solar panels location

[Dunstaffnage]

I am adding solar to my Endeavour 40. It has a center cockpit.
Starting with 2 panels, I can see mounting them on bimini or adding davits and mounting the panels over the davits.
Opinions?

[Jammer]

The advantage of mounting them on the bimini is that, done well, they have minimal effect on windage and appearance, do not extend the length of the boat, and will not hit any lock walls. It can be cheaper.



The advantage of mounting them on some sort of frame over the stern is that there is more room and fewer sources of shadows.



I opted for 280 watts of panels over the bimini, which I believe will be enough for my situation, in practice. It isn't enough to support the boat's entire electrical needs on passage by itself, or enough to run a watermaker at anchor.

[SV Confianza]

Both! Haha.

This is a bit apples to oranges, though. The davits will server multiple purposes and also be considerably more expensive. it's much easier to mount hard panels on the davits, which will last much longer and produce better results than flexible ones on the Bimini.

[Grith]

I managed to mount thin frame hard panels onto my Bimini with thumb screw clamps making them removable should extreme weather dictate. Gives the canvas Bimini a hard roof, extra shade, more waterproof and didn’t really add that much windage given they are almost exactly the size of the Bimini.
Obviously much more weight aloft than flexible panels but they are performing well and cost one third of flexibles per watt and I got more wattage for area. 540w actually.