The following question arrived by email today with the subject Dumb Question..
If you have a large sailboat that has battery powered equipment, and you keep it on a mooring out in the water, how does your battery stayed charged? Is the only way to re-charge the battery is to keep the boat on a dock with power? Thanks.
First of all there are no dumb questions. There is so much to know about sailing that all of us have gaps in our knowledge. In fact there are so many different types of sailboat and ways of going sailing that most of us have huge gaps in our knowledge. For example I know quite a lot about small single-handed racing dinghies and racing strategy, tactics and rules… but next to nothing about ocean cruising or navigation or how to maintain the equipment on a large yacht.
Which makes me wonder why this question was addressed to me. But I think I know the answer: large sailboats keep their batteries charged when on the moorings with wind generators or solar panels. I’ve often seen the generators spinning away when I’ve been ducking and weaving in my Laser through mooring fields.
And on the subject of dumb questions I just came across this quote in the signature of a regular contributor to Sailing Anarchy, the incomparable Gouvernail…
Sailors who are fascinated by the volume of what they don’t understand and who are eager to announce their ignorance tend to have a realistic assessment of their knowledge, a solid grasp of what they claim to understand, and are the very best sources of information.
Sailors who act like they know everything are idiots and should be avoided.
Do any of my readers who actually have some experience with charging yacht batteries want to add anything for my friend with the not-so-dumb question?
Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back
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