Power and Water Production

Aug 3rd - Day: 42 Odometer: about 1,477M
Position: N25d39.2’ W139d30.7’
Distance from start: 1,228M
Nearest land, Pt Kumuhaki on big island of Hawaii: 923M due 250T
Waikiki Yacht Club by my course: 1,046M due WSW
ETA: toward the end of August

RECORDS as running totals
Solo career total in days at launch: 845 now 887
Overall career total in days at launch: 928 now 970
Solo career total in miles at launch: 27,595M now about 29,072M
Overall career total in miles at launch: 31,083M now about 32,560M
==> Ralph Tuijn (NL) leads the last one with 35,635M

My trip odometer was misbehaving. I added straight line distances between evening positions to approximate. Actual meandering length of my track until Waikiki will be higher. It will append to my career totals at launch in solo and overall categories; to become official, London based Ocean Rowing Society must review supporting GPX files from my chart plotter and YB Tracker.

—-oOo—-

This post is to help Ryan Cheung, a member of our Ocean Recovery Alliance team based in Hong Kong. Ryan is assembling and publishing content as part of our trilingual education series. This week should be about power and water production on my rowboat.

We are mirroring the below linked ORA content under our menu option: Causes - Plastics in The Ocean/Ocean Recovery Alliance.

The ORA page dedicated to this crossing

Release schedule - note: trilingual page buttons

On my rowboat today, I rely solely on solar power to generate electricity. I have a total of 295W solar capacity to charge two AGM batteries, 110Ah each. These batteries then power my 12V electrical system onboard. Everything runs off those two batteries.

I had such a difficult time with power production during my 312 day debacle on the Pacific during the 2007-2008 season, that when I launched from Australia in July 2010, we had also installed a wind generator. The power regulator for that wind generator used 1.5 Amps itself just to operate, which meant a threshold of about 13 knots wind before I broke even. So I tied down that generator in any winds under 15 knots. Not a very effective solution… I got rid of it eventually.

Later in 2014, I replaced my cabin-top solar panels with the more efficient Solara panels. We found that one of the original panels was defective all along… My roof had just received a total of 115W in paneling.

Before this crossing, Brian Johnson sourced custom Solbian panels which were shaped for the remaining suitable surface area on my rowboat. The new stick-on panels added an extra 180W, bringing my total to 295W.

We ripped out the entire wiring in the rowboat which dated back to 2001 and started from scratch. I now have new instrument panel, AGM batteries, charge controllers, battery protector, switches, breakers, USB chargers, active dual band radar target enhancer, bulkhead display, LED cabin lights, fuses… It took a trusted hand to put Humpty Dumpty back together, and Brian was the one.

Now even under persistently overcast skies, the state of charge for my batteries reach 100% before noon everyday. It is good to be running my desalinator which draws an average of 4 Amps, and still seeing a positive balance of amperage flowing into the batteries. I will not be hungry for power on this rowboat ever again.

For water production, I have a Katadyn PUR40E electric desalinator that can produce 4-6 liters per hour. This water maker uses the reverse osmosis method to run raw water across a very tight membrane at high pressure (800 psi). Salt molecules are larger than those of water; the membrane catches those salt molecules, sweating potable water on the other side. The brine, which is the raw water remaining inside the device which after giving up some of its fresh water ends up with an even higher salt content, is ejected overboard and potable water collected for consumption.

If that unit misbehaves, I have a hand pumped version of this desalinator, Katadyn Survivor 35 with a similar production capacity; but that’s hard work! Who in their right mind would sit and pump for a straight hour to fill a jug? So when in the past I had to use that manual water maker, it was always two cups here and a cup there, pumping as I needed water rather than in one long sitting. That worked best and didn’t feel so daunting or frankly, boring. I would rather row or rest!

I have 100 liters of potable water stacked in 5-liter plastic jerry cans as ballast under my rowing station. Depending on the latitude, I can ration this in an emergency over 25 days. If I tap into this ballast water, I need to make sure to refill the used can with salt water then place it back as ballast to maintain the proper weight distribution in the rowboat. Otherwise I would compromise her self-righting ability in the case of a capsize.

There is yet another water maker, a tiny Katadyn Survivor 06 stashed in my ditch bag which I would grab when transitioning to my life raft, if ever. That water maker has a low output and provides sips of water for survival until proper rescue.

Erden