Big Frisky

Kurt and Pamela are sold up and are sailing aboard SV Big Frisky, an Outbound 46 with the Kona Boys, Honu, Kona and Chico. Join us while we learn what it is to be Blue Water cruisers and see the world. Follow us on Instagram @big_frisky

15 December 2018 | Abacos Bahamas
10 August 2018 | St Peters, Nova Scotia
17 July 2018 | Hadley Harbor, MA
12 July 2018 | Cuttyhunk
29 November 2017 | Downtown Providence
11 November 2016 | Morehead City North Carolina
15 October 2016 | Annapolis Landing Marina
30 September 2016 | Two-Mile Landing Marina, Cape May NJ
03 August 2016 | Charleston Harbor Marina
01 July 2016 | Charleston Harbor Marina
30 May 2016 | Charleston Harbor, South Carolina
29 May 2016 | Charleston Harbor Marina
28 May 2016 | Charleston Harbor Marina
19 May 2016 | Cape Canaveral
13 May 2016 | Bahia Mar Marina, Fort Lauderdale FL USA
12 May 2016 | Atlantic Ocean 140 miles South of Fort Lauderdale
11 May 2016 | Atlantic Ocean 60 miles from Old Bahama Channel
10 May 2016 | Atlantic Ocean 50 miles north of Haiti
08 May 2016 | Atlantic Ocean 45 miles north of DR
06 May 2016 | Nanny Cay, Tortola BVI

And we're back.....

27 April 2016 | Nanny Cay, Tortola BVI
Captain
On a schedule that is. In just under two weeks we set off for a 1,000 mile nonstop trip back to Fort Le De Da Florida. These last 6 months in the Caribbean have seemed to just slip under our keel. Not unnoticed or without our enjoyment however.

April arrived and with it a lack of wind. We had a week last week where there was not a breath stirring for 4 days straight. It made getting around in the dinghy easy and less wet but provided no wind power from our Silentwind generator while we sat behind a reef in Dakity in Culebra PR. Our generator is currently awaiting a new water pump from Fischer Panda from Germany, then to FL, then to USVI, then to BVI to us, hopefully in the next week or so it it’s back up and running for our trip to FL.

The lack of energy production did allow us a small experiment with our Lithium Ion batteries. We have a ridiculously large 1200 amp hours in our house bank. We had room so when we replaced our AGMs we put in 4 8Ds at 300 AH a piece. Normally any lead battery you use the top 50% of the capacity so as to not crash your battery bank. LIon’s though are like your cell phone battery which we all regularly run down to 0% and see the dreaded red battery on your Apple device indicating not enough charge yet to even run the operating system. So practically we run twice the amp hours out of our bank than lead, AGMs or otherwise.

An amp hour is a unit of measurement that expressing the output of a battery. 300 AH puts out 150 hours if lead, 300 hours if LIon. The best way to track how much you need is to track how much you use. We have a battery monitor that converts current charge into remaining hours left in your bank. Its real time so if you run an energy hog like a water maker it assumes your current charge is used the remaining time and your remaining hours may read 12 hours. Water maker was not needed as we had planned to be out a week. When we arrived it settled in a just under 8 days worth of energy.

Then the wind died. And it got hot so our freezer and fridge were running overtime. Slowly the hours ticked down and it got to be Thursday and and it dropped to below 30%. I ran the main engine with our 100 Amp alternator that once up to temperature and at 1800 rpms put about 40 amps into the system and about 5% of the capacity in 2 hours on running. We could run 4 hours a day and hold steady if needed. Then I stopped doing that and when we left on saturday morning we were in the mid teens for percentage left of charge. The hours remaining stopped calculating at 25% remaining capacity so i just watched the percentage and total expended AHs and knew that if it did run down all the way we still had out engine starting battery that would get the alternator running again.

We bashed 6 hours into the wind coming back from PR, motoring and we got back maybe 30% of the capacity. It wasn’t until we got hooked up to shore power and we were able to dump 80 amps in on a steady basis that the full charge came back over another 15 hours or so.

I talked to Fischer Panda today and no water pump yet. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.
Comments
Vessel Name: Big Frisky
Vessel Make/Model: Outbound 46
Hailing Port: Carmel Indiana
Crew: Kurt and Pamela
About: Kurt and Pamela have been together for sixteen years and recently married. Kona, Honu and Chico are avid sailing companions and are committed to keeping all ducks off docks wherever they may go. Kurt is a retired editor for a publishing company and Pamela is a retired college librarian.
Extra: After travelling through the Great Lakes and out the St. Lawrence Seaway, Big Frisky and her crew are ready to start the next leg of their adventure, a passage to Tortola, British Virgin Islands.
Home Page: tinyurl.com/big-frisky
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Big Frisky's Photos - Main
Wintering over in Providence
7 Photos
Created 29 November 2017
4 Photos
Created 3 August 2016
6 day passage from Nanny Cay, Tortola BVI to Ft Lauderdale Florida
5 Photos
Created 19 May 2016
The four days of Kurt and Pamela's Birthdays April 18-April 22.
10 Photos
Created 30 April 2016
2 Photos
Created 8 January 2016
5 Photos
Created 16 December 2015
1 Photo
Created 7 November 2015
4 Photos
Created 20 October 2015
No Photos
Created 15 October 2015
6 Photos
Created 5 October 2015
5 Photos
Created 2 October 2015
17 Photos
Created 24 September 2015
Sights around QC
11 Photos
Created 18 September 2015
Cliff's hospitalization at Cleveland Clinic
5 Photos
Created 31 August 2015
What we are reading
2 Photos
Created 21 July 2015
Pictures of the people we meet along the way
4 Photos
Created 14 July 2015
We love entertaining guests aboard Big Frisky!
9 Photos
Created 30 June 2015
16 Photos
Created 26 June 2015
Photos of the destinations we have been
25 Photos
Created 24 June 2015
26 Photos
Created 24 May 2015
Photos our our new ride
9 Photos
Created 28 January 2015