This morning we finally wired up the charge controller to the solar panel and then figured out how to wire it to the batteries and, by golly, it works. I charged the batteries with an electric battery charger a few week ago, so they were mostly charged when we hooked it up. The controller has a battery voltage monitor and you can see that it is showing over 13 volts, which is encouraging. We could see the voltage of the batteries slowly increasing even though the sun was not very high in the sky yet, which is very encouraging. Having a voltage meter on the batteries a really nice feature because, although I can't tell exactly how much juice is going into the batteries from the solar (like I could on Tropical Dreamer), I can tell whether they are charged, decreasing in voltage, or increasing in voltage. The charge controller will put them on float mode at about 14 volts, so if it shows 14 when we check it tomorrow, that will be very very encouraging. Between the solar system and the juice that comes from the little generator on the 10 hp outboard, this sailboat should be able to maintain itself electrically while cruising and at anchor. Still have to bolt down the panel and do the other finishes, but it is great to finally see the solar system working. One more step forward. We only broke one thing this morning, and that part can be ordered from Catalina Direct and installed without much trouble (http://www.catalinadirect.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ID=1439).