I would have never guessed that power would be so complex.  Oh yes, everyone says electrical work is simple if you know the basic principles.  What they fail to say is that electrical systems on boats are complex and confusing.  First, I'll start by saying that inverters, chargers, solar, wind, gensets and alternators must live in harmony with each other.  Don't plan on going for a long weekend cruise, Ha Ha, Transpac or Pac Cup without the proper set up.  That said, Vitesse was not equipped with an inverter, which meant no AC power while away from the dock.  This gets pretty annoying when you go for a cruise and cannot charge a phone or brew some coffee.

I opted for a Magnum 2000w prosine inverter with a 100amp charger.  This type of combo gives me a lot better charging capability than my previous 40amp Dolphin charger, while also providing me with 2000w of sine wave AC power.  Sine wave is important if you plan to run sensitive electronics (eg; microwave) or attempt to recharge a cordless hand tool.  The wattage is important if you have a small microwave and coffee maker.  Both draw a tremendous amount of wattage (eg; most coffee makers are 1000w).  You can also opt for a modified sine wave inverter, which is less expensive and would work perfectly fine for everything but running the microwave or charging the cordless hand tools.  Laptops have a small brick in their power cord which handles any hiccups in power consumption.

Also changed was my battery bank.  I thought long and hard about making the investment to go with AGM batteries, but the small added benefits over wet cell could not justify the 3x cost delta.  I chose to use 3 sets of 6v wet cell batteries for my house bank, with a separate cranking battery for engine starts.  Two 6volt batteries are connected to each other using a 2/0 wire connected from the (+) positive terminal on one battery to the (-) negative terminal on the other.  This creates a 12v battery.  The benefit is a high amount of Amp Hours (230ah from each 12v), and a very forgiving battery in terms of discharging/recharging cycles.  The wet cells require periodic maintenance, and can boil if over charged.  However, I've also opted for a Balmar Digital Duo-Charger, which is a small device that ensures your big house bank is charged properly, while not over or under charging the separate cranking battery.  Confused yet?  Well, basically, I have three 12v house batteries, which will be discharged/recharged more often than my cranking battery.  It's important to have a device that will ensure these different battery types are charging properly.  Oddly enough, batteries of varying sizes charged together will kind of clone eachother, meaning you don't want to add new batteries to existing house batteries, or add a new set of house batteries that are charged all together.  The new batteries will mimic the old, thus losing critical Amp Hrs.

Also very important was the addition of a battery monitor.  Given that I have a house bank and a separate cranking battery, I opted for a Xantrex Link 20 monitor.  This allows me to monitor both house and cranking separately.  If your boat has the old analog gauge, you'll love this device.  It shows voltage, amps, amp hrs and time.  This is especially important, as you never want to run a battery bank past 50%.  ie; a 100ah battery will only give you 50ah of use before you have to recharge it.  When you see the voltage reach 10.5volts, you really need to get the charge on.  Another key point is that a battery will recharge from 50%-85% very rapidly, but will then struggle to get from 85%-100%.  The Link monitor provides you with all of this info.  Additionally, you can also opt for the Link2000i, which provides even more info, including monitoring your alternator.

Alternators are also key components of the system.  If you own a genset, then you won't struggle to recharge your house bank.  However, if you don't have one, then you'll need a way to get several hundred amps bank into your house bank.  The problem is how.  Most production boats come with basic alternators ranging from 40-100amps.  Vitesse came with a 60amp alternator, which is decent, but not capable of efficiently recharging a 960ah (345ah usable) bank in a reasonable amount of time.  ie; you don't want to run a diesel for 6 hrs just to recharge your bank.  Given the belts and pulleys on my engine, I can opt for a Balmar 80amp, but I'm not sure that it's worth the expense for another 20amps.  I really need closer to a 150amp alternator, but that would require dual belts, different pulleys, etc.  I decided to use our trip from SF to San Diego to determine what we can expect from the existing 60amp.  If it really struggles, I'll replace it while in San Diego.

Given what I stated above, I had to consider alternatives.  The first consideration was solar.  However, after much discussion, I realized this is a good option for a full time cruiser that may spend days on the hook.  The most common panel is around 85w, but they are big, ugly and only efficient in prime conditions.  This option may put out 8amps/hour back into the bank, which is no where near enough.  Wind is also an option, but again, I think this is best suited for the full time cruiser.  Both solar and wind are just not that great for events like the Ha Ha.  Ie; if you don't already have them, then think twice about spending the money just to use them for this type of event.  If you plan to keep going South after the Ha Ha, then by all means one or both of these will prove valuable as you travel around.  The genset is another option, but I'm pretty limited on space, and again, I couldn't justify spending $5,000 on something I'd use for the Ha Ha.  Now if we end up doing the 2010 Pac Cup, then I will likely opt for a small genset, if I can find a place to install it.

What I decided to do was bring along a small Honda 2000w portable generator which can be connected to the shore power socket to produce ~13amps of AC power, which will run my 100amp charger.  I figure the charger will put 85amps / hour back into the bank, which means we can run the alternator for a couple of hours prior to arriving at anchorage.  We'll then run the ultra quiet (don't disturb others in the anchorage) generator for about 3 hrs to get the batteries fully charged up.  It's important to note that anyone opting for this kind of solution should never run a generator below decks.  It must be run on deck so it ventilates properly.   Also be very careful with the gas.  I plan to stow both in the deep well transom lazarette.