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Our first one thousand miles(+} sailing Yaghan with Valencia as base

 

Since the spring of 2022 we have used most of our spare time to prepare ourselves and Yaghan for new long haul adventures.

We have sailed her, mainly on Costa Azahar, Costa Blanca and around the Balears  for weeksends and a some vacations weeks and after around 1500 NM we start to feel a bit more familiar onboard.

In the meantime we have done some upgrades of equipments onboard:

  • We replace the KVH and the Iridium Pilot satellite systems, with faster Irdium Certus 700, with which have good experience from our previous Atlantic Crossing, on SY Ydalir II.
  • We have very recently installed the maritme version of Elon Musk’s Starlink and are now enjoying internet connections upto 300+ Mbits/s – cursious to see how well in will serve us across the oceans
  • We have replace all 12 and 24 V batteries with faster charging MasterVolt batteries
  • We have serviced engines and winches, got the rigg checked and serviced the lift raft and other safety equiment
  • We changed the VHF to Vesper Cortex, with build in AIS, collision advoidance, anchor watch etc.
  • We got a new, Highfield Ultralight 340 dinghy and the gelcoat is now polsihed and vaxed
  • Last but but not least we found an electrical induction stove fitting the space after the Force 10, with only minor adjustments.

Yagahan’s electrical supply – Change to MasterVolt lithium

Yaghan has three principle electrical systems, two DC 12V and 24 V and AC230V. AC charing of the batteries are either through shore power or via an Onan 18kW generator. While running the main Volvo Penta engine, we also get both 12 and 24 V charging via two alternators.

The main power bank to supply electricity under sail is a 24V battery bank placed under the bed in the master cabin. This was until recently consisting of twelve 950 Ah two-volt cells connected in serious. This system have served previous owners well. We did however build our own experience with lithium batteries when we converted our previous boat, at we got very impressed by the robustness, the computerised monitoring and especially the very fast charing. We therefore decided to make the effort and investment to convert Yaghan to MasterVolt lithium and as we wanted to have the installation made as professional as possible, we agreed with our friend Hans Rutgersson, former CD Bilradio AB in Gothenburg, now MD of HR teknik AB, who have given us so great support in the past, to make the installation. Hans spent a few days onboard in the autumn of 22 to explore and design. We agreed to order six 24V 200Ah batteries for the main power-bank, one 12V 200Ah battery for 12V supply and one 12V lithium start battery. In addition we two 24V 200Ah batteries to be connected in series to supply the bow thruster with 48V and being charged by two DC-DC chargers

In addition we order new alternators, regulators and two MasterVolt Combi Ultra 24/3500, chargers and inverters and an extra separate charger thus permitting as to charge with 300A and giving us 7 kW 230 AC from the inverters.

By pure luck, the size and physical format of one 24V litium batteri was more or less identical to two two-volt cells, which ment that we could very easily fit the and fasten them in the same holders. We reduced the weight of 24V power-bank from 960 kg to 270 kg, ie close to 700 kg less.