Options on the new 440 and 490

[gazy]

Dear All,

First thank you for letting me be part of the forum, we are the proud owner of a 27 year old Sun Dream 28 but time as come to upgrade the boat and make the big jump in size (and buy new), we are currently looking at the 440 and 490 but our heads are overloaded with the options that can be specified.


Our plan is to use the boat first for a year or two in Zeeland (Holland) which is close to our house in Belgium and a much better cruising ground than the Belgian coast for us and then head for the baltic for a period of 4 months. if this is concluant we want to go further afield (Maybe the med for year) and then....


While visiting the new Jeanneau at the Paris boat show we were sold to the layout and space of the 490, however the 440 will also fit the bill more than enough.


I am a bit stuck in terms of electricity options for the boat as we want some confort while cruising for extensive period and I would you like to hear from same minded cruiser on the forum on the best way to manage the consumption of a well equipped cruiser.


in terms of consumption we would like to have fridge / freezer / heater on top of the usual suspects (instruments, lights....) so I am extrapolating from current usage on the Sun Dream, we will consume about 180ah/h per day.


I decided to go the lithium route with about 400 to 500 Ah/h battery bank, but now I need to find a way to charge those monsters, either choosing the generator route but the price tag seams very steep at 19K€ for the factory fitted 7,2KW unit ?

so in other words, which options did you take and which usage do you have? Furthermore, did you find that having a generator is a plus versus other methods of charging such as solar panels? I also plan on fitting 200 - 300 watts of panels on the deck somewhere as I do not like arches.

Confort wise, if we could add a dishwasher and a washing machine, the dream will come true....

Thanks in advance,

Regards,
 

[element]

Hi Gary,

Nice plans to look forward to!

On our previous 34 feet yacht we used about 100 ah/day. We just have a 39i and I do not know yet her power consumption but I guess it will be more due to the bigger fridge etc. If you also will have a separate freezer 180 ah/day might be too low when it is really hot outside. Maybe other members of this forum with a similar sized boat can share their experiences.

Some things I would do: 

First, 200 watts of solar would give you only around 25% of your usage, and only for sunny days. I would add a few panels on your deck or on the railing. I would opt for at least 600 watts on such a big boat.

2nd, I would add more battery capacity. This makes it easier to store more energy between periods the engine is running or you have shore power. I know Lithium can be discharged fully but I would install at least 600-800 ah.

3rd, I would also add an additional alternator to the engine to get faster and more amps in the batteries when the engine is running.

Above will be sufficient for the first years in Europe when you will be in a marina regularly.

When going to the Med or the Carieb I would add more solar on the Bimini and/or install an arch, although I agree this does not look nice. But always better than an expensive, noisy and polluting generator. 

Just my 2 cents, curious about other opinions.

[gazy]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for your feedback, regarding the installation of solar panels, I just made a rough estimate based on the surface available on deck. I am sure it is not enough to cover my needs but as least, I will always come to a fully charged boat when I leave it for a week or two. At the moment our 28 is happily receiving power from our 100 watts flexible panel.

where do you sail in Holland? do you find yourself limited by the draft of your boat (another question that I have: either go with the normal keep of 2.3m or go for the shallow version of 1,65m which is what we have at the moment and we never have troubles)?

[rene460]

Hi Gazy,

Welcome to the forum.  I am sure you will find plenty of friendly and helpful like minded folk here to share your boating experiences.  The archive of older posts is a valuable resource, and most of the subjects are timeless and applicable to many models across the range, so lots of pleasant winter evening reading.

Buying a new 440 or 490 will be a great adventure and I am sure you will enjoy whichever you chose.  With our SO30i we are much more in tune with your 28, but the experience of buying new is still with us ten years later even so.

With regard to factory options, it is a bit intimidating looking at the cost of each thing added.  While most things can be added later if you find you have left out something you would really like, I took the approach that some things were best added in the factory during the build, indeed often before the deck is put in place, and these are best selected as factory options as they are much harder to add later, and that will cost in labour what you might have saved.  However others are just as easily added later, and it is better to be able to tailor them to suit your needs rather than have others specify them on cost alone, never a good long term decision in my experience.  And of course it allows you to defer items until you find you really need them.

On this basis I would class cabin heater, auto pilot, generator and bow thruster as definitely factory options, probably also with anchor windlass and any electric winches for a start, and air conditioning.  I put the rigging requirements for an asymmetric spinnaker as well so the mast came with the halliard exits and halliards installed, and also turning blocks and clutches with all halliards, reefing lines etc run back to winches and clutches at the cockpit.  Then I could talk to my local sailmaker about just what sort of sail to buy, but no holes to drill in the hull, and I could defer the cost until I was ready for the extra challenge.

On the other hand, I feel that dodger and bimini are best bought later when you can talk to the canvas maker about sizes, windows, infill panels and so on to your requirements.  Then all the zips fit, and you can include a matching steering wheel pedestal cover.  And while the stainless steel bows are being made you can make provision for mounting your solar panels and all the necessary zips so the canvas can be removed without disturbing the panels for cleaning or repairs.  I would also add the solar panels after delivery.

I am sure others will have other ideas, but that will provide a start.

Regarding the solar panels, I would suggest on the Bimini or arch is a really good location and need not look ugly.  It is one of the places least subject to partial shading, and partial shading has a severe effect on the energy provided by the panel.  There are many threads on this topic and worth reading quite a few to get the range of ideas.  However, with air conditioning, if you will have it, and the prospect of washing machines etc, I believe you will find it a real challenge to survive without a generator.  Running the engines just to charge batteries is not a recommended procedure.  Then put as many panels as you can reasonably fit in order to minimise the generator running time.  It might be tempting to leave the generator off for now, but it will require hull penetrations for cooling water and exhaust as well as a fuel supply which is why I suggest factory installation.

I hope that is a help to simplify the overload in a helpful manner but please do keep us informed on your progress and don’t hesitate to come back with questions.

rene460

[element]

Hi Gazy,

Our 39i is moored in Enkhuizen, so weekend sails are mostly on the IJsselmeer or Waddenzee. During holiday's we sail mostly to the UK, France and Baltic.
Although we have the Performance version, we have the standard 2m keel. This does not give too much restrictions our sailing area, however we have to be a bit more cautious then with our previous boat which had a depth of only 1.45m.

With a draught of 2.3 meter more of the IJsselmeer will become tricky to assess and shallow patches of the Western Waddenzee as well. Also the East Coast rivers of the UK will become more difficult or impossible. For that reasons, we would not want a boat with a draught of 2.3 meter. However, the Delta area will cause you less trouble with 2.3 meter and it makes sense that a bigger boat requires a deeper keel.

So is really about your targeted cruising area. If this is the Waddenzee, East Coast UK etc, then I would opt for the 1.65 version.
If it will be mainly the Delta and Blue Water like the Med and Carieb later, I would go for the deeper version. It will not only have a better pointing ability upwind but because the keel is 500kg lighter than the shallow versions, you will have also more cargo capacity ("Laadvermogen") when living aboard for a longer period and/or additional gear like generators etc.

By the way. re-reading our wishes, if you really want a dishwasher and washing machine, then a generator is a must if you want to use these outside a marina. If you can do without, increased battery capacity and charging capabilities could do the job.

Harald

[Trevor]

Hi Gazy,

A great topic and one that has taken me a long time to really have some experience with. We have spent about half of the last three years cruising on our yacht, an SO42DS. During that time we have learnt what we need to be self sufficient from a power perspective.

Not many people like adding an arch but the difference to the use of the yacht for us is like night and day. We used to haul our dinghy onto the foredeck. Store outboard engine, remove oars and the other contents of the tender and then reassemble when we reached our destination. Being tempted to tow the dinghy eventually ends in tears from our experience so now we simply pull the entire tender and motor onto the davits. It makes the process so easy.

I also had a period of trying to make flexible solar panels work. That ended in disappointment as well. I also personally know two people who have had flexible solar panels literally catch fire. I’m not talking about the cheap ones, I mean the really expensive ones and I do mean in one case caused the Bimini to actually burn and disappear in flames. Luckily the owner was there when it happened.

We now have two Sunpower E20, 327watt solid panels ( 634 watts) mounted on stainless trays on the arch. They provide enough power for our 480 AH AGM house batteries to nearly every day get to “float” charge state.

We have a 1.8kw inverter driving a microwave oven and a toaster as well as other various charging supplies. These days that is regarded as a fairly modest sized inverter with many opting for 3kw.

I also installed a 120 amp alternator and a fancy 3 stage external regulator. I thought that was the answer but alas I soon learned that the charging capacity is irrelevant if the battery bank will not accept that rate of charge. Yes, the alternator can deliver 120amps but the batteries NEVER call for that. Perhaps the lithium’s may call for more charge but AGMs or Gels don’t use the massive alternator current available. Wondering if I had something not quite right with the external regulator, I manufactured a manual control so I could manually vary the excitation current of the alternator. The alternator and regulator were working perfectly but unless the batteries were quite low ( below say 55%) I might just as well have had my original hitachi alternator. I must admit the three stage external regulator would hopefully be more gentle on the batteries for longer life.

Better to have a constant lower value of charge from the solar panels than have a huge alternator that is never asked to deliver anything above about 60 amps. Having said that I regularly see the solar system deliver 40 plus amps to the batteries.

We don’t have a washing machine but we do have a 12 volt watermaker and a 20 litre plastic bucket. The watermaker has changed our lives and produces 22 litres per hour and draws 7 amps. That amount of water per hour is quite small but it is extremely efficient and no longer do I have to be concerned about using too much water when we are cruising.

We recently have been using a satellite dish for TV. It uses a few amps but that hasn’t impacted our daily consumption appreciably.

We don’t have air conditioning and we only have the original refrigerator ( no extra freezer) but we do have a diesel heater. We don’t have a generator but have used the engine to charge the batteries on about 10 or 15 days in the last 7 months because of successive days of rain or low cloud cover.

I have included a typical power delivery from the solar system. It has three colours which indicate bulk, absorption and float stages of battery charge.  These panels have been in place for over a year now.  I have also added a picture of a day when the panels were delivering 700watts!  Remember they are rated to 654 watts maximum.  It was a day when it had just rained and I think the panel efficiency had increased because the rain had just cooled them down.   A theory only but it is my best plausible story for the high output.   

Anyway, that is what we have found with our setup so I hope this helps a little in your decision making process.

Regards,

Trevor

[element]

Hi Trevor,

Thanks for sharing the experience. Extremely useful for me as well because we intent to do a 2 year round the Atlantic in a couple of years and I have to prepare our recently bought 39i for this.

It is quite reassuring to read that your solar panels provide sufficient energy. I intent to install an arch at the back for the solar panels as well. This leaves me to the question if you can post a picture of your arch with solar panels. Would be appreciated.

I have not made up my mind on the batteries. I have now 330 amps but want to install more. Lithium is tempting, also because charging efficiency is much higher and they will be able to be changed much faster. I understood these can easily swallow more than 100 amps. I have not yet decided if this will prevail above higher costs and more complex installation with with BMS etc.

This leaves me to another question. Do you have a battery monitor so you know how much energy you will consume on an average day?
Although I might have already an idea because you generate on average about 2.5 kWh/day. With a charging efficiency of say 75% this would mean you consume about 1.5-2.0 kWh per day. So round 160 amps/hour @ 12 volt. Is that correct?

[Tafika II]

We installed two Kyocera KD135GX 135W solar panels on our boat connected to a Blue Sky Energy - Solar Boost 2000E. We also installed an AirBreeze Wind Generator. All are on the arch. Only run the Mastervolt 3.5 genset for hot water & high am appliances most of the time.

[gazy]

Hi Trevor,

Thanks a lot for your feedback, much appreciated. Regarding the alternator, this is why I want to upgrade to Lithium as they can absorb a large current in. this should then reduce the amount of time the engine or generator need to run on a daily basis.

But this put the alternator under great pressure as the temperature goes up when it run for long period at high output, often on OEM parts this is when they fail.

So for those who have generators, does it make more or less noise than the inboard engine?

Furthermore, concerning the arch, do you have an idea of the price for a well made one?

Hi Element, I much appreciate your feedback on the keels setups, but it is hard to asses the gain in sailing performance?



I looking forward to more feedbacks



Gary 

[NZL50505]

Lots of great advice in response your questions here. The only addition I’d make is to re-emphasise NOT to go down the route of flexible solar panels. Regardless of quality they all degrade disappointingly rapidly and if you have decided to make solar a mission-critical part of your power regime then you will struggling within 2-3yrs of installing new flexible panels. If you want reliable, long-term significant solar dependence you need to mount solid panels from day 1.

[Trevor]

Hello Gazy and element,

I have provided a power budget for Sapphire. It is simply my own version for working through the reasonableness of my original assumptions so it is not really formatted for public viewing so may be a bit cryptic but does tell a story. Many of the assumed numbers will vary for other boats ( and maybe are a little wrong for our boat) but it is simply a way of me to put some science to the selection of components.   

Yes I have a battery monitor and but not really investigated its trend findings. I usually look at what it is telling me from a percentage charge perspective but I should check it out more thoroughly.

I have a picture of the solar setup on the arch and then the power budget for you to consider.   The power budget is a bit hard to decipher as it is just my rough notes.   If you want the excell spreadsheet just PM me and I can send it to you.   It is pretty simple if you see the spreadsheet.

Element, your assumptions on the power use seem correct to me.   The frustrating part of using the alternator to charge the batteries is that for the first hour you can punch the current in, but as the batteries charge the current goes down meaning to have the batteries at 100%, you need to run the engine for a really long time.    That is the beauty of solar, it is working silently the entire time the sun is up.   I can see from my historical graph that nearly every day the batteries get to the 'float' stage of charging which means they are pretty well fully charged.   That also means the solar could have delivered more if required because the charging backs off during the 'float' stage.

Gazy, the arch cost about $8,000 Australian a couple of years ago.  The larger diameter tube is 38mm, 316 stainless with 3mm wall thickness. The trays for the panels cost $700 from a local stainless fabricator.  I fitted them to the arch.

I hope this helps.

Trevor


www.23hq.com/yachtbird/photo/64148689/original


www.23hq.com/yachtbird/photo/64148847/original


www.23hq.com/yachtbird/photo/64148881/original

[element]

Trevor, others,

Thanks for sharing, really insightful!

Harald

[gazy]

Dear All,

Yesterday we had another meeting with the broker and decided to have another meeting with them and Mastervolt in order to design our electrical system.

To sum up the discussion we decided not to take the generator and to beef up the Lithium and charger, I asked them to look at a way to have a Combi charger/inverter and then a regulator for the alternator.

one question I still have for the one with a generator is what is the noise level compared to the inboard diesel? is it quieter or not? I am just wandering because we could if the solar is not enough run the engine a one hour with the alternator delivering close to 100 amp, I doubt this is feasible with a charger and a generator?

Thanks,

[moonshadow]

If this helps....
on my 2013 SO469 I added a Balmar external regulator to the stock 125 amp alternator and I see 125 amps going into my bank or firefly batteries. I felt that since these batteries can soak up a lot of current I wanted the programmability and temperature monitoring of the external regulator.
As to the generator, I have the factory installed 7.5 kw onan generator and it works well and is very quiet. No where near as noisy as a Honda gen on the back deck. In the past when I asked the boats anchored behind me they consistently told me that they didn’t know I had a generator running.

[gazy]

Thanks a lot, looks promising then to have a regulator, if I understood correctly you have the stock + an extra alternator on your engine?

Can you tell me where the generator is located in your 469? and can you hear it inside the cabin?

Thanks,

[moonshadow]

I added the external Balmar regulator to the stock alternator. Only one alternator on the boat. I am using a house bank of 5 of the firefly G31 carbon foam batteries and they do absorb the 125 amps well. The regulator temp probes and the slow loading of the alternator seem to keep everything under control well. The generator is a factory installed unit on a 2013 SO469. It is enclosed far aft under the center hatch. Very quiet on the deck and inside the boat but it is definitely something you are aware of in the aft cabins. My guests say it’s not loud really but I haven’t slept back there. The Cummins/Onan unit is inside its own sound insulated box and inside the center locker and rubber mounted. One nice feature of the factory installation is that the wiring and controls are all nicely placed and integrated. Well worth it in my mind.

[gazy]

Thanks a lot, much appreciated, I am at the moment trying to decide whether I should take or not the genset. as I might have said in a previous post the option cost is about 19K€ which I find quite steep. Especially that this adds up with the lithium batteries. that is why I am asking so much questions about the alternator, if I can run it for one hour instead of the generator it is quite a saving.

[moonshadow]

For me the generator mainly provides house voltage for heat and cooling when needed and to run a high output Watermaker. I have never decided if it is really more fuel efficient for battery charging. The factory generator is definitely quieter than the engine. The generator will run the two cristec charger that supply 60 amp total. The alternator will put 125 when the batteries will take it. Either way I would definitely do the Balmar regulator as the stock alternator is big enough but I think will overheat at that output otherwise. And I would read about the firefly batteries before deciding on lithium. I’m not sure which is better really. Both have some good and bad points.

[gazy]

Thanks a lot, much appreciated, you are tempting me but the AC + Generator is adding 40K to the boat price which is far from insignifiant, on top of this I need to:

- add the lithium
- add this regulator from Balmar for the engine alterntor
- convince my girlfriend that this is a wise investment in order to have hot showers and enough water (another few thoussands for the waternmaker)

Lets me think about this

[NZL50505]

Adding one further thought into the mix (can’t see if anyone else has already mentioned this), namely that running your engine for charging purposes will of course add engine hours over time. And of course engine hours is one of the factors that affects residual value of the boat - come the day you sell it. Whereas the genset won’t probably add much residual value but will be an extra attraction making it easy to sell.

Of course engine hours are not as relevant in sailing boats as they are for motor boats - but they do feature, especially if they are higher than average for age of boat.

[gazy]

Yes indeed you are correct, we can also add the "glazing of the engine" if running at low speed often.

I can of lean towards the genes, especially for the ease of use, and the fact that I do not like Arches on the back of boat, but I am afraid by the cost and also by the noise.

[Fabrice-Erta]

For sure difficult decisions...
we have choosen AC and genset.
globally happy with this choices. The genset noise is a bit lower/different from the engine.
Comsuption is lower and battery charging is faster when at anchor.
This allow also to run the watermaker at the same time.
Despite , we plan to install an arch and solar panel in the future’

regards
fabrice

[gazy]

indeed, I first need to have a full estimate for all the options before I can decide.

what is also bothering me is that you can select the heater or the AC, but with my plan of sailing, I need both :-(

if I might ask, which options did you choose on your new boat, as the 440 and 490 are very similar?

I plan on going with the electric winches and the traditional main + self taking jib + code zero.

I also plan to take the full cockpit + Bimini + enclosures for the rainy days.

[Tafika II]

We have both AC/Heat provided by one system using Marine Air 120v systems. We also have a full cockpit enclosure.

[gazy]

Thanks Brent,

Can I ask you if you have some photos of the enclosure?

Thanks,