Nigel Calder

[Labatt]

Does anyone know if Nigel Calder frequents any message boards, or does anyone have any contact information for him? We're considering buying some of the (fairly) new Odyssey Thin Plate Pure Lead batteries, and I'm curious how his experience has been thus far. I'm also interested in finding out if our generator driven Xantrex charger will be OK to dump power into them since their acceptance rate is so high.

Chris
s/v/ Pelican
s/v Pelican - Following A Dream

[cal40john]

Originally Posted by Labatt

Does anyone know if Nigel Calder frequents any message boards, or does anyone have any contact information for him? We're considering buying some of the (fairly) new Odyssey Thin Plate Pure Lead batteries, and I'm curious how his experience has been thus far. I'm also interested in finding out if our generator driven Xantrex charger will be OK to dump power into them since their acceptance rate is so high.

Chris
s/v/ Pelican
s/v Pelican - Following A Dream

He's a contributing editor for Ocean Navigator Magazine. I tried asking him a question about his book by emailing him at Ocean Navigator's address, but I did not get a response. I did verify that the email was forwarded to him by Ocean Navigator. I have no idea if responds to anyone by that path or whether my question was not worthy.

John

[speedoo]

I once contacted him through SSCA, but I don't have his email address any more, nor am I any longer an SSCA member.

[GordMay]

Nigel Calder does nothing for nothing.

However:
In this blog, I (Calder) will provide regular updates on how we are doing, and how the new technologies are working out. I also will be writing articles for Professional Boatbuilder magazine (Professional BoatBuilder Magazine), Yachting Monthly (Yachting Monthly online | sailing news, blogs, gear reviews and weather), Sail magazine (Sail Magazine home page), Ocean Navigator (Ocean Navigator: The magazine for long-distance offshore sailing and power voyaging), and others. The finished boat will be on display at Malo’s ‘Open House’ in August 2008.

Blog

[Labatt]

Thanks Gord and everyone else! I'll check out the site. I find it surprising that he's so hard to get a hold of.

[wallandj]

There is no doubt in my mind that Nigel Calder is an expert in many fields but I do not think he reviews and compares products. As Gord points out, Nigel does nothing for nothing and I suspect that he is compensated by the manufacturers of the products he works with and writes about. Consequently, if there are shortcomings in a product he's been given, I doubt very much he's going to say anything negative publicly. He's not going to bite the hand that's been feeding him so I doubt Nigel will give much of a critical review of the Odyssey batteries.

That said, Nigel is primarily using the batteries in a propulsion system. I suspect that charge acceptance rate is much more critical than robustness to deep discharges - so they may work grand in that application. The only deep discharge "data" I have seen is the statement that they will withstand up to 400 cycles to 80% depth of discharge. That might be excellent but I would like to see their performance at 50% DOD or, even better, a plot of cycles vs %DOD. But I must admit, their charge acceptance rate is awesome and opens up some possibilities if they can withstand the discharge rigors of cruisers.

---Dave

[mwk4619]

Dave,

This is Matt Koenig, VP Americas For Corvus Energy. Our LIPO modules produce 200-300,000 cycles in a 30-70 % depth of discharge band. I was at Nigel's seminar at IBEX.

Please email me if you or any of the other registrants have questions or want more details

Matt Koenig

[James S]

Hey Matt, welcome to the forum, and thanks for the informative response to the thread.
Hope we'll be seeing more of you.
Nothing like getting tech info from the "horses mouth".
Cheers