St. Francis 50: "Wayfinder"

[CliffL]

Hugh,

Really looking forward hearing to how your electric system works...very cutting edge and many may follow. Thanks for the info.
Cliff


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[Sea Frog]

Thanks for an idea on vinyl flooring!!!

[Bulawayo]

Originally Posted by Rugger

With the exception of an office aft in the Master suite, I plan to order a near copy of Wayfinder.

I'm wondering how a battery bank will handle a small dive compressor. Thoughts?

I also plan on an aluminum 13 ft dinghy. I dove out of one in Australia years ago. Definitely the way to go. Which one did you go with?

Duncan mentioned to me to keep that weight to 600lbs a couple weeks ago. Your 800lbs seems more like what i'd need capacity for. Cant wait to see pics of your davit system.

We have an all aluminium dinghies which are Aussie made and are a great addition. They handle fantastically and are very stable. Check out Ocean Craft Au. We have two of these dinghies on board so the kids have some independence without leaving us stranded. We use only 2 stroke Yamahas and have a 25hp & 15hp Enduro's plus a 5hp plus a 3.5hp Malta.
The two small engines are for puttering each of the dinghies whilst the two bigger engines are used for distance.

[gjorgensen]

Originally Posted by Hugh Howey

I may have mispoken. These might be LiPO batteries. Because the 80% looks familiar.

Yeah, Hugh those are LiFePo4 batteries. No one is really doing regular Li-ion batteries in these sorts of applications (that I've seen) primarily due to safety and cost.

FYI for the poster who compared capacities, when you say "30%" usable capacity you're talking about lead acid batteries. The reason for the 30% is that you don't want to discharge lead acids below 50% state of charge, and due to Peukert's Law it's very inefficient to charge them much over 80% other than by shore power or solar if you get through bulk charging. All of the normal rechargeable lithium chemistry batteries (including Li-ion) can be safely and repeatedly discharged to 30% SOC (or lower), and the batteries will accept very high charging current until more or less full.

[canadian cat]

Hugh,

The walk through of the boat (Vid #4) was great. One question I have is about the deep freezer. Is that a marine unit and is it built into the cabinet?

[Rugger]

Originally Posted by gjorgensen

Yeah, Hugh those are LiFePo4 batteries. No one is really doing regular Li-ion batteries in these sorts of applications (that I've seen) primarily due to safety and cost.

FYI for the poster who compared capacities, when you say "30%" usable capacity you're talking about lead acid batteries. The reason for the 30% is that you don't want to discharge lead acids below 50% state of charge, and due to Peukert's Law it's very inefficient to charge them much over 80% other than by shore power or solar if you get through bulk charging. All of the normal rechargeable lithium chemistry batteries (including Li-ion) can be safely and repeatedly discharged to 30% SOC (or lower), and the batteries will accept very high charging current until more or less full.

This is the first time that I've read LiOn can go down to 30% or lower. I guess you can, but you'll significantly reduce the life of them. Many articles I've seen say its not really a good idea to go below 70%.

How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

LiPO on the other hand can easily go down to 20% and from what i hear charge up in 1/4th the time.

Lithium and carbon foam AGM marine battery systems

Very expensive up front, cheaper per Ah in the long run. One third the weight of LiONs as well.

You can't just swap them out either if you make the change. Voltage regulators need to be installed all over the place (alternators, inverters, genset etc.)

Hugh, one of the pictures of your bank shows them as Mastervolt LiON.

[Hugh Howey]

Originally Posted by canadian cat

Hugh,

The walk through of the boat (Vid #4) was great. One question I have is about the deep freezer. Is that a marine unit and is it built into the cabinet?

I'll ask. Stay tuned.

[Hugh Howey]

Originally Posted by Sea Frog

Thanks for an idea on vinyl flooring!!!

If I could walk every boater in the world through this boat, vinyl flooring would become the #1 choice in every anchorage and marina. It's the best stuff I've ever seen or walked on.

[Sea Frog]

Originally Posted by Hugh Howey

If I could walk every boater in the world through this boat, vinyl flooring would become the #1 choice in every anchorage and marina. It's the best stuff I've ever seen or walked on.

I was sort of stuck here, as I would like to have a "look and feel" of good hardwood floor, yet without worries about water damage etc. I completely overlooked vinyl, I used to think of it as a low quality "kitchen floor" stuff. After seeing your video, I looked at some of the new genereation luxury vinyl floors and was amazed with the quality. For me, the choice for floor is now obvious!

[gjorgensen]

Originally Posted by Rugger

This is the first time that I've read LiOn can go down to 30% or lower. I guess you can, but you'll significantly reduce the life of them. Many articles I've seen say its not really a good idea to go below 70%.

It depends on the battery and chemistry. I'll read the article - I haven't read that before. However I run a group making long life ultra-low voltage electronics for tracking systems (think 3-4 battery life from a 1000 mAh 4.8 volt Li-ion polymer cell), so I'm somewhat versed in low voltage Li-ion cells. We regularly use 25% SOC as our cutoff limit. It reduces life slightly versus, say 50% SOC, but not enough to matter. LiFePo4 is much better in this regard than regular Li-ion. Ultimately this has much to do with construction of the battery and the mixture of materials.

As an aside, with most lithium rechargeable batteries the worst thing you can do to them is charge them to 100% and let them sit. They hate that. 50% SOC is usually the preferred long term storage state.

Hugh, one of the pictures of your bank shows them as Mastervolt LiON.

The Mastervolt "lithium ion" batteries are actually LiFePo4. See the specs on the Mastervolt site. In all fairness LiFePo4 is a lithium ion technology, just not the type normally used in smaller cells (and Tesla cars). In conventional use, when most people refer to Li-ion they're referring to lithium nickle cobalt and lithium manganese cobalt batteries.

[Hugh Howey]

Another of my little experiments was tested today, and the results were even better than I hoped. We fired up the Fusion entertainment system and played with the different zones. In previous boats (and most boats that I looked at), the zones were all in the saloon and cockpit. Not much music forward on the boat, and not a lot of sound through the hulls. To fix this with Wayfinder, I moved a zone into each of the forward staterooms, and we positioned the speakers so they aimed at the overhead hatches. There are volume controls in each stateroom, so the owner and guests can play music from their own source, or tune into the master source. They can also power their speakers on and off and control the volume.

But what's really cool is when the entire boat is playing the same music. You move down into one of the hulls, and the music is still crystal clear. You go sit on the bow seat, and the music is funneled toward you through the hatches. Before, you had to blast the music to even hear it if you were up on the trampolines at anchor. And you would never hear a peep forward of the saloon if you were under sail. Now, the entire boat is bathed in sound, and it should be underway as well as sitting still.

It seems like a small change, but functionally it's going to be huge.

[flyingboat]

Originally Posted by canadian cat

Hugh,

The walk through of the boat (Vid #4) was great. One question I have is about the deep freezer. Is that a marine unit and is it built into the cabinet?

The freezer normally used is "Minus 40" which is normally used in off grid and 4X4 applications. These are normally very reliable and reasonably efficient too.

"Marine" spec is normally overrated and overpriced in my experience.

Graham

[Heath68]

Originally Posted by flyingboat

Hi Hugh

So many things to comment on – Wayfinder is looking awesome.

I picked up on the dingy weight disscussion. I really don’t think you need to worry. On one delivery we had a 900kg (+- 1800lb) “Fun Boat” on the back. It did slow us down, but otherwise no issues.

The floor looks great. By coincidence we’ve been looking at something almost identical for our build. The traditionalists probably won’t agree, but there are so many more options than teak and holly.

Do you have a provisional launch date yet?

Best

Graham

Hi Graham,

I'm just checking as it didn't look like a typo.. did you have an 800KG boat on the back of your cat? That seems like a heck of a lot, what type and size cat was it?

Heath

[44'cruisingcat]

Check out the photo's in post #336!

[Dave852]

Originally Posted by Heath68

Hi Graham,

I'm just checking as it didn't look like a typo.. did you have an 800KG boat on the back of your cat? That seems like a heck of a lot, what type and size cat was it?

Heath

Yes he did. It was just a way to transport the fun boat from s Africa to exuma though. Free shipping. Special brackets were made you can see in the picture 44cruisingcat is referring to.


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