Ahoy ! Getting started on Soave’s launch plan. Looking forward to the coming season, I’m prepping for a May 1st launch.
This season I’d like to head out to Greenport, NY for the 2026 INA Rendezvous, so I’m prioritizing comfort and cruising amenities. Having a reliable house bank is on the list. This year’s rendezvous is important because it’s been over a decade since it’s been held on Long Island Sound, home to about 30% Nonsuch boats actively being sailed. It would be shameful for a Nonsuch to miss this event !
Soave -* really *- wants to go to meet up with her old friends in the fleet.
But I digress…
Soave has a 2 yr old start battery and a house bank consisting of 4 - 116 Ah Microcell Carbon Foam ( similar to AGM ) batteries. Big shout out to Google AI, everything I needed to know about my batteries was recalled from a photo of an ID sticker on of the batteries.
Soave’s house bank is 8 years old. MCF batteries are supposed to last about 5-10 years.
I’m weighing the pros and cons of replacing now vs trying to squeak a few more years out of them.
Thoughts ?
My next step is to fully charge them and put a constant load on them and see how rapidly they get drawn down to 75% … then calculate the Ah’s that they provided during the test.
Some math I’ll use 4 ( batteries ) * 116 (Ah capacity ) * 50% ( allowable discharge ) = 232 Ah ( capacity when new ).
I’m thinking if my 25% test comes out to 85 Ah or better I can squeak out another season.
Realistic or wishful thinking ?
I’ve already decided any new house bank will be lithium. So the migration involves more than just new batteries.
Soave presently uses a charging relay, I gather from reading up on Lithium conversions the charging relay would be discarded and replaced with a DC-DC charger and some other stuff (costing about $400). Gary from on Akoki shared info about his conversion that was useful. I’ll get a chance to speak with him on the 28th at the Nonsuch meetup in Norwalk.
I’m redoing the big wire part of our new-to-us N33 #61 Whisker. The old Heart 1600 Inverter/Charger and related variable control regulator don’t work properly, so I’m removing and replacing with a lot of Victron Energy parts. I’ve used Victron before, and their components are really robust.
My pre-purchase surveyor observed that the battery banks were not secured. They are under the starboard quarter berth / nav station seat in an interesting jig saw pattern. 4 x 232Ah 6V GC FLA House and one 12V FLA starter battery. We’re also repowering the boat this winter, and I’ve moved the starter bank to the shelf under the starboard lazarette. Much more direct run for the unfused starter wire, and allows a better way to secure the rest in the quarter berth space. My question is - where is your house bank located, and what does it look like in terms of battery orientation?
Hi Kent,
Soave has a single AGM starter battery. It’s on the shelf under the starboard lazarette.
House bank is under the starboard quarter berth. Whisker’s interior layout must be different than Soave’s. Our aft cabin has a door and our nav station in in the salon.
Kent,
Since you are redoing “big wires”, I thought I’d mention an issue I’m chasing on Soave.
Soave has a self-tailing power winch for hoisting the main halyard and trimming the main. I use it a lot when singlehanded.
My instruments throw “low voltage” warnings occasionally when using the power winch. I’ve gotten quick at clearing the warning but it’s kinda alarming to hear.
I’ve been speculating that two factors may be contributing to the “false low voltage alarms”
Gauge of the wire run to the winch and age of the termination crimps.
Age of my battery bank.
If you have the materials and tools for replacing the other heavy gauge wire maybe also check :
My house bank is on the port side beneath the seat that backs up to the sink. My starting battery is where your house bank seems to be. All are in proper boxes, though it must have taken some jiggling to get the house batteries in there. I haven’t had to replace mine yet, so I can’t actually speak about that from direct experience.
I have an electric halyard winch on the cabintop, but my sheet winch is on the winch pad on the starboard side of the cockpit coaming and it is unpowered. I’ve never had any trouble with my halyard winch pulling too much power until a couple of sails ago when I had a problem and had to raise and lower the sail a few times. (Don’t ask … but make sure you check the work of your crew when prepping the boat to go out!) That time I blew the breaker and had to let the engine charge the batteries back up before I could keep it from breaking again. The reason is that if the battery voltage goes low, the winch motor will pull more current to compensate. Too much current blows the fuse.
But even if you aren’t pulling enough current to blow the fuse, using the power winch for both halyard and sail trimming might be drawing your batteries down quite a bit. And remember that batteries have internal resistance. So pulling high currents from them will momentarily drop the voltage at the battery terminals due to that resistance.
So it could be that your batteries are old. Battery expiration dates tend to be fairly accurate in my experience. Or it may just be that your sail trimming is drawing them down too much and you need to run the engine for a while to make up for it. Frankly, we almost never experience a need for power sail trimming. If it’s too hard a pull, or too long a pull for our tired old arms, I just turn upwind for a moment to take the pressure off and adjust things like that. (I suppose racers would see this differently.)
Rob,
I have a similar electric combo halyard/mainsheet winch in the same place, on the port combing. I have tripped the breaker raising the sail but never with the main sheet. You don’t say how old those Firefly’s are (they look impressive and easy to access ). Do you think the age is the problem or the other factors mentioned? Ps( Sorry I just saw they were 8 years. But these are used by long distance truckers and a sailboat gets far less use. Maybe 8 winters at low charge was the culprit.)
Brian
I have the halyard power winch on the port side cabin top. It’s a So-Pac. Never heard of it. It needs servicing because there is a 1 cm gap between the bottom of the barrel and the base.
During the sea trial, we operated the winch using the switch mounted in the port coaming. The sail put more stress on the halyard about 2/3 of the way to full hoist in a 12 knot wind. The winch stopped.
We discovered a thermal breaker mounted through the starboard quarter berth facing with a little string leading up to the companionway handrail. Sure enough, when you yank the string, the breaker re-sets and the winch operates again until it stops again and you…….and so on until you get to full hoist or give up and use the other cabin top hand crank one.
Pretty sure this is a bit of a MacGyver solution to a problem that needs to be more fully examined! I’m also pretty sure this So-Pac is original equipment and probably is using the welding cable that seems somewhat ubiquitous throughout the vessel high amp circuits.
I’m getting the boat back with it’s new motor later this month and we’re starting the wiring work then. I’ll let you know what we discover!!
