Hey I use one!
I bought one used from Popeye's Sailor's exchange in vancouver thinking it was a trolling motor. Turns out its a generator and I've been using it on my sailboat.
The downside: on a 27 ft sailboat you'll lose about .5knots to 1.5 knots speed in light winds. Its pretty big -- about a foot in diameter and heavy.
The goodside: its much much better than windpower if space is very limited and great for long distance cruises. I've actually sailed for 4 straight days running the autopilot on just the generator and the battery. The battery was still close to fully charged after 4 days. Usually I only get 12 hrs use from a battery if I use the autopilot, but with this generator in the water and moderate winds pushing the boat to 4 knots, the battery gets topped up constantly.
I just fabricated a stainless steel mount for it and just dip it in the water and hook it up to the battery charger connector and its out of the way. But like I said, its pretty big and will slow you down when you dip it. If I'm doing 3 knots in 5 knot wind and I dunk the thing in the water, I lose 1 knot in speed. However if the winds are 10 knots and up, I get full hull speed and the generator doesn't slow the boat down anymore.
You will need to put in a zinc somewhere on there cos the first two months I used it I had some corrosion on the exposed metal parts. Once zinc was put on, the corrosion problem went away.
Placement is key too. Make sure you have it just behind your rudder to protect from logs and other floating debris. One propeller fluke of mine has cracked from hitting a log.
08-08-2008, 01:10 PM
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