…the slowest, the best and absolute finest spaceship on Earth has just added way-too-much power for our immediate needs.
…A funny thing about needs and humans. Humans need so fucking much! We try to be exceptions, not bringing some great big life down to the water and wedging it awkwardly into a sailboat. Instead, we consider what we really need versus what makes things easier versus what is decadent in an enjoyable way versus those decadent touches that don’t ever pay off in pleasure…
Strength and independence require so many tools and supplies that we can’t make for ourselves. I (Dena) don’t know how to mine copper or make strands of it. I don’t know how to tin those strands and twist them into marine-grade electrical cable. But I’m really really good at repurposing cable that already exists instead of buying new stuff and…yeah. Whenever possible.
The old 12v system is different now. The 500 watt wind generator is still up and generating, but we had three sets of solar panels…one on each side of the tower and a third made up of two panels flat on top of the tower. We moved the two panels from the top of the tower to the lifelines and hooked them to the tower-side panels to make two 24v systems of what used to be 3 12v systems. So far, our power production has increased, not decreased.
The top of the tower has been given over to two 24v panels that are wired to the terminal block in the previous picture to form a 48v solar array. We also installed the 48v Rutland 1200 wind generator that looks identical to our 12v Rutland 1200. It’s a pleasing symmetry.
And yet…here we are…four boxes of LiFePO4 cells and a big box of electric motor in the Cruiser’s Dance Hall of Vaca Key. None of the 48v charging systems are charging the cells that we can’t install until the diesel fuel tank is removed and none of the space for the motor is open until the OMG-AYFKM diesel is pulled and taken out of our teeny-tiny realm of power.
Excruciating.
There are beauties but…WTAFO…kind of weeping here!
Oh the row…yeah, motherfuckers, there’s a row again…and we are totally rocking this shit.
…and a manatee with a suckling…um..cub, pup, ouch, okay, calf…just one, tiny, totally covered in some kind of slime that doesn’t look all that kind. I’m so glad we didn’t hit you with our oar.
Sometimes the wind is against me (James). Oh yeah, I remember this one. Less than a mile and my fucking arms are falling off my body in a 30 knot breeze…maybe less, I don’t know. (Hi, Dena here. It was 27 steady, more than 30 in the gusts.)
Ah, but it’s so much better than that evil gas engine scream. We’re back to physical power and careful planning…the best case scenario!
Right?!
Were back to putting it together ourselves and building something that is real and life changing… for us, for now hopefully forever, right?
