE LEEWARDS PART THREE Click here!

END OF THE SEASON THOUGHTS OF AN ELECTRIC SAILOR: 2011

It's that time of year when I look back on how my electric propulsion system did during the past season. Once again I was surprised by it. When I decided in 2007 to repower with an ASMO MARINE Thoosa 9000 system. There were no boats that I knew that had done this and I thought long and hard about it before making the leap. But, after four years of operational experience I'm still very glad I did. The fourth season will stand out because of two firsts that occurred. One was an extended day of motoring. About ten hours to be exact. A rare day here around the Isle of Long when hardly even a whisper of a breeze filled the sail. So after starting out early and motoring under battery power for a few hours I carried the Honda away from the cockpit and fired it up. I could never do that with the old diesel. The noisy diesel was always right below the cockpit vibrating away making for a noisy afternoon of motoring. Fatiguing too! My day of extended motoring was much more pleasant experience with electric propulsion.

Another first I discovered quite by accident was that BIANKA can actually regen power back to the battery bank. I discovered this while electro sailing moving along at about 6 knots. I had earlier in the season decided  that the best way to operate  under sail was to slightly turn the prop under power. This will negate any prop drag when sailing and therefore increase boat speed. Sounded like a good plan and it uses minimal power from the battery bank and no need to buy a folding prop. But, as I found out that if the boat speed under sail starts touch around 6 knots it also starts recharging the battery bank.


 This is known as "regen" where the prop starts to turn the motor backward and it starts operating as a generator. It's not a lot at the low end but, you really don't want a lot charging because you don't want to take a chance on overcharging the battery bank.  I'm looking forward to next season and hope to experience more days where I can see the regen in action. So even after four years my boats electric propulsion system still had some pleasant surprises left to show me.

MORE REGEN!

A reader of this blog reminded me of another video I had seen recently regarding regen. Though it's not often that BIANKA will hit 7 knots under sail but, I'm happy when it does. But, this video of a test by ASMO MARINE shows what can be achieved by regen in the right conditions:



Interesting that they achieved this with a two blade folding prop too!

A FINE DAY FOR AN ELECTRO SAIL

Recently I decided to head off on a little cruise even though Mr. NOAA was only calling for very light winds of under 5 knots for the day. Surely,  I thought with the land temperature in the nineties the usual afternoon sea breeze would kick in. It didn't.
I dropped off the mooring early in the morning and began motoring out of the harbor at about 1.5 knots using around 7 amps from the battery. I use this speed as I work around the boat raising sail etc... before heading out of the harbor. I raised sail and decided to keep the throttle at that position to cancel any prop drag in the light winds expected. As I headed out of the harbor and picked up a favoring current I was soon moving along at about three to four knots. Not bad. I motor sailed or as some with boats using Electric Propulsion systems like to say "electro sailed" for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours in this manner. Interesting thing about electro sailing is that even though I started out in the harbor using about 7 amps as the light breeze filled the sail intermittently the current consumption drop quite a bit as the breeze picked up. When the battery capacity had dropped to 90% I start thinking about firing up the Honda 2000 generator and using the 16 amps from the ZIVAN NG-1 charger to motor along at about 3 knots with very little help from the wind.   I adjust the throttle so there is zero current being drawn from the battery. Since the wind looked like it was not going to be much help at all I moved the generator forward away from the cockpit with the exhaust facing out off the lee side. The Honda 2000 is quieter than my four stroke dingy outboard but, it is not completely silent either but, at 47 pounds is light enough to moved easily. I continued this operation for most of the day for a total of about 37 nautical miles. Finally late in the afternoon about two nautical miles from my destination an afternoon sea breeze finally kicked in and I enjoyed at least some nice sailing up until I was able to drop my anchor. Checking on the battery after the trip I still had 90% capacity left in the bank. All in all it was a fine day for an electro sail.