GREYHAWK's Sailing Adventures

October 2010

GREYHAWK’s 2010 Season Summary

1st place in the Centerboard Yacht Club Regatta, Racing B class (June)
2nd place in the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club Regatta, Cruising class (July)
2nd place in The Corninthians Stonington to Boothbay Harbor "Lobster Run" Race (335 nm), PHRF Racing class (July)
3rd place in the Camden Yacht Club Regatta, Doublehanded Racing class (July)
1st place in the Porland Yacht Club's Monhegan Race (70 nm), Cruising class (Seguin Island Trophy) (August)
2nd place in the MS Harborfest Regatta, Cruising 2 class (August)
1st place in the Centerboard Yacht Club's Northeast Harbor Race (100 nm), Doublehanded Racing class (August)
1st place in the Rockland Yacht Club's Maine Rocks Race (113 nm), Singlehanded Racing class (Francis Stokes Trophy) (September)

Plus a cruise to Mount Desert Island and back, deliveries up and down the coast, and several days of daysailing with family and friends in the Boothbay region, for a total of about 1800 miles of sailing (not counting the miles sailing to Bermuda aboard Beausoleil!)

And the cover of the September 2010 issue of Points East Magazine! (see it here)

Thank You all for sailing with us on GREYHAWK this year!

Wendy Thorpe Allen
Bennett Allen
Steve Ribble
Bob Girsch
Matt Paige
Eric White
Alec McCandless
Dan Allen
Tim Crouch
Rick Thorpe
Matthew Coffin
Julie Barnes
Fred Hillmann
Rich Mechaber
Shelley Frost
Wally Wallace
Bruce Schwab

and Thanks to Richard Parent, Ted Scharf, and crew for inviting me to sail in the 2010 Newport to Bermuda Race aboard BEAUSOLEIL

Electrical Usage Notes

October 9, 2010

For what it's worth, here are some "real-life" ancedotes on electrical energy consumption aboard GREYHAWK:

7-hour night-time delivery sail: Autopilot, power-hungry Computer fed by a small inverter, VHF radio with cockpit mic, AIS transponder and Watchmate display, GPS, sailing instruments, compass lights, and LED Tricolor all on, generally burning 5 to 7 amps, for a total of about 45 amp-hours (so I guess that's closer to a 7 amp draw than 5).

27.5 hour overnight singlehanded race: Sailing instruments, AIS transponder and Watchmate display, VHF radio with cockpit mic, LED tricolor and compass lights, and the autopilot, and occasional short use of a cabin light, and was only burning between 2.5 and 3 amps. Of course the solar panels (2 x 10 watts each) helped offset some of the use during daylight hours (maybe 0.5 amp at best), so the total draw down on the batteries was only about 60 amp-hours (300 amp-hour battery bank, so no need to do any charging during the race).

I was really surprised that the autopilot didn't draw more, but the boat balances well I guess. It's the computer (and its inverter) that really sucks down the amps (and this was with the screen brightness turned way down, and the screen being put to sleep on a short interval; also WiFi turned off, disk spun down whenever possible, etc...)

These consumption figures were measured with a Xantrex XBM Battery Monitor -- a proper battery monitor makes a huge difference is your ability to understand what's going on with your battery system!