All new wiring, batteries and engine

[JoeFish]

Having had good AGM batteries in the past I am familiar with the care and feeding of them. To get the same amount of 'usable' power from an AGM bank I will need about double the number of Ah I require using LiFeYPO4 cells.

That means 4 of the Energy1 NSB210FT's I had planned would cost approx USD2400,00 and weigh in at 232 Kg total, with a footprint of 56cmL*32cmH*50cmW.

By comparison I can get the same amount of usable power from four Thunder Sky TS-LFP400AHA LiFeYPO4 cells which have a total weight of 54 Kg and a total footprint of 46cmL*28.5cmH*26cmW. That's less than 1/2 the overall size on a stowage challenged yacht and 178 Kg weight savings! These cells would cost me LESS than the E1 AGM's to boot.

The fact that they take a charge at a higher rate also means I save in fuel when I am charging offshore and that makes me even happier.

Tell me where my math is wrong.

[hellosailor]

Lithium cells that cost substantially LESS than AGMs?

"Tell me where my math is wrong. "

Post links to the *delivered* price of both, from comparable sources. If that doesn't show up a big simple math error, and the ThunderSky cells don't either crap out or explode prematurely, then you'd better order a dozen spares before TS figures out their pricing error.

Never seen or heard of any lithium technology that undersells AGM. Yet.

[JoeFish]

Ah for Ah they are about twice the price, but because you can use much more of their capacity the number of actual Ah available for consumption in an AGM is about 1/2 that of the LiFeYPO4's. That means the bank can be sized down significantly without reducing the total number of Ah you have available between charge cycles.

Thunder Sky LiFeYPO4 Batteries

Alliance Renewable Energy has them for $430 a piece. Freight on 13Kg is about what you pay when you ship a new Mac Pro tower, so not too bad.

[Kettlewell]

I'm not going to argue about it, but if it were me going to someplace like Alaska where I suspect replacements of anything critical might take some doing I would want to have batteries that are dead common and I wouldn't want anything, no matter what the spec., that wasn't 100% ordinary and understood. No matter how great your charging system things crap out, stuff breaks, something goes wrong, and if you lose one of your super-de-dooper special batteries what do you do? Better to go with tried-and-true, IMHO. I'd figure out how to store some regular deep-cycle lead acids of sufficient capacity and put a decent-sized alternator on, and then use at least enough solar panels, maybe some flexible ones, that you can keep at least the electronics running when everything else craps out.

[JoeFish]

That's the nice thing about having sailed for 40 years in these waters, I only need nav lights and a cranking battery to get home. I've navigated up to Alaska since long before I could afford LORAN and before GPS was a twinkle in the DoD's eye.

I trust electronics about as far as they will survive under water.

If you need them to get home then you probably shouldn't be in places like Alaska where the nearest help may be a few hundred miles away.

There will be a small Ah capacity AGM in the engine compartment beside the cranking battery, but the main house batteries can be something higher tech. These Electric car batteries seem to be well understood now and I plan to have a solid understanding of the tech well before I leave the dock.

Given that I have a BS in Physics from an Ivy League university I should be able to manage that.

[Kettlewell]

By the way, spectacular boat, and I bet she sails like a witch!

[JoeFish]

Thanks Kettlewell,

She's seen 13Kts in 40 coming in under the Golden Gate with 35 broken frames, without leaking a drop. This was the first design Olin did that would plane downwind. At 13.5 she turns into a submarine. Scary but fun. I single hand her all the time.

Carlton Mitchell was pissed as hell when Olin designed them. Her sister Gollywog was destroying Finisterre in the '56 Bermuda Race (with Colin Ratsey and the helm) when she dropped her centerboard on the beat up to the lighthouse, otherwise Finisterre would have only two Bermuda wins. Gollywog is also fully restored and owned by a good friend in NH.

The 40's are built like a brick sh*& house, Nevins really put them together right. The hull is entirely rebuilt and her solid bronze backbone was entirely refastened along with all her original planks that we could keep. 450 Lineal feet of planking was replaced and her topsides splined and resorcinol glued. It's all top grade VGG 5/4" stock in full lengths. All the scarfs and butt blocks are in original planks.

We also replaced 68 frames. Her bulkheads aft of the head were all replaced as well.

Can't wait to get her wet Friday.

[Kettlewell]

Does she have bronze diagonal strapping too?

Do you have some sort of modern anchor roller set up and a windlass, or are you going with mostly rope rode and a short length of chain? In the photos it looks like she just has forward chocks built into the toe rail. What are anchoring conditions like in Alaska?

[hellosailor]

Joe, that's a reseller's web page and I don't find Thundersky's own. One might ask why Thundersky is replacing their LiFePO4 batteries with the new LiFeYPO4, which are still new without a track record, and what BMS they recommend for them. That reseller offers two BMSes but absolutely no information about why or which might be required.

Can't check the math without all the numbers.

And the fact that some vendors "require" a BMS that doubles system cost, has to make you wonder who is wrong. The folks that insist BMS is necessary, or the folks who insist it isn't. Neither of whom warranty their batteries or systems for anywhere near the length they swear you'll get out of them.

[JoeFish]

Without hijacking my own thread...

We have a Lewmar flush mount windlass on the foredeck. We use Yale Brait with 50' of chain and have a small, temporary roller that secures into the chocks using the pole downhaul and foreguy sockets in the top of the chocks to secure it when we bring the anchor up to save wear on the chrome.

I've had numerous talks with Olin over the years prior to his death including one on this very subject in Castine a few years ago just after his 100th birthday. He always felt all the chain people used was absurd (unless it's absolutely necessary for abrasion resistance in coral, etc.) and recent testing by some really smart folks in NZ seem to bear this out. I've ridden out some nasty sh&^ on the west side on Vancouver Island (70-80Kts) in a pretty deep anchorage on 50 ft of chain with 5:1 scope and I have a LOT of windage.

Olin felt that the shock loading to the boat when she surges on chain was incredibly bad for the structure of the boat and that the give you get with a woven brait like line was critical when weathering a big storm. His boats survived many a hurricane and my experience seems to prove this out.

Anchoring in Alaska can be treacherous. You often end up running lines ashore and three point to shore points in a lot of spots where scope may put you aground when 20 feet of tidal change happens.

[Kettlewell]

Sorry for the thread drift--very interesting thoughts from Olin and you--carry on!

[hellosailor]

Joe, if you go back into the 80's and a time when electric hoists were found on luxury yachts...."all chain" was something no author, no source, recommended unless you were anchoring in coral and needed chain because line would get cut up in short order. And if you wanted more weight, you sent down more weight.

Maybe the chain factories and the winchmakers have conspired to sell more goods?<G>

[JoeFish]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Maybe the chain factories and the winchmakers have conspired to sell more goods?<G>

..that and a lot of people being convinced they needed things by salesmen at the local chandlery . I'd rather spend my money sailing than buying stuff that will only break at some point.

Besides, I sit in front of a computer all day and hardly want that to be a part of my sailing experience. I still use paper charts and do all my navigation by hand, computing set and drift, plotting my running DR's on the half hour, fixes when I get them. Sure, I have an iPad with charting on it, but it's used only as a convenience in the nicest weather (even though I seal it in a vacum pack bag, it's hardly trustworthy).

The sextant sets on a shelf in the nav station and a quality Chelsea clock and Barometer are just beside it. The shelf beside them has my leather bound Bowdich and a full set of signal flags are rolled individually in the cabinet beside that should my radios ever fail. A backup GPS that runs on AA batteries is in the cabinet behind the chart table along with it's twin and a spare set of batteries, but I've never had to break them out (and should probably replace them with something from this decade).

So, my yacht is essentially analog. The AP and wind instruments are really just improvements on what she came with in '55 and I have little use for much else as my father taught me to navigate properly and that's half the fun for me! Cheers!

[JoeFish]

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

Ample power makes a regulator that will control 2 alternator fields at the same time. For sake of simplicity I would keep the house bank as one large bank fed by two independent alternators, then use an acr or echo charger to charge the start battery. As an aside the ample power controller also has an output to control a solenoid to act as an acr. We have one and I love it.

Sailmonkey,

Just re-read your post. Sounds like a good idea. Thanks for the input.

J