Gear that I love

Solar panels

We really love our solar panels as they do most of our charging when we are at anchor. So much so that often it would be about a week before we have a cloudy day and need to charge a little. At anchor we run a fridge, freezer, electric toilet, anchor light, cabin lights (all LED), microwave, GPS chartplotter to check for anchor drift, a little TV, some notebook charging and a few other small items.

The second great thing about solar panels is that the lower constant charge rate helps to charge the batteries back to 100% charge. This would take hours of motor running as the motor charge rates taper off over about 80%. When we are doing a crossing we would charge the batteries with the motors in the morning and then let the panels do the rest.

We got four 190 watt Sanyo solar panels with the Outback DX60 regulator. This regulator gives a history for the past 30 days. We get between 200 and 300 amphours on most days.

  

Genoa cars

We have a roller furler and need to adjust the car position when we furl it in or out and when we go off wind. The ball bearing genoa cars allow us to easily set the sail correctly from the aft cockpit. If I did not have the cars I doubt that I would change the car positions as often, thus loosing out on correctly set sails.

 

Aft lead reef lines and halyards

All our halyards and reef lines lead back to the cockpit. This is great as it means that we do not have a winch on the mast and do not need to spend much time in that exposed position. The only reason we go forward is to clip in the reef points at the mast.

One electric winch

We have one electric winch at the steering position. This makes our sailing life so much easier. We have all our key lines leading to this one winch so 80% of the work can be done by it. We are a family cruiser so going up the mast with the electric winch is possible for us.

This winch has the main halyard, both genoa sheets, roller furler line, spinnaker halyard, main sheet, 1^st reef and one genoa car.

Battcar and roller blocks

Our mainsail goes up so easily with the battcar and roller bocks. We normally bounce it up about 80% of the way. We had roller blocks fitted in the top of the mast and have one above the mainsail headboard.

AIS system

This early warning of large ship position reduces the stress when doing a crossing and sailing in busy waters. Off Brazil we had 5 large ships in the area that we could easily avoid as we knew where they were and what direction they were heading (see below). With this system one can get out of the way of large ships even before they are visible on the horizon.

One still needs to keep a good watch as smaller boats and most fishing boats do not have this system.