Aside from various repairs and maintenance we have made a few major upgrades and improvements. Miscellaneous projects such as rebuilding the windlass motor, repairing moisture saturation, adding improved video sound and a new $14 toaster definitely improve our living quality, but aren’t groundbreaking, so I’ll omit. For new additions and modifications, only time will tell how they fare. Here’s what’s been done:

1. Batteries. The real news here is that we’ve added more capacity. 400Ah of our original lithium capacity is now 600Ah. Folks still in the dark ages of lead acid batteries can interpret this as the equivalent of 1200 Ah, which seems like a lot. But when sailing or anchoring out for days in the rain, it makes a big improvement in comfort and safety.

2. Solar Panels. While we have also temporarily resolved an alternator charging issue – albeit with lowered charging performance (more gripes on another post), the real news here is increased solar charging performance.

You might recall my rant about the Hydrovane self-steering performance (company and product). During that struggle to improve the Hydrovane performance, we downgraded one of our 325 watt panels down to 210 watts while on the hook in Antigua. Well, we have since given up on Hydrovane, partially dismantled that infernal contraption, and rejuvenated the solar array instead.

We have significantly increased the rated capacity from 535 to 820 watts. Yup, that’s about 35% in added power generation, and also with a bit more efficiency too. (Added efficiency means that less than 35% increase in surface area). Icing on the cake is that these high-quality solid panels only cost $125 each!

Contact me if you’re interested in the supplier name, which is located in Massachusetts, but will ship at added expense.

Massive, bigger panels overhang a bit more so we needed to relocate the Starlink and two GPS antennas. By chance we recently met up with John at Gemini Canvas, who originally built our solar panel mounting frame. “Bigger than what you had?! Really?!” was his initial reaction of disbelief upon telling him of our upgrade. He thought the original panels were excessive. Sorry, John, sometimes we can be excessive!

3. Central heating. While not quite finished installing, we’re at about 75%. A new diesel heater will give us more comfort on those chilly and or damp mornings. See more on an upcoming post.

4. Main-sheeting system. Finally, something more oriented toward actual sailing performance! Yup, I bit the bullet and ripped out the original Harken traveler and went to a dual main sheet setup. No pain no gain. Seriously, I don’t know why more cruising boats don’t do this.

Before we had four lines: two traveler lines, one main sheet, and one preventer for securing the boom while not sailing. Now: only two lines, and redundancy. No loss of sail trim. Just mainsail bliss! More comments to come as we continue to make adjustments.

5. New headsail furler. I suppose this is more of an update to an aging system, but I consider it critical to safety and performance, especially when far offshore in a raging sea. We went with a Harken Ocean series model, with a heavier extrusion and single bolt rope slot. More durable, less furler line power required, and better shape when reefed.

6. New propeller. Another first for our Pacific Seacraft – at least according to the company’s owner, Steve. Our original equipment feathering Maxprop was in need of rebuild, and I had heard of the Aeroprop‘s differences on one of those sailing podcasts. So I delved into extensive research. I pondered this one for the longest time!

Aeroprop is not only feathering, but self-pitching. It’s able to optimize motoring efficiency at any RPM. All the company literature, magazine reviews and online comments support the claims, as well as my own engineering assessment. So far it seems to be working on Fayaway. More about that in another post!

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Yes, we’ve launched and after a bit of shakedown we’re setting off. Enjoy your summer!