Monday, August 18, 2014

Pics of the Weekend





Kona and I headed out to fog that cleared by noon.  We sailed to Angel but did not see a safe place to anchor.  Continued to Tiburon and it took a couple tries to get the anchor down.  Jumped in the kayak and got Kona over to the beach.  WInd shifting and I am worried about the anchor holding.  We get back to the boat and do a swim and sure enough the boat starts drifting.  Glad we are hanging on!  Had a great sail home and a little hove to near the channel.  Have a busy August so this may be my last sail of the month. 

Got in 5 sails since the new electric engine was installed last weekend.  Here is a note I sent my sailing buddies on our new electric engine: Our 20+ year old diesel engine on the Addiction finally expired in mid May due to corrosion from the salt water that is used to cool her.  My partners and I talked about many options including installing a new or rebuilt engine and even giving her away without a working engine.  It's been a long 10 weeks and now for the best part!

My partners have installed a new electric power plant in the boat.  It is truly awesome.  We now have 8, 70lb AGM batts secured, a charger and a new electric motor.  They pulled out the old diesel and put an ad on CL and it was taken away the very next day by some motor less sailors who plan to rebuild it.  Good luck!  We put the final touches on the install last weekend and she is quiet, no more fuel runs, and no more oil in the bilge.  We just plug her in after a sail and come back to a full charge.  It's called Tesla Sailing!  Very excited and I have to say, our partner Murray did a masterful job on the install.  I put in 3 hours helping with the install and he and the other partners did the rest!!! 

We have up to a 19 nautical mile range at about 3.5 knots.  Truth is, we use the motor in and out of the slip and maybe to a lunch stop at Angel (about 1 nm with each use).  The cool part is that as we sail, we let the prop spin and it regenerates power to the batts.  Today, I got them back up to 100% charged after an almost full throttle run out the channel.

We move our son down to San Diego this week where he will attend San Diego State.  He is very pumped about that.   Then my wife are off to Burning Man with a bunch of friends.  Going to be a great month!

1 comment:

Albie said...

Good post!
Very interesting about the electric engine. I have a small electric outboard engine but I don't think it's the same as what you have. Anyway it is quiet - like you say and you just plug it in at the end! But it does not push the boat very fast so I only use it leaving and entering my slip.
-Albie
http://2amtraffic.com/blog/1albie/