Thank you all very much for the continued comments and questions and links.
A little more context:
We bought the boat new 4 years ago in
France, cruised for 3 months, then placed her in
charter in the BVIs. We did sail one month a year over the last four years, but starting 2 months ago, we are now full-time cruisers. So, I am behind on knowing my boat and now coming up to speed. I apologize for my poor understanding making the thread more difficult than it should.
We have a FlexMax 60
MPPT configured for 24vdc input.
The real stinker is the battery charger is not the 40A I thought, but a CRISTEC CPS3 12V-25 Amp charger. <<< This is the weakest link in the system for sure?
We only run the icemaker, water maker and
washing machine off of AC when the genset is running with virtually zero use of inverters. Although I would like to use inverters for laptops at will.
The fridges are the factory fridges that come from
Lagoon that side open and lose all of their cool air whenever someone opens the fridge (too often) and of course build a ridiculous amount of frost from the humid tropical air. I would love to add insulation around them, but as they are factory fit to the cabinetry this would be so much work, I think I would rather rip them and the cabinetry out and replace them with a top loading fridge, and a separate top loading freezer.
Yesterday at peak sun, the mains reached 13.1, and this morning to my happy surprise we made it to the morning with still 12.4 and now climbing again with solar. (Last afternoon/evening we were all off the boat on a beach BBQ, so I am thinking w/o people opening the fridges we saved some power?)
1) The first order of business should to to replace the 25A battery charger with a 200A charger? (Looking at Mastervolt and Xantrex and Cristec online all I see are chargers <= 100Ah, anyone have a suggestion?
2) Next an arch to extend the rear of the boat above the
davits to hold 6 more 250W panels?
3) Finally install the Lithium? 600-900 Ah?
Cheers,
-Erik