What is your Real Amp Hour per Day Usage

[SV THIRD DAY]

There was a little shock in another thread about the amount of power used on a daily basis by a Cruising Boat. Of course it will vary depending on if you are at anchor for the Day or Underway with all the electronic nav equipment and autopilot running. Number of crew also matters. So does having a wind vane vs electric autopilot. Refrigeration or no refrigeration. So to help those in the planning stages what do those out cruising or living aboard full time find to be their average power usage for Living at Anchor and While Underway?

Our data:
Crew of 4
Refrigerator and Freezer, electric Autopilot.
Living at anchor: 200-250AH/day
While Underway 300-400AH/day

[Stevens 47]

6 cft fridge 5 cft freezer, all led lights, autopilot and nav system. Plus other various house loads. Larger DC watermaker up to 120 amp draw at 50 gph

On the hook not counting the watermaker.
Winter in Mexico last used about 95 amps per 24 hour period.
Summer in the SOC used up 120 amps during the hottest period.

While underway the autopilot and nav system uses about between 9-12 amps per hour additional.

Did not have a chance to measure continuous usage as most trips where fairly short, lots of 3 to 7 hrs trips. Except crossing from Mazitlan to Los Frailes. Cabo to PV. The bash was all engine did not count.

[MarkJ]

I don't measure it that way.

In the morning at dawn if i havent had the wind generator on at night i am -55 to -70Ah down.
That will be full by solar panels alone by mid-afternoon.

At sea the auto pilot uses about 2.5 amps

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Stevens 47

6 cft fridge 5 cft freezer, all led lights, autopilot and nav system. Plus other various house loads. Larger DC watermaker up to 120 amp draw at 50 gph

On the hook not counting the watermaker.
Winter in Mexico last used about 95 amps Amp hrs per 24 hour period.
Summer in the SOC used up 120 amps Amp hrs during the hottest period.

While underway the autopilot and nav system uses about between 9-12 amps per hour additional.

Did not have a chance to measure continuous usage as most trips where fairly short, lots of 3 to 7 hrs trips. Except crossing from Mazitlan to Los Frailes. Cabo to PV. The bash was all engine did not count.

Please use the correct units!

[alctel]

At anchor my draw is on average 4 AH, so 96AH ish

Underway if I have everything on (radar, autopilot, chartplotter foghorn etc) it's probably around 8-10ish? so say 200-250AH

Most of my setup is designed towards low draw stuff as I don't have a genny on board (and no room for one) so I don't have a watermaker, TV etc. I do have a fridge/freezer though which is ~3.0 of the 4 resting AH usage

[barnakiel]

Our actual A / day are within 10% of our measured values, I think.

About 20 A / day anchored.
About 15 A / day sailing.

House bat 100 Ah. Solar 150W. Alt 60A (not required but present).

LEDs, windvane, vegetarians, etc.

Boat 26'. Two onboard.

b.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by StuM

Please use the correct units!

I feel your pain. :^)


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[Tayana42]

At anchor 75-90 AH per 24 hours with two people on board. Underway I rarely sail for 24 hours without starting the motor so not sure but based on autopilot draw I'd guess 90-115 AH per day.


S/V B'Shert

[GILow]

Actually, what would be really interesting would be to map AH/day against boat length. I would not be surprised if is a cubic relationship, at least from the 20 to 50 foot range.


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[sailorchic34]

About 80 ah a day for me at anchor. 20ah ish for laptop, 55ah for fridge and the rest lights, a bit of cooking and a small fan.

A tad less moving as collosses, my cad laptop is off. Only have depth, a small chartplotter and an old autohelm 3000 on when moving.

[Stevens 47]

Originally Posted by StuM

Please use the correct units!

Get a Life is the correct units!

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Stevens 47

Get a Life is the correct units!

Can't speak for others, but when I read a post by someone who can't be bothered to learn and use correct units I tend to not take it very seriously. This disregard for such simple things suggest to me that a similar disregard for accuracy of observation and reporting may lurk in the info presented.

I applaud Stu's long term efforts to get this point across.

I already have a life, so will disregard your advice.

Jim

[daletournier]

Dont we get caught up on the little things!.....I knew exactly what you meant Stevens 47.
Me, I pretty well do what Mark does with similar figures, batteries down approx 50-70amps in the morning according to amp counter, and yes I know they are not overly accurate.

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[travellerw]

Family of Five with 3 tablets and 2 laptops. Standard (POS) Isotherm fridge and built in HUGE freezer. All lights are LED. At anchor we use about 240AH. Fridge and freezer on all the time at very cold settings. (No this doesn't include the watermaker which is 120V).

However, we only use about 75AH through the night so we are usually charged back up by 11:30AM. After the batteries hit 14.6V we plug in all our crap. We charge the tablets, latptops, spare USB power banks, and usually have a laptop running Youtube while that is going on. Since we have excess power, why not. If we have a cloudy day and need to conserve, we can get the power draw down to about 120AH quite easily.

In 8 months of cruising we have run our generator only 8 times to charge our batteries (we don't even use the excess power when we make water). Our 900W solar array provides enough power for all that.

[NorthernIsland]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Can't speak for others, but when I read a post by someone who can't be bothered to learn and use correct units I tend to not take it very seriously. This disregard for such simple things suggest to me that a similar disregard for accuracy of observation and reporting may lurk in the info presented.

I applaud Stu's long term efforts to get this point across.

I already have a life, so will disregard your advice.

Jim

Indeed. Keep going Stu.

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