He should have had SW change for past 12 to 24 hours that would explain his course. Blown through now and heading into another short high

Windy TV makes it look ok where he is the low is a lot lower by windy TV
www.windy.com/?-38.479,134.517,6


yb.tl/impulse?ignoreUA=true

Does anyone know Andy's wife / family? He has a sat phone and would be in touch - would save us guessing.

nods said..

his facebook page last update.


www.facebook.com/andy.lamont4

Andy Lamont
I don't know what it is with wind generators and me. This one exploded yesterday. Since then my satellite arial has stoped working hopefully its something that I can fix when the sea state is a bit calmer

I see that post is on 9 December. I don't see a FB post since indicating he has changed his plans.

Still heading sort of NW towards the coast.

Looking good now.

Would the dead straight runs just be the Tracker catching up after a period of no communications i.e. just drawing a straight line between two fixes say 24 hours apart?

If he has charging problems he might not have everything on constantly.

Ramona said..
I have become addicted to watching the daily Vendee video feeds. It's the technology I'm interested in. I notice the absence of wind generators. These boats have fairly high electrical demands from the nav stations and autopilot. If I was to contemplate a long distance voyage I would emulate the Vendee fleet as much as possible. I know what I would do with Andy's wind generator.

Watching the vendee boats I can not see any nav lights. Anybody seen any on?

There is a big difference between a normal yacht and the Vendee mob. They are all doing high speeds, so their hydro generators work efficiently. Wind power would take up a lot more deck room, and be vulnerable to the seas that sweep over the decks of these speed machines. Big variation in wind over the deck might also be too much for wind generators.

Hope Andy is doing OK.

Not sure how many are using hydro electric systems. All the links seem to go to older races a few years back. This is interesting though.
www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/15527/the-whys-and-watts-of-conrad-colman-100-natural-energy

Ramona said..
Not sure how many are using hydro electric systems. All the links seem to go to older races a few years back. This is interesting though.
www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/15527/the-whys-and-watts-of-conrad-colman-100-natural-energy

sailinganarchy.com/tag/ocean-planet/
more to come
sailinganarchy.com/tag/lithium/

Good reading in this one below coupled with a few daigrams
www.bruceschwab.com/advanced-energy-storage-systems/ope-li3-marine-lithium-battery-systems/
www.bruceschwab.com/uploads/ope-li3-diagram-1-bank-1-bms.pdf
www.bruceschwab.com/uploads/ope-li3-diagram-dual-bank-dual-controller.pdf
www.bruceschwab.com/uploads/ope-li3-diagram-2-series-banks-1-bms.pdf
sailinganarchy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Dual-Buss-Diagram.pdf

Don't they have small gensets?

This thread has gone sideways, but OK, sideways is interesting.

If you are running a small frig, auto pilot, instruments, AIS, communications, intermittent computer and some lights you won't get much change from 200 amp-hours of battery consumption so if you are using a hydro generator I guess you would like it to replace that. So you need about 8 1/2 amps 24 hours a day. About 110 watts at 13.5 volts or 1/6 horse power.

If you got 25% efficiency I think you would be delighted, so make that 2/3 horse power needed from the sails. At 5 knots (8.5 ft/sec in the old language that I understand) that is going to create about 40 pounds of drag. Not a lot in a big powerful boat, but quite a bit in a 35 footer. (I don't know what Andy is driving)

Of course solar and wind will cut down the time you need to run a hydro, but if you are comparing bang for bucks maybe the hydro is not the best deal. I know sun and wind can fail, but if the wind fails then so does the hydro.

Andy complains of wind gen failure. There are wind gens that are used in Antarctica that are almost bulletproof - I had one on Double Shuffle and it was expensive but super reliable and almost whisper quiet. Didn't put as many amps as the noisy ones.

The purists can have a ball with my figures - I plead rusty mental arithmetic and pray for mercy.

By the way , where is Andy ?

Almost certain this is him ... Going very well by the looks of this !

Yes Andy has made good progress

He is right over my favorite fishing spot, I was planning to sail out and see him but I can't get out until, xmas day, he should be past the Cape by then

Doing well. A slow passage at times. I reckon it will take Andy 8 months, about the same as (Sir) Robin Knox-Johnson in 1967. They both look like averaging 4 kts or so.