We left Ibiza with a nice 12 kts of wind from behind, averaged at least 8kts over the ground up the east side of Ibiza and set sail for Palma, our first night was spent in a beautiful bay with crystal clear water. It was 12 metres deep and my basic rule after speaking to Peter Smith is to put out 5 times the depth in anchor chain. We put out 60 metre of anchor chain and were secure all night in up 15kts of wind. The night was windy and the wind gen went nuts keeping the batteries topped up but still not enough to stop the power going backwards. The fridge and freezer draw at least 10 amps and the wind gen on average pumps around 5 amps.
I have spent a lot of time working out the electronics on this boat. Currently we have 5 iPods, 6 iphones, 4 laptops, a 32 inch tv screen, 3 terabytes of media, a high gain 3G antenna (55 db of gain). All this gear keeps me extremely busy, working out how to transition it from 240 volts to 12 volt is a full time job on its own. The reason I want to do this is that running the 1600watt inverter is extremely inefficient. Stepping up 12volts to 240 volts is a good way to waste power. I ran 12 volts cables to the starboard side of the boat which also has a huge voltage drop. Using 2.5 square mill cable appears to drop the voltage by at least 1 volt from the port of the boat. This means the 11.89 volts is not enough to get the hard disks stepped in. I would assume this is due to back EMF on starting the electric motors in the hard disks (An Electrical Engineer would know more). Even though I did 2 years of basic electronics my Telecommunications degree setup me up better for signal theory and now multi protocol label switching . I have been thinking a lot about what I can do to rectify the issue of using 240 and not waste power. My solution is one of two either design and create my own DC inverter/buy one or install thicker cable. I have found a supplier of relatively cheap DC voltage invertors so I will be purchasing a few of those. The plan is then to run the boat media equipment from the DC invertor.
I will then install a full time computer to run chart plotting software that is relayed to the 32in HD screen on HD channel 2. This is kind of cool as if you’re off shift you will be able to see exactly where we are and know our speed and heading. Now I have an issue with keeping the power charged. It may be time to invest in 300 watts of solar panels and some more wind generators. This will allow me to save on diesel and have a fully self sufficient boat. Using only the wind and sun to keep it powered up.
As for the wireless network on the boat, at its peak with 6 people on the boat I have had 19 subscribers. No small feat for a 44ft boat. I pre designed the network to run off 12 volts and it is working well. So well that I actually have people row up to the boat and ask to use the net in return for beer. I should run my own ISP. Not something I am so keen to do though. The network has a firewall to keep all systems secure. I have set it up open on the LAN (local side) to share media but on the WAN (internet side) no incoming connections are allowed. As each country requires a new 3G connection I now have a collection of over 10 sim cards and growing. It is interesting that some countries have set up their networks so that the network works out that you are tethering and sharing your connection, they then disconnect you and say that it is not allowed. The best option is to make sure you get a data package not an unlimited smart phone package. This can be more costly but worth it. I believe the way the provider works out that the connection is being shared is through deep packet inspection. As all the connections use network address translation I don’t think they could work it out from the IP address.
Any way that is all for Nick does nerd talk. I will attach some photos of all the equipment soon.
-Nick
