Apparently living the life of a cruiser is all about Watts. Life on a yacht is all about power, or lack there of. When you are moored in a beautiful bay somewhere in the South Pacific, blue sky, no wind, nobody else around, the last thing you want to do is start the generator or motor because the batteries have run flat while you are watching the final episode of Sex in the City for the hundredth time.
Although we have a good bank of batteries, a high output alternator, diesel generator and wind/water generator, I do want to be as energy efficient as possible, and I also like my gadgets!
So the first task in cutting the energy consumption has been to change all the halogen lights to LED's. There are many forums and bloggers who have experimented and recommeneded various products and
Searolf seemed to come out on top. He is a little more expensive than
www.ultraleds.co.uk but I thought I would give him a go as he started the company after he couldn't find what he wanted for his boat and there is also a great story for the name Searolf. I ordered 5 to try them out and as you can hopefully see in the above photo, they have made a huge difference.
They use only 2.4 watts and are much brighter than the halogen bulbs they replaced which used about 20 watts! The other advantage is they should last for 80,000 to 100,000 hours as opposed to the 2000 hrs for a G4.
I have since replaced all the bulbs to LED and has really brightened things up (and think of all the other gadgets I can now add with all that spare electricity!!).
If Sally thinks I am bad (read mad) now turning off lights, turning the heating down and having a real time energy meter on my office desk, I will be a nightmare on the boat.