Energy Independence

Home solar companies often tout the dream of being energy independent, where you produce what you need and don't consume any energy from the grid. This sounds great in theory and is actually very easy to accomplish. The problem is that these companies are not really addressing it in the best way, merely the way that will make them the most money.

Solar companies will cover your huge roof with solar panels, creating massive systems that will measure in the kilowatts! These systems will hopefully be able to match a percentage of your energy consumption by feeding into the grid during the day when no one is home and then drawing back from the grid by night when the solar panels are not operable.

The dream is that this plus during the day and minus during the night will cancel out and make your draw from the grid 0. The problem is that these solar panes are massive and yet still struggle to meet your energy needs! They feed into the grid by day instead of into a battery bank because the power demands are far to great for any battery bank to contain. While these companies talk about being energy independent, there is still a power line from the grid to your house that you are depending on at night.

To be truly energy independent, you need to cut the cord and address the situation from a different vantage point. The solar companies are trying to sell you a ton of solar panels. These panels are expensive and they want to sell you as many as they can. Instead of telling you the truth about energy, they tell you to buy more because it will make you happy and that you are saving the environment.

The truth to energy independence is not more, but less. Think about it for a moment. If you need a 30 kW array to meet a percentage of your needs, you have a serious problem! This means that for every hour of peak sun, your array is producing 30kW. There are roughly 4 hours per day when your array will be at its peak, so your 30kW system will produce 120kW during that time alone. Somehow this is not enough power to meet all your needs because, just like with the solar panels, your house is filled with many more things that are supposed to make you happy as well.

Instead of having more, things that require more panels to maintain, the easier and cheaper option is to have less. If you have less appliances, then you will also need less power and less panels. If you get down far enough, you will even be able to run everything off of batteries and be actually energy independent.

On the boat, we have a 300W array, or 0.3kW when compared to house standards that feeds into a 6.3kW battery bank (525ah @ 12vDC). This array feeds the batteries which charge up during the day and run the entire boat by night. By 10am, which is when the peak power production begins, the batteries are full charge again. This means that the power consumed all night by the boat is completely replenished by 10am. In reality, we could get by with a smaller solar array that would then finish charging by around 3pm. On cloudy days, the extra solar space means that we are still able to charge up and keep on top of our consumption, even though the sun is not being captured as efficiently.

How do we live on such little power? Simple, we have few things that consume that much power. Our biggest power draw is the refrigerator. This beast draws between 2 to 4 amps per hour, or 24W to 48W per hour. During the day, the panels are able to supply it with all the power it needs, but at night, this power hog falls onto the batteries for fuel. Having a large battery bank will allow us to continue to power this creature on a series of cloudy days, when the solar array is not as capable of topping off the charge while the refrigerator continues to draw.

Aside from the fridge, our only other sources of power drain are the lights, water pumps, and navigational equipment. These can also consume their fair share of power, but they only do so for a short period of time. If they are not being used, they do not drain the batteries. The fridge on the other hand runs non stop, every day, and draws on the batteries for its entire life.

In the end, a simpler life means less associated costs as well. We only needed to purchase one refrigerator. We also only needed to purchase 300W of solar power. If we had a washing machine, dish washer, home theater system, and every other consumer of electricity imaginable, then we would also need to shell out all the added money for a huge solar array.

Energy independence isn't about buying more things, it is about needing less.

Extraordinary Chickens

Maddie loves chickens, a lot. Her favorite chicken is the silky chicken which looks more like something out of Sesame Street than a farm animal. This obscure chicken is very fluffy with feathers peering out of every part of its body. At the center of it all is a beak that sits unassuming in the middle of its face to remind you that this is indeed a chicken.  

Years ago, someone gave Maddie a book called "Extraordinary Chickens" simply because it has pictures of the silky chicken in it. While the book may be about birds, the title impacted me.  

Growing up, I was never the toughest nor the bravest. Instead, I was the quiet nerd that kept to himself. In many ways I still am.  

When people hear about our planned adventure, they always say "you must be very brave" but the truth is, I'm not.  

I see our journey as a slow sail across the water, one hull length at a time. When the weather is nice, we will sail. When the weather turns for the worst, we will heave to under the storm sails as we wait for conditions to improve.  

We are not trying to race across the ocean or break any sort of record. Instead, we are simply setting the sails and going in one direction for a very long time.  

We are not brave sailors who seek out danger or people who feel most alive when we stare death in the face. No, we are merely chickens; extraordinary chickens, that is! 

Sailing to Slow Down

The day of departure is fast approaching and the question on many people's minds is "What made you love sailing?"  Since I didn't grow up around boats or have a previous passion for sailing, my love for sailing may be different from most.  I'm a high-strung, fast-paced kind of person.  I always arrive on time (which has been stressful with Herby because he has no concept of time whatsoever, having grown up as a Puerto Rican), and I am constantly thinking about what's coming next.  In short, I'm a city girl.  I plan my whole day out before I get up in the morning.  Sailing the way we do without a motor offers me a chance to slow down.  When we're sailing, my mindset changes completely from schedules and time constraints to "I guess I'll read a book for the next couple hours."

In that way, the electric motor has been a gift.  Why stress about when we are going to get to the next destination when we have no control over it whatsoever?  We are completely at the mercy of the winds, and as soon as I accepted that, sailing became the most peaceful and relaxing way of life I had oever experienced.  This is part of the reason that I am so excited for our trip.  People are constantly asking us where we're going and when we'll be there and I thoroughly enjoy watching their faces as I say "we have no idea!"  It is the ultimate feeling of freedom to know that we can go wherever we feel like going and get there whenever the wind decides.  In the mean time, we will simply talk, laugh, read, eat, and sleep!

Arthwartship Sheet Positioning

Most yachts are equipped to adjust the sheets in a fore aft direction via jib tracks. Some yachts have inhauls and barber hauls on their sheet blocks to allow for arthwartship positioning. Arthwartship is merely something that is in the beam dimension of the yacht. Inhauls and barber hauls simply move the block towards centerline or towards the sheer.

These adjustments may seem unnecessary, but in fact they are very important for headsail control on various points of sail. If your yacht is not setup to adjust these controls, it may be a good idea to figure out another way to still accomplish the end goal. 

When pointing to windward, the angle of attach of your sail is dictated by the location of your clew. If your clew is set far out on the cap rail, you will never be able to sheet the sail close hauled and sail close to the wind. Instead, you will be forced to sail at much wider angles and this will reduce your Velocity Made Good as you work to windward. 

By bringing your sheet block inboard, you also bring your yacht closer to the wind as your headsail can maintain the same angle of attach with your yacht pointing higher.  

When reaching, the opposite is true. If your sheet positions are far inboard, your sail will have to be eased considerably to reach. This will cause the leech to open up and twist horribly. You will have a sail presented to the wind, but all the wind will spill out the twist and provide very little drive. By moving the sheet block outboard, you can alleviate this problem by setting your block far forward (to control the leech) and outboard. Now you're able to pull in on the sheet, close the leech, and reach with power. 

On racing yachts, the sheet block is usually a ring suspended by four lines. One runs forward, one aft, one inboard, and one outboard. The fore and aft lines control the fore and aft position of the block, just like a car on a track. The inboard line is the inhaul which pulls the block inboard to allow better pointing to windward, while the outboard line is the barber haul, which pulls the block outboard for reaching. 

It is not always practical to convert your yacht with a perfectly functional jib track to this system, which is why snatch blocks may be your new best friend. If you have a perforated aluminum toe rail, you can easily clip the snatch block to the rail and lead the sheet from the sheet block into the snatch block. You have now effectively moved the sheeting position outboard and successfully created a barber haul for reaching and running. 

Adding a padeye inboard would allow you to place a snatch block further inboard, thus creating a close hauled sheeting point for beating. 

Life gets easier if you have a cutter, as your staysail will typically have a track that is further inboard than your jib. When beating close hauled, you will have to lower the staysail to reduce interference with the jib as you point higher. Since the staysail is not flying, you can also hook a snatch block onto the staysails jib track and give you a fully adjustable further inboard track to sheet your jib to. This will allow you to point your cutter like if it were a sloop, yet retain all the ocean going advantages of a cutter whine offshore. 

Sheet Leads

An often overlooked component of a headsail is the sheet lead position. While some people treat these blocks as static and permanently set attachment points, the truth is, they are meant to be moved around depending on what you are trying to achieve with your headsail.

Sheet leads are typically only able to move fore-aft, but some yachts are equipped to allow arthwartship adjustment as well. Fore-aft is by far the most common form of adjustment, where the sheet block is setup on a car mounted to a track. 

In the simplest of ways, moving the car forward is ideal in light air situation while moving the car aft is ideal in heavy air situations. The reason is, as you move the car forward, the force of the sheet is transferred up into the leech of the sail, allowing the foot to fill in. This creates a bigger chord in the sail and generates more power. When you move the sheet block aft, the force of the sheet gets transferred over to the foot of the sail. This will cause the foot to flatten and make the sail flatter. A flatter sail will generate less power and thus allow you to maintain control as the winds build. 

As you transfer the force of the sheet from foot to leech or leech to foot, the other side of the sail becomes ignored by the force. So when the car is forward, the leech is under control while the foot is ignored. When the car is aft, the foot is under control and the leech is ignored. This can serve some additional benefits as well. 

When winds build, you want to flatten the sail by tensioning the foot. Moving the car aft will accomplish this and it will also alleviate force on the leech. This will cause the sail to twist and the opening leech will spill excess air from the top of the sail. In high winds, this is ideal and will allow you to continue sailing along comfortably and safely. 

When you are reaching and have eased the sail, you may find that your sail is developing a twist, even though you don't want it to do so. Moving the car forward will allow you greater control of the leech and grant you the ability to close the twist in the sail, maximizing the power from the headsail. 

As of now, we understand that moving the car forward will control the leech and moving aft will control the foot, but where is the car to go to control both? The answer is somewhere in the middle. 

As you move the car forward and aft, the angle the sheet makes to the sail will change. With the car aft, the sheet will come into the sail at a very shallow angle. If you continue this line, it will meet the luff of the sail somewhere down near the tack. As you move the car forward, the sheet will meet the sail at a more extreme angle and the imaginary line will reach the luff further up towards the head of the sail. 

The neutral position where the force on the leech and foot are about equal is when the imaginary line that extends forward of the sheet meets the luff at about 40% the height of the luff (from tack to head). This point is considered to be the neutral position for your sheet block, and anything forward of this position is for lighter airs while anything aft is for heavy airs.