Boston Boat Owners!

[chrisjs]

We are a 50ft long range single engine trawler with gas cooking. We do not live on the generator. It is used primarily to charge batteries, and when needed to operate reverse AC, washer/drier and watermaker. I agree that the generator should not be run at 90% continuously. My guess is that GG will be spend a lot of time at the dock. She needs to make sure that there is adequate power (dual pedestals) available at her marina if her house loads are high. The other factor here is cost. Running the generator is not free, either in terms of fuel or maintenance!!!

[sailorchic34]

Agreed, a 20kW genset is going to produce some costly power for sure. Dual pedestals isn't going to be cheap either.

[jtsailjt]

I just figured out one big reason why my 5.5kW Northern Lights Lugger did so well for so many hours and so many years and that is because my previous boat had a 30amp breaker protecting it. So, the way it was wired the maximum load possible was only 30 amps or 3.6kW, meaning that I was effectively only using about 2/3 of its rated capacity when I had everything turned on. But that was still enough to run everything I needed, including a 130 amp battery charger, hot water heater, and 2 air conditioners (with one downloaded while charging a depleted battery bank). I can't imagine why anyone on a 60' boat would want to incur the extra costs and weight of buying and providing fuel to and maintaining a 20kW genset, or would need to have more than 5 times the wattage available to them over what was enough to power everything I needed powered aboard my 44' sailboat. I can understand wanting twice as much or even three times as much to comfortably run all the additional toys on a 60' trawler, but 20kW is a LOT of electricity and a 20kW genset is a pricey little item to both buy and operate. Bigger is not always better, at least when choosing the "best" genset size for a boat. I guess it's a question only the OP can answer and I hope that our discussion gives her a good starting point to enter into discussions with a genset dealer so she ends up with the most appropriate genset for how and where she plans to use the boat.

[chrisjs]

Not to drag this out much further, power situations are very different depending on whether you are a "dock queen" or full time cruiser, then again whether you anchor out most of the time or only occasionally. As with previous poster, we usually run our genset to charge batteries that accommodate our needs for a couple of days at anchor, unless we need to run the reverse AC or watermaker. Then we try to coordinate those heavy loads with recharging batteries. A cruising 60ft boat is not a megayacht that runs 4 generators non-stop. Needs like cooking are best served with propane. Domestic refrigerators running off 110V should be a no-no - they are power hogs that demand to be fed. As I started off, if the boat stays at the dock mostly, then depending on power pedestals available, it can use as much power as available.
Lastly, regarding where to get work done on a 60ft (plus) boat, one overriding consideration in the Northeast is finding a yard with a big enough lift to get it out of the water. Once you get up to that size your options become more limited and prices go up!!

[sailorchic34]

Originally Posted by chrisjs

Not to drag this out much further, power situations are very different depending on whether you are a "dock queen" or full time cruiser, then again whether you anchor out most of the time or only occasionally. As with previous poster, we usually run our genset to charge batteries that accommodate our needs for a couple of days at anchor, unless we need to run the reverse AC or watermaker. Then we try to coordinate those heavy loads with recharging batteries. A cruising 60ft boat is not a megayacht that runs 4 generators non-stop. Needs like cooking are best served with propane. Domestic refrigerators running off 110V should be a no-no - they are power hogs that demand to be fed.

Well agree that a propane range oven is better. That does not discourage manufacturers from installing all electric ranges on about half the motor boats I've seen.

I dare say that with five children on GG future home, coordinating electrical demand will be somewhat harder to do then for a retired couple.


From personal experience, a 110v fridge does not use any more amps per 24 hours then the average 12V system. Yes the run amps are higher, but it runs much less too. I use about 2.5 amps per hour on average. I have a 3.5 foot fridge with a small freezer that runs on a $40 inverter and uses about 50 amps a day or roughly what a 12V fridge uses. Since motor and compressor efficiency is roughly the same between 12v and 110V the overall energy used for a given size box is going to be about the same. I'm at anchor at the moment and have been too. Plus its gobs less expensive then a marine fridge.