At the beginning of the season we had a 80W solar panel, controller and meter fitted by a pro, this has worked much better than we expected, never once being short of power. We kept the old batteries making one bank of 210ah and added another bank of 220ah, these two banks were then used alternative days with the solar changing both banks as needed. I knew the old bank was in a poor state and would need to be replaced during the season sometime but with the solar charger they lasted out the whole season but will need replacing before next season.
We sailed to Fowey in May we had an excellent 10.5hr sail from The Helford River to The Isles of Scilly (60nm) in June but had to motor back to the mainland at the end of the week. Sailed to the Yealm River and Plymouth area in August for the southwest SSOA 40th, apart from those passages we stayed local due to there not being much wind.
We only used our cruising chute twice during the season, even with the wind being light, I expect its because we are normally sailing somewhere else and not just going out sailing for the day, the wind never seemed to be blowing in the right direction to use the sail! I am thinking of leaving it at home next season because of lack of use and uses to much stowage space.
We have ordered a new spray hood and cockpit enclose to be made the start of 2019 season. I have a few external stainless steel jobs to arrange allowing for time and money but on my to do list. The southerly storm “Callum” in October, took Elektra’s VHF antenna and the wind index with it, I never found out until last weekend, so there is another job!
2018 has been the best summer since I returned to sailing in 2004 for getting out on our yacht, it was a summer to remember. The numbers are, we spent 80 days aboard and we sailed for 59 of them. We had 58 nights aboard and 45 of them were at anchor, the weather was great but the winds were light, sometimes taking 4hrs to log 9nm so not the fastest sailing, for all the time we were aboard we still only logged 666nm
Love Sailing 