Do you have enough power?
With the explosion of powered appliances, electronics, and miscellaneous gadgets, has your electrical system kept pace?
Have you upgraded the batteries, charging system, or perhaps added a solar source?
Tell the truth about your power.
A few years ago, even without refrigeration, charging was dictating how we sailed. After just a night (maybe 2 if we conserved), our house (2 Grp 27 lead acid) were seriously discharged. Instead of sailing off the anchor or mooring, or spending another day, we had to run the engine for an hour or so. I installed a Balmar dual output alternator and external regulator, 15 or so years ago.
The culprits were: Auto Pilot(WP 4000ST- it steers most of our miles), incandescent cabin lights, lap top computers (we had 2 teenagers),...etc. Not too bad but this required regular charging. Plus the discharged bank called for all the Balmar can put out (70 amps?) which in turn caused fast wear on the belt-which causes adding tension-which causes excessive wear on the water pump(installed a new one this spring),...and so on.
I had 2 choices, one: Add battery bank storage, rebuild alt belt system, add solar panels,...Solar: There isn't a good space for a large panel on our boat and I don't want to add a mount somewhere that will be in the way or need adjusting.
I went for the other choice - two: Conservation.
AP- It's hard to tell how much juice you use with an AP. But with a WP, you can feel the motor. If it's hot, it's running hard(often). Experimenting more with the rudder gain, speed settings, I've found more efficient steering. Often the boat wants very little from the AP and can steer itself, and use less power in the process.
Cabin lights- Finally changed all of the incandescent 12VDC household bulb for LED bulbs.
Laptops are gone, as are the kids. But they're obsolete (not the kids), on the boat now. We're using a tablet for GPS and occasional online work, phones for GPS and online. In fact most everything that isn't direct wired to the boat (like a shipboard GPS) is working on a smaller wattage USB plug. In fact, we just don't have many heavy power users onboard these days.
After nearly a month onboard this season we enjoyed 3-4 days at a dock or at anchor. When it came to charging, house bank was never so low that the Balmar needed full output to charge. Easy on belts and little engine time needed. In fact because we were traveling, we needed to power more miles than we usually would, close to home.
I know now; we need a small solar panel simply to top up the last 10% or so, at our mooring. Charging life is good! Sailing life is better!
