These had been on my mind since buying the boat and since Tom had already installed a solar controller - it hadn’t escaped his attention either. The problem was where to fit them - this is a good looking boat.

Tom’s plan was for a small unit at the stern, however, given all the problems with the generator I wanted a more substantial source of power so that wouldn’t work. In the end the easiest option appeared to be to mount them between the cockpit and the mast - on top of the dinghy when it was in it’s ‘passage home’.

The main issue was the lack of any long thin panels from any of the major sources, until we ended up in Budget Marine in St. Thomas. They stocked some panels from a Spanish company, Isofoton, which were exactly the dimensions we needed - it was even earth hour (when you are supposed to switch of lights for an hour to save power, not much of a saving when they use less than a watt).

We bought a pair of 55W panels and set about installing them; although Tom had been considerate enough to buy and install a top end solar controller, he hadn’t cabled it in so a pair of 40ft 6AWG cables were snaked from the batteries to the controller (which was under the aft cabin bed) and then to the cockpit (first picture). Ruth then bonded thick weather-seal to the back of the panels so they could lie on top of the dinghy or the teak deck without any of them coming to harm (2nd picture).

The panels were then joined by hinges with copious quantities of tefgel (steel hinges and aluminium don’t go together well when salt water is around) and nylon insulating washers. The panels were then electrically connected in parallel (3rd picture) to hopefully provide up to 110W of ‘free’ power (3 days work so far).

Another hole was drilled in the boat - always done with much trepidation (4th picture), the waterproof socket mounted and the remainder of the cables joined.

We haven’t yet tried the panels on top of the dinghy, but on the deck (picture 5) on a cloudy day we have managed 2.5 Amps. Woohoo.