Is a wind generator a worthwhile purchase?

[boatbod]

Having lived aboard up and down the US east coast & Carib for 3 years with a wind generator, I would invest in more solar before spending money on another device that beats the air to death. Ymmv.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

See comment re price.

$890 for the Aerogen 4/12V and the Aerogen 6/12V is $1409 in Budget Marine SXM.. if in link with a solar set up the 4 is more than sufficient.
I agree with you Mark.. just trying to educate folks there's other brands that meet cruisers needs and are actually quiet.

[Ardbeg]

I have 500W of solar and run all electronics (incl TV & Freezer) with that and am self sufficient. Have not paid for electricity in 6 years now. I wish I had a shotgun on board so I could take out every wind generator that makes noise all night when I am sleeping.

[inchcailloch]

No! Bought a Rutland 914i 5 years ago. Total waste of money! Was good once on Christmas day in Grenada where there was a good blow one day. 4 years ago bought 4 solar panels intalled by Dominic on Carriacou and rarely have to put the engine on since for electricity ...........amazing. Considering a trailing aqua generator but like to hear practical reports first.

[SVTwilight]

Definitely worth it, 24/7 power

Just dont get one of the noisy unreliable, low output AirX units...

[Cheechako]

I had one wind gen. I would probably opt for a couple solar panels instead.
-It seems when you need the wind the most it doesn't blow.
-If you leave the boat for a few days to travel, the refrig will continue to drain but the wind may not blow.
-At least the solar will work some on it's own.
- If the wind really pipes up you should be there to keep the wind gen from disintegrating.

[capt-couillon]

25 years ago, wind was it due to solar being in the giga-dollars per watt range. Now, not so much (as long as you have the real estate). Myself, I run both on my small vessel.

Limited real estate reduces available space for solar while underway. At an anchorage I plan to stay in for a while, additional panels may be deployed in addition to the single 100W hard mount which is in a location suitable for heavy weather and offshore work.

However, demands offshore (plotter screen, auto-pilot, etc) sometimes exceed 24 hour output of solar alone due to limited size, and location relative to the sun on a given tack. Cheap wind machine will put out 24-7 as long as there is enough wind to sail by (in general) In addition, during that week of solid clouds in the anchorage, even a few amps over 24 hours helps back up the solar without having to fire up the Honda.

Noisy? Yes. Scary? Yes (That blade will cut ya). Expensive? Depends. Worth it? For me, yes.

Your mileage may vary, and this advice is worth just what you paid for it. :-)

[zeehag]

seadreaming--you will find that in mexico and tropical zones you donot get the direct sun daily for more than a few hours. i found when i added wind generators to my solar charging system that my batteries actually charged.
benefit of wind genertors is that you can charge batteries daily using the evening winds , and during times that solar just doesnt cut it.
when i am finished with my refit i will again have wind generators in addition to my solar array. you may NEED the wind generator and wish you had one, especially if you are going to cruise mexico's coast for any time. summer, aka rainy season, can be a challenge to the solar only charging systems. rainy season begins with the cane season, may 15, and ends nov 30.
ps--wind pretty much always blows atnight in your chosen cruising grounds
i was very pleased with my combo of air x and chinese knock off. the chinese one was murdered by cane patricia. oops

[senormechanico]

We have had both.
I'll never go back to a wind generator.

I've seen solar panels as cheap as $0.39 / watt from solarblvd.com
It was a 320 watt panel, so probably too big for the average mono.

[TheFrisco]

Cruised the South Pacific with one and didn't find it useful. Noisy when running, not strong enough when sailing downwind to feed my autopilot and really useless at anchorage because we always looked for a wind shadow with as little wind as possible.

A Honda 2000 is cheaper, easy to connect and reliable in any situation and yes you'll need to carry gasoline but had to have that anyhow for dingy engine ;-)

My 2 cents ... Good luck!

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

I agree with Snowy in general that solar is better, but we added a wind gen anyhow! Our thinking was that our voracious auto pilot needs feeding, even at night, and that sometimes on gloomy days there is wind galore. Our aging Air-X still cranks out some power when there is >10-12 knots apparent, and quite a bit of power at 20. We managed a mount that does not shade the panels except at fairly low sun angles, and then you don't loose so much from the shadow 'cause there wasn't much there to start with!

But I do love the solar: quiet, maintenance free, longlived and getting cheaper by the day. Can't say that about many things these days!

+1 on Jim’s message. I’d maximize solar as a first priority, but having both is the best if you can find a good mounting location, and get the right wind gen.

The challenge with boats like ours is that it can be difficult to find enough space for solar panels. And not just mounting space, but shading is a constant challenge. I have 400 watts mounted now, but realistically can only count on having 1/2 of that unshaded much of the time. Having the windmill whirring away certainly helps.

Our mill doesn’t produce much power till hitting 15+ knots. After that the power curve goes up exponentially. But the nice this is, it can produce 24/7. Those few amps can add up over 24 hrs. Solar is awsome in full sun, but depending on latitude this optimum period might be only a few hours each day.

One thing I would strongly recommend is getting yourself a quiet wind generator. These days there’s no reason to settle for a noisy version. There are plenty of fairly quiet options now. Do yourself, and your neighbours a favour (unless this is your strategy for keeping others from anchoring too close ).

[travellerw]

Like Mark we started without wind generation. At just over a year in, we decided to put up a wind generator to help carry us through the night or cloudy days. Our 900W of solar are great during sunny days. Hell we really do throw power away. However when its cloudy (like overcast and raining) we make almost zero power on the solar (seriously, like 4A maybe). The added wind generator has made a BIG difference in overnight and cloudy days.

[OldBawley]

We started our sailing trip in 2000 with just two ( very expensive ) solar panels.

We wintered on board, most of the time living all of winter with heavily discharged battery's.

I my pre sailing life I was interested in wind power. Build a big 7 feet wind pump to provide our biological garden of water,was a good windsurfer, did delta gliding.

In 2006 I “ Bought “ a Aerogen 3 from a sailor who had wreckt his boat on a beach in Rhodes. His catamaran was sitting on the beach with two holed hulls, the man wanted to stop sailing, had enough.

I gave him a very large sum of money for the windgen who had a broken propeller shaft, only so my friend could pay for a ticket home. The only way he would accept some money.

The propshaft had been broken and welded, totally useless. Made a new drive shaft out of bronze ( SS steel is a #### in the ### to machine ) Mounted the gen on top of the yawl mast, it works fine since 2006. Later made some improvements to the gen, to me it was a toy.

Much later, we now had new cheap big solar panels I build a DIY windgen for low wind speeds.

Big ( 5,7 feet ) two bladed prop for ease of stowing, simple Ametek AC motor / generator, geared by roller chain to twice the prop speed.

My big whopper is only used in winter and when anchored. Build up in 5 minutes onto the starboard side footrail 3 yards behind the bow. The prop is big but the gen itself and the gearing is the size of a can of beans.

A big mean beast, a killer. No regulation, no yawing into the wind ( I let the boat do that )

The beast needs an operator to stop it when the bat tension reaches 14,5 volt. It needs to be stopped when leaving the boat or when a thunderstorm approaches.

The whopper delivers about 4 times more than the Aerogen 3,( Same output as the Aerogen 4 ) delivers less than those modern three bladed small tailed gens but charges at low wind speeds. When production gens just idle, turn without charging, the big beast delivers. Not much, between 2 and 4 Amps but more than we use.

We sail a low tech boat, the fridge is small but very well isolated, our laptop has a SS hard disc so uses only one Amp/H.

Not for everybody, the machine is not foolproof and does not fit on a modern yacht. I like my toy. Since we use the whopper in winter our battery´s have doubled their life. Even in winter they are charged up to 100% each day.

Sorry, almost each day.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by boatman61

I'm an Aerogen fan..

Join the club. We have T shirts with a special pocket for the spare bearings.

[sparrowhawk1]

[quote name="boatman61" post=2356461]

I'm an Aerogen fan.. [/QUOTE]


Join the club. We have T shirts with a special pocket for the spare bearings.

So aerogens are known for burning out their bearings?

To original poster. As someone who's lived with both for many years I can tell you that solar and wind are very complimentary. I live in Florida. People know that as the Sunshine State but I can tell you many days are cloudy and windy . But I would never own one that's noisy or you couldn't leave running full time. Because the newer generation wind generators put out so much more amperage than the old school ones you can often find great buys (used) on both the Ampair and the Rutland. They both have relatively small 3-foot diameter 6 bladed props which means they're extremely quiet and tend to put up with high winds extremely well. They only put out 2amps in 12 knots wind. Because of this a regulator is not necessary if you have a refrigerator or are constantly using electricity. The only thing you should ever have to replace is the bearings, Maybe every 10 - 20 years. You can still get replacement blades if they're damaged. If I had a boat with a wind generator pole mounted I would not consider not getting a wind generator. It would just be a question of how much I wanted(had) to spend.