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Thank you everyone for attending my name is Jeff Kotte with Pacific Yacht Systems and today we're gonna be talking about solar panels a real world experience before I get started just what you know there are some feedback sheets at the back of the room here as well so when you're done with the presentation if you want to just kind of let us know how we're doing. We appreciate it. So today we're gonna talk about what's happening in this solar fields were with regards to boats and also how this is actually improving voting for anybody who's wants to leave the shore IT dockside I want to be able to be out there for some period of time longer than they would be with just batteries and having an alternator so it's another way of recharging your batteries. So basically. Before we dive into solar I just want to give contacts or is it the only way of recharging your batteries it's a way. And most people would do it via Chargers right which are another way to describe it would be converters. Alternators which is something most of us have on our boat you know we have propulsion and part of that propulsion is there's an alternator that alternator. Through addition of the engine which is this device right here. Will create power back to the batteries you have solar DC genset and win and there's also methanol fuel cells now so there's different ways of creating power to recharge your batteries but today's focus is going to be solely on solar panels. So when you have an imagine the benefits of solar these are starting points of why some of us are connects considering solar as a way to recharge our batteries. And it's really about. Having decided to do the work and it's a little bit for some of us that our sailors it feels like it feels very similar because here you have something that's just really available that if you don't harness it. Or if your heart is that you're not taking anything away and so you have power without any noise any vibration. And that's or smoke and that's I think one of the main benefits of solar that it works in the background it doesn't need to be maintained there's no you're not going to see a mechanic you're not gonna be doing it all change or not going to be worried about fuel filters you're not gonna be worrying about anything it just simply works you put it on my boat for example we did our about 5 years ago now. And since I've done the connections 5 years ago on my boat when I put it in I've never touched a single thing on my solar panels and they're out in the elements I've never remove them never did anything to them I've never even wash them. They're just out there and they're working and I can quantify the output and the output still the same as it was 5 years ago on average because I track all of that over time so I can talk about it. So you can see solar panels are going up and beyond like you just what we would think for sailors right we're doing a lot of trawlers now the 607080 foot and we're doing a large solar arrays on top of their culture as a way to recharge their batteries so that they only have to run their jets that to maybe make water or run a stove top of them limit their chance at run time to only large AC loads and yeah they're gonna run also to recharge the batteries but they're not going to run the generator more than they need to have a solar is gonna take care of topping off the batteries and the batteries run the lights run the inverter from the water popped from the nav system all that is done via solar. The big reality in in this is what's a little bit confusing for all of us especially when we go online. Pardon. Is that you read about other people's experiences and when you go online and you're reading forms or whatnot you're actually reading about the rest of the world you're not just reading about borders here in BC. And we have a distinct advantage over voters from Florida or the Caribbean or California and that distinctive bandages at this latitude when we are actually building which is in the summer months. A lot of sunshine in the days much longer here. And that longer day means that we get more of our solar panels that people in Florida what or in the Caribbean and that means that whatever their benefits of solar our our benefits are better because simply we're sore battles are just out there I'll put it for a longer period of time. So when you look at what other people are getting from their solar panels and how they give cost comparisons and they say pros and cons you gotta remember they're talking about with the amount of sun they're getting but here in the summer in British Columbia we get lots of sun. In the days are long sore output is actually better than the average output anywhere else especially down south. The other big advantage that we have with solar panels especially the flexibles are that they're easy to mount. They can be mounted on a cabin roof directly with peel and stick you can also then mount them. R. out directly on to canvas you can put them on your baby on your daughter. And then how do you about them this is a picture of my boat and any of those decisions out. God I so background there. The rocky cliffs but what I'm trying to showcases the zippers allow my bow we put zippers and I fabricated that but any canvas shop can do that and they mounted the zippers on all 4 sides of the panels and so the panels are held in really tight from all different. Orientation that the wind might come out the. As an engineer I always worry about. Thanks the worst. And over time now for 5 years just not this winter but last winter we were in school and smugglers and there was that it was blowing about 55 sustained. And our solar panels stayed there no problem I don't even have to worry I mean the ranking was shaking like hell everything was shaking the you know the Hayley ours we're going nuts everything was just like vibrating the mass was pumping. But the solar panels never move I never have to worry and I have 6 of them on my boat 2 on the Dodger and 4 on the baby. This is another another power boat that's got solar panels mounted right on to the courtroom. This is what it looks like we'll talk about it you know if you're mounting a solar panel ideally it's better to have 2 solar panels on a Dodger because you're gonna have a boom in with shading you're gonna lose some output and so you. But not everyone has the ability of having to sort out is because it actually ends up costing more to buy to that buying one a big pass or panels less money to 2 small ones so I have some orders it's a Jeff you know what. I live with the inconvenience of having to move the boom with the traveler either side of the boat. And I know it's not that convenient but I'd rather have one large panel top of my daughter and then I'll move the boom to wherever the sun isn't so that when the sun is shining it's basically I cheated on to the solar panel. But. When I try to empathize with this light is that and we have this in our view that we have probably over 60 panels that we sell of all different sizes. And so when it comes to trying to actually install solar panels on your boat. What you'll find is you might have a limited space and you're not building the canvas a canvas already there and how are you going to maximize the space that you have to get the solar array that you walked right. So you can choose mix and match all these different panel sizes to cover the area that you can cover on your boat so that you get the maximum eyes the maximum out of solar panels that you want to install on your boat. The big either dealt the level that you're gonna faces. And I ask this this question is probably asking our booth 300 times 400 times a day right now is our a solar panels the flexible solar panels are the as efficient as a rigid and the answer the short answer is yes absolutely they are as efficient as rigid and the next question might be well what should I choose mono or poly because there's really 2 types of cells for solar panels. And the question comes at how little space do you have or how much space you have and how much power do you need. So if you've got you know a modern sailboat with the really be me asked right you've got all this canvas you might end up choosing a poly panel because you don't need to buy a very high efficient panel which is going to come at a very big cost premium when you have all this real estate it's like building a house in Langley versus building a house in downtown in downtown you buy you build up and Langley you built horizontally to got a lot more real estate you've got a huge coach roof you got a lot to canvas a lot of owners are choosing poly but for instance I might vote that's built in 1990 which is almost got a canoe started on myself out very very narrow beam at the after the vote my baby's very narrow maybe only like 7 feet wide at the after my boat bottom both might have 1412 foot being at the back so I've gotten less canvas and if I want to have the same amount of solar power someone else. I have to use monocrystalline panels which are more expensive but are more efficient you pay about a 50 percent premium costs for 25 percent increase in output. So you can see that last 25 percent comes at a very big significant cost increases. And here's another way to rehash what I just said. A little bit like cat a trick question I was asked when I was a kid you know by the teacher great to what's have you're a tide of elephants are tied to feathers well they're both a thon so really doesn't matter what it what she really meant to say is how much volume does it take to have a ton of feathers verses a ton of elephants and what's solar panels 100 what Paul your 0 what model. I bought 100 what's the poly panel is going to be bigger than the model panel. Another point I want to bring I'm sorry for the coughing but it's day 5. Is. This presentation at all the other presentations that we did I think this is the fifth one are all gonna be on a website you can go in there's gonna be a link and you can have a PDF of all of this if you want to see the notes. Is another owner what they did is we put solar panels right on the brow. And that's another relevant point is some owners ask me well Jeff what what angle should I put my solar panel. The best neutral position that's not going to be moving is parallel with the water. I don't some owners are like but Jeff is it better to have the panel's perpendicular to the sun's rays and I'm like absolutely it is. But I said unless Europe you have available slave labor that can actually move a panel and keep it perpendicular to the sun as your boat is swinging at anchor it's not realistic or practical to have a panel be perpendicular to the side at all times because your boat is moving and your vote doesn't move always up and down against a side who might be swayed so you've constantly have to change it and those big stories that we see in California and other desert. The desert is it moving and the sun is so it's pretty easy for the panel to just change inclination change the orientation as the date changes because there's only one variable in this guide is moving but on a boat you've got the boat moving. And you've got the sun moving and that you're not realistically going to have a mechanized devices going to move your solar panel to be perpendicular to the sun's rays so when you look at. We have a data sheet that gives you what the realistic output of every battle is in the Pacific Northwest. Those numbers are actually based on a paddle simply parallel to the water line right so you don't have to worry about Bob good my paddle be more efficient yes it could be but it would be on practical or impractical for you to do that. What this means is that. There's no such thing as a free lunch. There's no such thing as a short cut that doesn't have implications. And that when you buy something don't kid yourself to think. That is the paddles half price you got the same panel for half the price. Battles are built and there's a lot of criterias that go into building a panel and there's a lot of they're not all the same. They're not all built by the same factory. And we sell basically 3 different layers of Patil's we sell what we call bronze silver and gold. 3 different price points the lowest price point is about 350 a watch Chinese made. Silver as low as 550 a walk which is Italian and then the next level is probably around $10 a walk on average. And those those ranges mean you're paying more for better quality right so the cells are going to be built in Germany versus somewhere else V. in caps elation is going to be 3:00 AM the epoxy is a sort of proxy that as a 20 year life. There's diodes built that and so you got to figure out as a bold order what's your budget and what do you value and then you figure out what's in the panel and then you make a decision as to what you want to pay. Here's another owner what they've done is you know it's and this is not a sellable but they do the house on power boats are putting where people normally have some questions on the Brower on the bow of the boat instead of using that space we did that just recently with the better to our modern bateau powerboat trawler. We had a grand Turismo I think we ended up putting solar panels where they normally would have the questions. The expected life is about 20 years. We've been selling solar panels for 5 years we did over 100 boats last year. Probably done in total about probably 275 votes. On average most owners have to. Maybe 3 paddles. So I give you an idea of the poll panel's we've sold it's not endless but I've never had a warranty never. Ever so yeah they're going to at 1.one is going to bite the dust it might happen but I've never seen it. And the reason is once it's built and if it's quality underneath it's completely encapsulated in a proxy so it's not in the environment like you could dip that paddle you can have it under water there's no parts that are exposed to air everything is actually sealed in a proxy so if it's well built it's basically a weather proof. Here's someone else on a boat where they put in the back. You can see how they mounted the solar panels on canvas. And then they have the campus on the hard top at the back of the boat on a center cockpit. You want to make sure that some panels have what are called diodes built in so if a portion of the panel is shaded and that's pretty common on a sailboat because you might have a boom or radar mass or some sort of structure is always something higher than a solar panel and sailboat. And even in this picture you can see you know the owner has an array you know that's open right so there's gonna be some shading. That's even comment on a lot of power both because on top of the hard top they have an open array they've gotta keep each dome they've got something above the solar panels and so when you have shading you want to have that you have bypassed diodes so that the whole panel isn't affected but you lose a portion of the panel but not the whole panel and so the panels that we sell that are Italian may like Jokowi's albeit all have bypassed diodes. So the next question you ask it I get this all the time people ask me all the time these general questions that really I have to ask another question too is like how much battery do I need how much soul or do I need that's nearly that hi nice to meet you how much sort of writing and I well okay let's walk it through. So before I even do that I just want to kind of give a little bit of a a preamble is the thing that you're loads really very depending when you bought and even for your own boat you know depending on if you vote in the summer in June or July or if you vote in December there's going to be variations in the amount of power that you need so that's something to consecutive. I don't kid yourself if you have refrigeration on your boat you're not a luddite in terms of power consumption. Refrigeration is the number one load on all boats by far up to probably to the point where a boat just runs on a genset even a 70 footer or 80 footer has a lot of fridges and it just simply have double 4 double door fridge is they have a bar fridge they've got a fridge on the flybridge they've got a bar fridge have got a fridge on the back is that more fridges so proportionally no matter what kind of boat you have refrigeration is the number one load if you have refrigeration you're not a luddite and you use a lot of power here about now yes you might have only delights you might never use the water problem you might never turn the lights on you might not even have a TV you don't have an inverter but you have refrigeration you're using a lot of power. And so that's surely one of the things to consider is that what you have refrigeration it's harder to keep that in check. So what we're gonna talk about is and this is just a little photo of someone else that what they did with solar panels and here they could have mounted rigid and I have that back question ask me all the time like Jeff why didn't he put rigid solar panels. Well the reality is that a rigid solar panels about 10 times the weight of the flexible this is like 2 pounds a pound and a big this is 40 watts but 170 watt panels around 5 pounds 7 pounds. Right if you had 170 walk panel. I could do this I guess not a one handed operation right so with the boat especially if you intend to use it and leave the dock and you're gonna be in confuse sees. It's uncomfortable to have moral more weight aloft and higher. And as you have higher weight. And you're confused sees the boat is going to be more comfortable so that's why you want to try to keep the center of gravity doesn't sound like much but you put you know 250 pounds 10 feet up. I thought a lot of weight. And so that's why owners are actually putting flexible solar panels even on places where they could mount a rigid but they just don't want to have that weight aloft especially for people that go off shore. These are typical yeah go ahead. Like you actually see this is this here is that kind of like an aluminum. Structure you see how you can see the solar panel underneath and it's mounted onto you see those little black points here the rivets. So I saw paddles mounted on top of this very like small added diced. Right. Yeah yeah yeah we did a bota highlights 49 the guy the owner has this really beautiful. Kind a dinghy davit system arched beautiful said Mazen protek dealt that just gorgeous probably deadly expensive but it's beautiful. And it's got curves everywhere so what we did on the top as we mount a solar panel on a curve so it looks you know and that's the hard thing with a boat is that's why some people don't like rigid is that a rigid panel is something that is rigid in a 2 dimensional plane you look at your boat how many rigid pieces of square angles are aren't about this extremely rare I mean you always have to start looking for it everything is it might be a square but it's a curved square right everything has a curve and that's the advantage with flexible solar panels even on top of your Bimini this is going to blend in right. So if you're a statically driven and unfortunately I have that effect I flexion. A rigid solar panels harder to stomach because it changes the lives of your boat and it makes it more functional and so that's the one advantage with flexible Cheryl battles as they make the keep the lines of your boat you're not changing the look of your boat. These are typical Arab our budgets at bars or the quantity of battery power that you need on a daily basis for some of these boats they very you're not too sure what you're using you can come and talk to me about it I can give you a little bit of a had to kind of narrow it down you have a battery monitor you'll know if you look at the battery monitor over time. There's another order that put it on the brow. So going back a few minutes ago I said you know people come to me it's a Jeff how much solar panels or anything I say okay let's talk about what are your objectives with solar panels what does that mean are you trying to meet your daily after our demand meaning you can stay at anchor indefinitely in the summer months. Are you trying to offset refrigeration right that's the most common one orders come to me and say Jeff I remember what it was like before for duration we don't use a lot of power everywhere else but since we put an ice box conversion or now we have a Boer for inspiration which is really convenient by the way we can we never seem to have enough power can you give me something that's going to offset my refrigeration. And the next thing is Jeff I'm able to stay there for 2 days but I don't want to add more batteries I cannot more batteries I don't have the space don't have the money. Or maybe the money is not a good thing because solar panels got Sir would be more than a couple batteries. I don't have the space I don't cannot handle the weight. I want to stay a third date actor right now I can stay too can you make me stay a third day if you're my third day that I'm good and so that's these are the common objectives that orders are to come with us. It's a little hazy picture here but this is boat that we did a sudden cruiser where we've got 3 solar panels. Luckily by the way if there's an engineer the rumor someone that like. That loves long equations. I have that. But there is a shorthand so there's no need to go into a long equation when we can do a short cut and the short cut is. What's divided by 4 times 25 percent which is the same thing equals your daily at power output from solar panels from mid may to mid September in the Pacific Northwest. That doesn't mean you're gonna get that every day that's the average I had a client come to my booth. He had 270 watts of solar panels his best days were 100 amp hours a day that means this factor was 2.7. Right so I'm saying 44 is worse than 2.7 so it is best days he's getting 2.7 I say optimistic 3. He was even getting better than 3 I've seen better 32 on my boat I have 450 watts of solar panels on my boat and I've seen up to 100 75 amp hours about 130 5:00 hours of output is like not working. Not showing up to work sleeping in for a long period of time and earning $250000 a year that's what it feels like that's how much power is 170 5:00 hours it feels wrong to have that from the sun. I thought these are the sort of best case scenarios and when those happen and your batteries are topped off that might be the time that you make ice you might run your water maker because some people have DC water makers you might I recharge other batteries that you have on board by your inverter so maybe you have a lithium battery that's under Turkey no mortar and it's time to recharge it you might we charge our laptops remark B. power power tools because we have excess power you might run more things on your boat to use that power because your batteries are for what you gonna do with excess power. Conservative means 5 means you know it's cloudy but not like super cloudy not like the end of the world it's overcast. You'll get a factor of 5 so instead of getting 33 after hours or you're gonna get 20 so there's a range right it all depends on the cloud cover. You can buy the panels a decent back I mean if you've got a hard top and you don't want to screw holes or fasten them you can actually do a peel and stick. So that. The water permeability of yours our top is not affected or your deck. So now we're gonna dive into some examples. This is. Exhibit H. Catalina 36 my boat this was the demo boat that I. Was able to convince why lovely Karen. That we needed to do this so people would believe me so we did our about 3 panels at 100 walk 3 other panels a 50. And our average solar output on that boat because I have a meter and I actually count that out but every day. Is on average about 100 and 12:00 hours a day we now do them with zippers. And this is really essential and I had to do it yourself seminar for solar a couple days ago or maybe it was yesterday. If you have any sort of shading you're going to want to have a dedicated controller per panel and you're always going to want an MPPT controller they're more efficient. I thought the outcome for me is that in the summer we don't need to be connected to shore power ever we don't have to run the alternator ever. And we can stay at anchor for 5 months and from an energy perspective. We never worry so when we leave at anchor and we sail our batteries are full when we arrive at our destination our batteries are full when we wake up in the morning there might be a little bit depleted because obviously there's no solar the batteries run the boat overnight in the daytime the solar panels top it off and the cycle repeats. This is what it looks like by boat. These are 250 watt panels now you can actually get some people are putting 7 walk to some of the Dodgers are getting bigger and bigger so putting 70 fives even 95. Even one fifteenth on bigger Dodgers on either side. Here's another order he had a 440 half hour flight a battery bank. Using about 150 after hours and what this client wanted which is a really popular one is Jeff I want offset refrigeration so we ended up putting 2 panels. 130. May 2 200 about 270 watts these 235 actually 135 watt panels and because we didn't want to affect the permeability of hard top we ended up putting with a stick on a piece of. And so now the owner only needs to run the generator to write any side of AC appliances and sometimes the orders that have a cook cook top that is easy power don't use it every day because they might be using the barbecue right you're not always using a cooktop so if you don't they don't need to run the generator they don't so they can be in anchorage where there's maybe a lot more boaters around them or their cell borders giving them the you know the stink eye. And so they're able to run the boat and offset pretty much their DC loads and the refrigeration. With sort array and the stories don't actually you can't really see them they're right on to the hard top they just blend into the boat. Neither one of my really really good clients. We've got a lot of work for them. They were one of the early adopters with me I think they did it I did your one they did at your 2 got a large battery back you can tell that my clients. Over the top. Their engineers as well. They just don't want to worry about power some like okay let let me solve this problem for you so huge battery back but they want to do and it's funny the order was here visiting the booth and he was in salt spring for 2 weeks they had to stay there to visit family and they can move the ball but they were an actor they say 2 weeks without running the engine running the alternator stayed on spots all spring in Ganges at the harbor. Everything running no compromise no choice no worry no nothing right from that's already somewhat similar to the story I have on my boat. That's their boat. It's down in the latter on Western Ireland. Another order might. He said to me said Jeff we don't have a jets out on a boat we're thinking of buying a genset I'm like okay what are you going to do the job that I'm gonna recharge my batteries. Very type of order that likes to go to outstations but the outage is their member of tender bay yacht club which has an outstation on the north end of Gabby your island you can. No power they want to go to the doctor. So if you're at the dock that you've got a lot of neighbors clearly right beside you so it's a lot more crowded in anchorage right everyone's on the doc no power. And they were really concerned their sailors that went power boating so they know how other sailors feel of power borders running a generator right beside them. As I said I'd rather if we didn't have to we'd rather have solar panels to run our boat. We did their boat in year 3. And they were out even when it was blowing like stink and everyone was stuck at the dock because you know we're for power borders they can't really it's not maybe why sometimes to leave when it's blowing you know high twenties and thirties. And they want to come back these were stay at the dock for 2 weeks on Saturday that Saturday but on a Gabby on the north side and they ran that boat. No problem never had to connect never have to run the engine never have to do anything they said that doctor 2 weeks that intend to stay there 2 weeks and they never had any issues. And that's a common theme that I see with a lot of orders and they're saying to me I've got a genset Jeff and it's really bothers me it's not reliable it's not working great I spent a lot of money on it trying to fix it and I only use the jet set to recharge my batteries can I take. Solar panels and recharge my batteries instead and that's definitely an option if you have enough surface area to do that. Here's another owner. Actually this one at that was last year. Lives in northwest territories so one of my technicians at the fly out there which is kind of a cool job. Is there for a week doing a bunch of work for him. Now he's got extreme example because. It's sunny there like 22 hours a day so I'm giving the average daily for here but really over there it's nonstop son and so we ended up putting to 170 what's on the back. Cockpit enclosure. And before he was to have to write a Honda portable. Generator which by the way are not quiet. If you think it is you're probably def sorry to say. It's 55 decibels and it's insane. So what they have they always have to run it and it used to bother their friends that didn't have to run one and then their friends had gensets but they were you know coming below water is so they're really quiet they didn't have a chance at like that they had a little portable one so that was a really big fan to teachers they have the summer off they go boating for 2 months in like nonstop sunshine. I don't wake up there and so that's what we did for that we put 270 what's. These are our clients. More modest they've got a 33 foot sailboat and west Vancouver doc club. This order what was interesting was said to me said Jackie said the statics really matter to me I never sell with the baby I want the largest solar panel I can fit on my Dodger I'll move the boom but I also wanted to blend right in and I don't want to see it statically I wanted to be like magic. He says my Dodgers really dark blue can I have a dark blue or dark backing on my panel so we have to special order it. And you can see it there it just blends right in so it's black and instead of the panel in between being white in caps elation it had to be special ordered takes a long time to get here. All these panels are made by hand by the way all made in Italy. As you know Italians are known to be super fast but they make amazing workmanship. That's what the delay was a little bit longer than usual to get the paddle. But we've got they sent us a bunch of photos of the panel just looks so sleek because the doctor is not that high it's kind of a more racing sailboat without both fear the Dodgers like. Way up there most people can't even see the top of the battle but on this boat everyone can see the top and this was a way for them to just kind of have solar and then they just move the travel you can actually see in this picture the traveler sex in the cockpit and they actually moved it right to the one side. There is another owner you can see by when I try to show there is that actually initially we thought. This probably gonna be more sailors right sellers don't have gensets for the most part they like quiet so it's going to be 90 percent. Sailors and maybe a few power boaters but over the years what we've been seeing as their shift is almost 60 percent sailors. At 40 percent I think it is both so it's probably not 5050 terms of our sales there's a lot of our borders that are now going you know it's not gonna change look at my boat I hate my jets that are I don't have 1 or thinking having 1. Let me put solar on top of the hard top or the dignity and power voters have huge about a canvas on top huge with bigger I mean this thing about a pilot house Candace is specially if you have a baby up there it's massive massive amount of canvas that's over that they get the by the poly panels which are less expensive and then they can have a huge array. I've got a client. Bernard yacht club he's going to do it we're gonna do a 1200 watery on his boat RD meridian for 90. Another order with a hard top here installation. You got see solar panels you can actually walk on. He's a,ndo.in the river and louder. 2 solar panels this is the older they got up to a 2.7. I'll put this in my boat at I. gravel island and I guess what I'm showing is. This is interesting although some orders and this cost more. Certainly does we do it magically and so there's 2 choices when you get a solar panel on your Dodger. Where are you gonna do are you going to sell the paddle directly on your existing cabinets and you're gonna see the scenes and potentially the permeability of your paddles or sewing new seems on that canvas might make it leak. Or what I did on my boat a lot of our owners are doing. Is there getting their Cadmus maker to make another layer on top of their existing layer. Their song the panels on this new layer. Then you layer zipper at the front and the back. And so now you've got a sandwich between the 2 the wires are coming from this panel they're dropping but you can't see them from underneath because I have my old canvas there. So I have my old cabinets underneath the wires go under its like a TV hanging on the wall and it's just like magic I remember we did the rendezvous calendar out of about 3 years ago people like where the wires. Right it's just this these battles are just bear. And then after that we'll run the wires off to one side it will put them in a sleeve. But you don't see the cabling S. run down a sleeve and then we come in through some sort of cable clam or clam shell go inside the boat that's what I talk to the do it yourself and then we come in there with them they go to controller than from the controller we end up going to the batteries. But I guess what I'm trying to emphasize is that you can actually make for some of us are really statically driven you can make this so it actually doesn't look too functional and for the others that are not affected with this disease of wanting everything to look great. Some orders just run the cable they just write it down if they running with that zip ties of the it's still going to work it depends on how ecstatic he wanted to be a more aesthetic cost more money less aesthetic less money so. But fortunately for me I just I really care about it looks so it takes more effort to do that. This is an example of what we do on some boats where the controllers this is. Where you have 4 controllers at the back of the boat you can see 1234 and then they're going to fuse block and then that fuse block or the batteries depends on the application this is all my boat where the controllers are really really far away from the batteries so aggregated all the controls in 1 location brought them to fuse block and then on a large gauge cable this is gauge to cable brought them all back to the batteries. So instead of having 4 pairs a wire going to the batteries I have aggregate to one there and then one pair back. If you're gonna install an MPPT which I highly recommend over P. W. M.. What's great about them is you can set up for different battery chemistries. You should always use at least a gauge 10 wire from the penalty the T. P. T. U. you don't have a choice actually because the MC 4 connector all the panels gauge tan and the connector for that at C. 4 has to be a gauge tab so even if you choose to not do it you're gonna affect their water proof ness of the connector. And that's these connectors right here. At the end of the paddle and he's at C. 4 connectors. They're made to actually to be mounted with a gauge 10 wire so you're gonna have to go gauge 10 from the panel to the controller and then you might as well use gauge that again from the control of the batteries so that you use or lose as little amount of power from the solar panels and the batteries. I guess the point here Gareth was talking about that's one of our team members he was talking about notice of the wiring here is all black. Right. And so if you label the leads makes really believes because if you run that wires black wiring that leads from the outside to the inside if you switch or a mix up the polarity you're gonna blow up the battle. And I know that because I was on a boat. The other day the owner bought the panels themselves and we're doing electrical audit. It was selling out his experience for the first time that he found out that polarity matters on a solar panel I actually did not know that to be honest. Did not know that did not happen to us yet but I did send out a memo. Everyone that puleri does matter. Clearly does because the paddle actually melted. So you cannot mix up the polarity. And this is the counter that I have on my boat I've done it there's very us models this is the link 10 as I just had once I reuse it but there's actually solar counters. About maybe 10 percent 20 percent of my orders that are really keen and maybe they're kind of geeky like myself want to know or justify their purchase to someone else. They'll end up having battery monitor for just their solar and you can quantify what your daily I power it is and you can quantify what your ABS are at any given moment and then you can get excited when you go over a certain trestle and justify your purchase on an ongoing basis at all times this is how we do it on our boat. This is a Mirage actually you can see how the paddles just blend right in this is one of their photos that they took I think it's a lovely picture. And so closing thoughts are you know you can recharge your battery without all the drawbacks of a generator. Your costs are all front loaded meaning yes it's not inexpensive but there's no recurring cost after you spend the money and if you love your boat and it's a long play meaning you're not going to switch it in a year or 2. And if you're gonna enjoy the benefits especially like people that have their boat for 5 year 10 year 15 year rise in that it and you use your vote if you don't use your vote you should spend that much money on it but if you use it and you're out cruising a lot that it does make sense. And the other point there which is not my selling feature but certainly I've seen it is in the summer when we go to read us and ask us to do you would you like shore power for an extra $10 or $15 it's always extremely satisfying. To help justify the cost to say no thank you I don't need when we go to rendezvous with the S. would you like a hook up I like don't need it thank you very much and because of our solar power is there we can write our fridge in the summer with we lose shore power and our fridges running we're not going to drain our batteries. So at I would open the floor to questions. Any questions on star for your boat or anything yes Sir. Wait yeah absolutely their use of the vendee globe which is the basically the lunar I mean it's. It's like the lunar mission. Those borders are. I've been using there are these paddles a Soviet won the gold ones are actually glued on the decks of those panels and if you ever see what type of sailing conditions those paddle though sell both go through it's really being a submarine at most of the time during that race they're not under water all the time but they were pretty much under water green water on top of those decks most of the time for not a couple days but nonstop and they've got those sold in solar panels and that's how they recharge their batteries without having to run a generator or their engine which they can't use for propulsion but just to recharge the batteries. So yes they are absolutely waterproof absolutely yes question. Yeah there definitely are so the question was are flexible solar panels more expensive than a rigid and they're short answer is yes it's probably a factor of 2. Factor of 2 yes question in the back. Your. Marriage or. Yeah so the question is a good one there's no such thing as a bad question river that from our childhood and it's true. I really believe it what happens if so my recommendation is to have a dedicated controller for paddle. Unless you have no shading right but if you have shading dedicated controller controller per se is not something that's going to give you monitoring although some of them do like we have a victory on here for example this victory on controller. Can actually be connected via Bluetooth dongle that actually give you what everything is happening yeah this controller but then you have it's a Bluetooth dongle per controller. So you could actually wirelessly monitor this controller but if you have for that you need for wireless controllers and you'll need unfortunately they have no linkage in between all of them so we rarely install it except for the owners to just have one controller one panel for those that have for battle to be kind of silly to go in after after after Bluetooth. And for your question the way we do monitor is we put in what's called the there's different products there's one called I think solar wizard and it's an aggregate device a choke point where all the solar panels come in after the controller so it goes panels to our controller midi controllers down one pipe and that pipe at 1.comes down to a single point and that's a single point is where we installed a shot a shot is a device that is used to measure current and then from there the actor turned going in and out is counted it's like a character it's a little like I. domnitor on for a speedometer right accounts all the times of the wheels turning and then it gives you that number in the moment which is apps and quantity over time which is after hours. So it's a way for you to know what your daily I power is your overall half hour since you've had your rate and what your instantaneous output from the solar panels are at this given moment. Yes. So this is all of us. Rigid panels and ran the nursery. Mr dishes nope that's a really good point. That's true. The rigid solar panels by the register older panels have you need an air gap. For heat dissipation actually need air gap like about 2 inches 3 inches so if you're gonna have rigid solar panels you can actually mount them directly on a roof you need to have a structure. To melt the panels and then you're not the panels on top of that with flexible you can mail them directly that's why they're more expensive you see it's not like a gimmick. The cells are completely different they're meant to actually not hold heat or retain heat like the rigid cells. And you can actually glue them right onto a deck. Without any air cooling because that's why they're flexible they don't need an air gap because otherwise if you need and I had a client to they come sit by boat as all these cross bars on top I want to mount my solar panels on there he's like well I'm making about the flexible I might well make does it make sense to create a structure. About your flexible solar panels unless you care about the wait. Right and if you value money which most people value money more than on other things I might you know I don't think flexible make sense unless your tuna fishing we had a fishing boat off bad feel 40 miles out and you're not under propulsion and you're just fishing a bobbing on the sea yeah if you want a bigger rate you've got an array that's not 50 feet off the deck. Yes it might make sense to not have all that weight aloft because it's going to make your time on that boat very unpleasant and they're out there for 4 days 5 days fishing for tuna so I think I oddly enough was one of those guys that goes out fishing tuna and I was like well in that case then you probably want to go flexible you want to pay for the fabrication because you're gonna say probably 300 pounds off your deck. Other questions yes. Server connetction any sense of the fact. Yeah I mean we you know the days much shorter okay when it's lily the end of the world and what our ancestors wrote no was flawed that event when it happens in BC on a regular basis anywhere between November and October but specifically November and you feel that you're really happy to be on a boat because you could just float away. Your output is probably 50 percent of what it would normally be so if your output and this is the worst case like it's the end of the world if I'm getting a daily I power output of 100 in the summer I'm gonna get about 15 or 20 but this is like no was flood event so that's the worst case and that's only an 8 hour day right. I guess it's all dark till 8 in the morning and it's dark at 430 so it's a very very short day so you get you do get something enough to be top off your batteries and keep the big date but not enough to sustain you know refrigeration heat lights and everything else in the wintertime if you vote in the winter time well we did our boat is we put a methanol fuel cell. As a way to offset our lows in the winter time. Any other questions. If you have further questions and you want 1 on 1 answers I'm gonna be upstairs at my booth 322 thank you for your time.