As part of the camp cruising brief for this project a negotiation with my wife introduced the necessity of having an auxiliary propulsion. Oars alone just were not accepted.

So to that end I purchased an ePropultion electric outboard with a 1275 W 45V lithium ion battery. On our maiden voyage through Howe Sound last year we quickly saw that 2-3 hours was pretty useful but recharging takes 4-5 hours and it was not easily found in marine camp sites. So in the interest of creating more sustainable autonomy I started looking into solar panels. With help of my friend Justin at Grin Technologies, I’m I was able to come up with a 200W panel being a good fit. The battery could be fully charged in six hours and if charging at the same time as running would effectively double the range.

The idea is to create a solar platform on my inflatable paddle board and tow it behind the boat when running in calm weather. It will guarantee shade free space which is hard to do on the boat with the sails up. Another option is to create a boom canopy that can hold them which is more suited to when the boat is at anchor.

On a cloudy day with two pairs of 50W panels wired in parallel and then in series, it registered 46V and 0.1 Amps. I’ll try again with some real sunshine to charge the battery from the MPPT. The proof of concept is exciting.

The nice thing is choosing the smaller semi-flexible 50W panels means I can store them aboard relatively easily and they will fit either lengthwise or width-wise on the paddleboard. All the MC4 connectors are waterproof and the panels are sealed so they should survive mild splashing if I regularly rince them off after a trip.