2022: Refit Stage 1

How it all began

Our initial plans were to repair Doris (believe me she had so many problems when we bought her!), refit her for ocean going passages and bung on "a couple of solar panels to improve our carbon footprint". Then came Covid and an unprecedented international lockdown. Suddenly, there were stories of valiant seafaring bloggers stuck at anchor rapidly running low on diesel, unable to set foot ashore in paradise and being charged $100s by illicit moonlight Evian runners.

Never one to catastrophise, Sally declared the only way forwards was complete energy self-sufficiency. Excited at the concept of being able to not only sail around the world but survive a zombie apocalypse in the process, we started to plan our sustainable sailing adventure. This turned out not to be the simple process we initially anticipated. We may not be marine electrical engineers but we can smell BS when we meet it. Sadly, we found lots of people wanted to sell us an 'electric refit' but vanishingly few convinced us that they actually knew what they were doing. 

Then we met Wayne.........

From the first time we spoke with him we realised that this crazy, enthusiastic maritime eco-warrior really truly knew what he was doing. Wayne and the Sail Electric team were actually capable of making our dream of sustainable sailing a reality.  He was the perfect person to take us through the minefield that is electrifying a blue-water cruising yacht.  Not just a visionary, Wayne backed up his ideas with evidence; he has been successfully sailing his own fully electric 1984 Contessa 34 off the SW of England for years. Most importantly, he was kind enough to not scoff at a crazy medic and engineer planning to sail sustainably around the world despite having little experience with renewable energy.

He took our initial ideas and expanded on them until we had plans not only for a solar-powered electric propulsion system but an energy efficient water-maker, electric oven and instant boiling water tap!

Throughout 2022 Wayne, Tom, Adam and team took out the diesel engine, fitted the electric propulsion system, custom solar arch (shout out to Tom for the fantastic design) and installed all the remaining kitchen frippery and a water-maker. They also put in a generator to sate our desire for absolute safety (so many people sold us stories of grey days, rip tides and batteries emptying faster than a bowl of crisps at a 5 year old's party). We have since realised that this particularly heavy piece of kit is unlikely to see much action - we should have listened to Wayne.

Stage 2 is installation of the remaining solar panels, watch this space.............

To see the details from the Sail electric perspective click here.