solar

After much arm-waving and boat-stalking and soliciting opinions of how exactly to put a usable amount of solar on a pointy double-ender, I found Custom Marine Products' solar mount. It's a really great idea, but 1) it's $800, and 2) I couldn't figure out where to put it on my boat. So, I ordered about $200 worth of junk from onlinemetals and McMaster-Carr and got out my trusty sawzall.

2 100-watt panels mounted on poles above the pushpit. These twist and swivel - here one is "up" (in back) and one "down" to catch the morning sun. (Mid-March 38*N)

125W panel on the dodger

Morningstar 45-amp MPPT charge controller. Plenty of capacity to grow.

9-ish AM. Mostly-full batteries. Backstay shadow on one 100W panel, boom shadow across dodger panel, dew on all the panels, kinda-sorta pointed sun-wise. 11.5amps. Whoa!