In LaConner, WA
13 June 2011 | LaConner, WA
Bill
We got into LaConner on 6/12 and tied up at the dock of a yacht club with which we have reciprocity: we get two nights free. We're here to see our old friend Art Arians and his lovely wife, Karen. I've known Art since I got into AK: he was my first science department chairman. He's always been an important person to me and showed me a way to stay fresh while continuing to teach for 32 years. His was a remarkable career.
We're working on our alternative power, the water-powered generator made by Hamilton Ferris. Mr. Ferris' company has created an extremely simple system for using the sailing boat's kinetic energy to produce electrical energy. He used a simple generator with permanent magnets: no field wires to deal with. The generator is caused to rotate by the motion of a small propeller that is dragged through the water by the moving sailboat. As the boat moves, the propeller rotates. This motion is imparted to the generator via a stiff rope: the torque line. The generator feeds the electrical energy to our battery bank. It's advertised to produce 12 amps when the boat is moving at 6 knots. That's 288 amp hours of energy in 24 hours, considerably more that we use in that same 24 hours. With luck, we can run whatever we wish and keep the batteries fully charged with this device alone.
In addition, we also a generator that we can hoist into the rigging and charge our batteries via wind power alone. While at anchor, we hoist the wind generator and charge our batteries in the trade winds, making us virtually energy independent. Naturally, it's a used system so I have lot of fabrication and wiring to do, but the results could be spectacular!