Sailboat Sunday Morning

This aft window is prone to leaking

Sunday rolls around again. Some morning the boat is wet and some days it is dry. It is hard to figure the weather here. You can count on a breeze almost every afternoon. My last blog was short on text as the Blogger editor wiped out much of what I had typed when I started adding pictures.

deck dripping

Need a self cleaning boat

My daughter Frances is in Boston where she had an opening yesterday at the MFA and when I opened up Twitter I was entertained by her appearance.

Beanie in Boston


My morning usually starts with wiping down parts of the boat because everything is wet or dripping.
If you live in a house or apartment in the city or on a farm in the country you for all intent purposes don't deal with the roof. To open up and get out I must remove my drop boards and climb up my ladder and start wiping. The majority of sailboats have the cabin and berths down below where power boats don't. Larger power boats often have cabin space below and have more than one level. Also the shape on the interior conforms to the shape of the hull making powerboats more roomier.




My boat is connected to shore power 115 VAC and is metered and my electric bill is included in my monthly billing. Last month's bill for shore power was $6.09 which is a dollar higher that last month. Recently I added another fridge to my galley and that one runs around the clock whereas my internal fridge runs off my house batteries which are charged by my two solar panels. One 70 watt panel is bolted to the transom rails and faces east. That panel starts charging 15 minutes after sunrise on a clear day. The 50 watt panel is not bolted down and can be redirected to follow the sun. That panel has a power cable that is routed through a circuit breaker to my battery bank and the fixed panel to hard wired to a voltage regulator. When sailing the smaller panel is lashed to the center cabin hatch.


The voltage regulator and my dc to ac invert have USB charging ports.So all my devices that can use USB charging get the juice from the solar panels. All interior lamps have low wattage LEDs and interior lighting is from solar.





My water is stored in a forward tank beneath the V-Berth and is connected to a Shurflow pump that supplies the sink in the head and the sink in the galley. The pump is driven by the batteries also. My Samsung flat screen will run off my invert as the wattage is low. Basically the Telly is left off. The FM radio and ship radio run off batteries too. Appliances that required A/C can be connected to my 1000 Watt generator if we are off the dock. I made a cable that allows the gas powered generator to be connected to A/C connector in the cockpit. So the boat is not entirely off the grid when tied to the dock but the setup is pretty GREEN.