Thought I would write a little about saving power on sailboats . After looking into all the power requirements on our boat ,I was shocked to see just how much power is consumed on an average days sail . This power consumption has an end result of not only carrying a lot more weight ,but spending a lot more money and burning a lot more fossil fuel .
Now our boat does not have a lot of lights ,but if I switched all 13 lights on , including running , steaming , deck , tricolor and 8 interior lights I would consume close to 10 amps . This was absolutely unacceptable , so I went about looking at alternatives . I believed that I could leave the running and steaming lights as regular incandescent bulbs as I would be under motor when being used . But I would change all the other bulbs to LED technology . The light that would be used the most underway would be the tricolor at the top of the mast ,so I was off looking for an alternative for that . Now LED technology is improving exponentially ,but at the time tricolor lights that where available where in the $300-400 USD range , totally absurd .
I had a perfectly good series 41 Aqua-signal tricolor on top of the mast and was not going to shell out more money , so I looked into modifying the existing system .
Regular replacement led bulbs where also ridiculous until I found a website while searching the internet that built a light that would fit both budget and usage .
The outfit is based on the island of Vanua Levu and was started by some folks looking to put some food on their tables and employ the local people without any impact on the way of life on the island .
I ordered 2 lights that go by the name of masina malosi , a total of around $100 USD .
A week later I got the package . What I found was an awesome light made with 30 LED's cast into a PVC pipe end fitting that almost blinded me when I put some power on the leads . The LED's are cast into the fitting at regular intervals all round the end fitting so you get all around light .
I went about modifying the Aqua-signal fitting to accept the light by cutting the lens in half to shorten up on the height of the unit .
To cut it short I not only saved on windage at the top of the mast , but I saved on weight of wire as I could use a small gauge and I got an amazing power saving .
Check out the items for yourself and a short write up on how I did the mod at http://www.bebi-electronics.com/ and if you need some custom stuff drop Michael an email , he is my electronics guru .
I then went about changing out all my interior light bulbs for LED's I purchased from
http://www.superbrightleds.com/ . Another cool thing is for interior lights I used both red , white and blue bulbs in my old fittings to save on my night vision .
All up I have dropped the draw down to just over 2.5 amps with all the lights on , not that it would ever be done .
Start saving on the power you use , change to LED's