Here Comes the Sun Part2

Our new solar panels are up and working. It has taken nearly six weeks, but they are mounted on our radar arch and they are producing clean, free energy! To be honest, it was a struggle. It wasn’t easy to find everything needed for the installation. There we two parts to the installation.

First, we had to modify our radar arch so the panels would fit. We had planned to have some new stainless steel welded to our existing arch but after hiring and agreeing to the work with a local fabricator, we were told by the local marina that they don’t allow welding at their docks. When I asked where I could get the welding done, they told me it had to be done in the boatyard. We had just left the boatyard so hauling the boat out of the water again was not an option for us.

We modified our plans and decided to clamp the new arch pieces in place rather than weld them. Unfortunately, in the time it took to develop our new plan, the fabricator had been booked solid. We did our best to scour the hardware and marine shops between La Cruz and Puerto Vallarta but still needed some parts fabricated. We had to wait nearly two weeks for the parts to be made.

In the meantime, we got to work on the second part of the installation–the electrical. We ran wires from outside at the back of the boat, in and along to our batteries which are at midships. It sounds simple enough as I type this, but it involved a lot of time on our knees as we pushed or pulled wires under and around things under our boat’s floor. Not only did we add meters of new wire, we also removed many meters of old wire that was no longer needed. Along the way we set up various electrical bits and pieces so that everything would be ready when the fabricator had our arch parts done. It took several long hot days to manipulate the wires through the bilges of the boat but in the end we were ready.

Last weekend the fabricator got the parts to us. We added them to the radar arch and got the new panels mounted. We’re excited to see we can make nearly twice as much power now than previously!