20th of July: Goodbye Saturday
In between our two weeks of launching-testing and our homebound voyage to Den Helder I am one week alone on board and in this week I plan to do a Off the grid battery test.
Today Ester is driving home and I stay aboard in Port du Kernével at Larmor Plage. Friday next week she will return with the rest of the crew, ready for our homeport voyage to Den Helder. I can handle my regular job from our boat this week. I work for Halton Foodservice and manage the service on HVAC installations.
Ester is normally the chef in our galley. So, in her absence I have to master my own meals. This evening I will try our GN Espace induction cooker-oven. It is a professional piece of equipment and we are very happy with it. To save electric energy we have actually considered leaving the stove away and buy just an induction plate, fabricate a gimballed cabinet and mount the plate on it. Well, I can say we are glad we didn’t.
First I have been so busy it has been impossible to prepare this. Second, from practice we know now, the electric consumption of the stove is no argument to drop it.
And third, good food is a boost for the moral. We don’t want any mutiny aboard. A good meal needs good cooking equipment and a happy chef.
We have been looking on internet and several boat shows for gimballed induction plates, but these are strange enough still very rare. Our choice for GN Espace is made based on a good review in Yachting World.
I cook the potatoes and red beets to ‘medium’ and then I drop them in a Gastronorm dish and stow them in the oven. In professional kitchens they use nothing but these trays and now I understand the convenience. A vega burger is prepared and the meal tastes good. When I am finished and did the dishes I check on the Victron Cerbo and read the MG battery 29 KWh pack has only dropped 3 %, 870 Watt is consumed. Well, that’s OK. Let’s see how the off the grid battery test continues.
I have discussed electric cooking with fellow sailors and heard things like ‘it is a not a good idea’ or ‘they will draw your batteries’. On one single 12V 250 AH house battery perhaps yes, but not on this pack. Actually we do use a 12V 250Ah Lion battery for the ‘house’, but it is continuously charged from the big MG pack.
21th of July: Lazy Sunday
Working on the webpage and blog posts the day passes quickly. I check the through holes in the bulkhead of our aft deck locker and find out they are not fully sealed. A canary yellow JPK45FC docks aside us and I hear some JPK technicians will service this bird tomorrow.
22th of July”: Monday monday
Back at work, working for Halton Service. At the end of the day Jean-Pierre comes along to deliver some materials. Now I can seal the holes in the bulkheads 100% and I find another opening in our ‘dry-tub’. The dry tub is our plantroom floor space where the batteries and electronic engine are mounted. The Oceanvolt cooling water tube exits the tub on portside and is not sealed. So I fix this one too. A leak in the water cooling system inside this space is also a hazard. Stupid enough I didn’t consider this earlier. There is no separate bilge pump inside this compartment. I have to fix this.
23 & 24th of July: Just working
Today and tomorrow I am working at ‘the office’ and Aymrick from JPK comes to do some final electric jobs. I give him a hand when needed, drawing one additional cable and winch him up and down the mast. He shows me how to operate the Garmin radar, but honestly later on, I often don’t know how to get a clear picture on it. I am not experienced in radar. Shall I read the manual once’s again?
Thursday 25th of July: Results of my ‘Off the grid battery test’
In the early morning Anne Joike comes aboard. After her 24 hours travel on a Flix bus (the cheapest transport she could find) she still has energy. I have to pick up documents and materials from the shipyard and invite her to come along. On the community marina bikes we are quickly there. I give Joike a short factory tour, and Perrine from JPK-Finance hands me the boat owner documents. We now are officially the owner of our JPK.
Jean Pierre fetches me a green panel of boat core foam. I want to install a water maker coming winter, and for that I need to laminate an installation base aside the diesel tank. The electrical power junction box and water inlet are already available and the power supply is also integrated in the Empirbus switching system.
Back on the boat Joike goes to sleep and I open my laptop for work. In the afternoon I have North sails delivering and fitting the main sail lazy bag and the 85 m2 Helix G0 furler. At the same time another well known sailmaker from UK comes to do measurements on our boat for another new JPK39. Well no problem, these competitors get along quite good.
Friday last week, after coming back from the North Sails test day, I did not reconnect the shore power. So late in the afternoon I am six day’s of the grid (not connected). By now, according to the Victron Cerbo, our 28,8 kWh pack has reduced to 60% remaining capacity. Well, 40% consumption of 28,8 kWh is 11,5 kWh in six days, and an average of 1,9 kWh per day.
I have been cooking electric every day, used my laptop ~12 hours a day, used the cabin lights, charged my tooth brush and hungry iPhone, used hot tapwater for dishwashing and boiled water for tea.
Off the grid battery test: ‘I love it when a plan comes together’
Four years ago I made spreadsheet calculations for our electric household to determine the required battery capacity. And I did this for anchoring, harbour and sailing modes. When I select the appliances and the time I have used them these the past days, I come close to 1,9 kWh.
Note that I have two solar panels of 165 Wp (who don’t charge effectively jet) and a Toughbook laptop which uses little energy. And be aware I didn’t take warm showers on board, something we intend to avoid when possible.
So my evaluation of the off the grid battery test is, with the current battery capacity, and with our usual lifestyle, one person can live easily for one week off the grid. And if you don’t use multiple laptops this counts for more persons. This is good enough for us. More batteries are not required and weight saving is critical to maintain a fastcruising yacht. And actually there is no space for more batteries on our JPK39FC. I am happy with my electrical calculations and that the installed electrical capacity is appropriate for us.
And when we need to motor a lot and juice come close to 50% our genset kicks in. So no worries.
PLB puzzling
For safety reasons we have bought personal locator beacons (PLB) which we install inside our life vests. If one falls over board it gives a location signal to the International Cospas-Sarsat satellite network for external rescue and secondly an AIS signal to the surrounding vessels. I read the manuals and have to connect the PLB with our VHF/AIS, but what a drama, programming goes by optic flashing, and time after time I don’t succeed.
The manual refers to a wrong website programming page but after good email support from the supplier I manage using my cell phone screen with max light emission in a darkened space.
In the evening we welcome Hylke and Marley aboard. They have had a good journey by train. Due to the Olympics it was very busy but they had no delay.
Friday 26th July, tree climbing and more
The youngsters go by bike to Lorient to visit the city and La Base marina. And they have to do some shopping for me at the U-boat Chandlery. In the afternoon Hylke prepares the hoisting of our courtesy flag. A small pully needs to be installed at the starboard spreader and this is a good opportunity to test our Petzl tree climbing set. The tree climber makes it possible to ‘walk’ upwards along a static line, instead of being winched up into the mast. It takes some time but by reading the manuals, and with some help from You Tube, we succeed.
Late in the evening, at 01.00, Ester and Maaike arrive by train. They have had a lot of delay because there were some ‘angry people’ who sabotaged the TGV lines with fire.
I have prepared for tomorrow and do one more Sailgrib Weather Routing from Lorient to Concarneau.
Now it is time for a good night rest. We plan to leave tomorrow around 12 AM.
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