Beginning my solo sail of 900 nm back from the Azores. I describe the fuel cell that is installed on my boat. In the category 'continuous learning', I admit ...

Closed Captions (CC):
hello again well I'm underway I'm

heading back toward the console

so this island that you see over here is

in the Azores it's called Sami gal and

the far horizon there that I left about

an hour ago was still just turning dawn

that is punta delgada a wonderful little

harbour in the great little city I had a

great time here a few days

rested relaxed and I'm heading out

Motors motor sailing so I've got that

when I grown wild as the French say the

remain solos up

there's not a huge amount of wind it's

probably about 10 knots so I put the

motor on but when I get up around that

point there there's an island there

when I get around that point there the

wind is supposed to be 17 knots so I'll

turn the engine off and put out

Genoa as well and I'm on my way back to

the the the destination that supposed is

bureaus in Spain it's a distance of

about eight hundred and twenty six

nautical miles but I'll probably do

closer to 900 because I have to go north

to because of the wind and

hopefully in six and a half days I will

be arriving in Euros so I'll give you

updates along the way as we head out

that direction sailors say there's a

concern about two things the wind and

energy my boat for the batteries you

don't want to be running your engine all

the time it's noisy there's diesel fumes

and use diesel by the way as you're

doing that so people don't like to do

that so what I have in mind my boat is a

fuel cell somehow are this magic

chemistry methane methanol gets

converted into energy and the waste

product is water so no problem at all

it's it's a device it's called an Evo I

comfort 140 and I'm not there it's an e

for a comfort one 140 now what you set

it up is you can you can set the voltage

that you want but Leno normally the

voltage of my boat when I'm starting in

and get going

oh it's twelve nine or 13 volts and then

during the day it runs all the way down

when it gets down to about twelve point

two volts or four point three bullets

the Evo turns on and it recharges the

battery indeed pumps in about five point

six amps and it recharges it and gets

going back again

in the 140s stands for 140 amp hour so

that that's what it can put into it and

that's exactly what I've done today you

can see what as yeah I'm sure that you

can't read this here but this is saying

is it and it's recharging the battery

now which is down about 12 point 5 volts

it had fallen down to 12 point 2 and

it's putting in 5.3 amps to recharge it

so and and it's increasing as it's going

back up so that's how I have energy and

allows me to run the refrigerator on the

boat all the time and the power for the

lighting and the autopilot is very very

important and so if you're running your

main plotter and navigation system

please I got both should use a lot of

energy so you this is what I was saying

is it everyone monitors that very

closely you conserve energy as much as

you can and then you have a clever

device like my fuel cell let me take

advantage of it so that's how I run

energy on the boat

you

well hello you're coming up the end of

the first day of sailing out of the

Azores back heading back towards Spain

and then eventually France and this

first day of sailing has been absolutely

perfect I mean it was great as soon as I

turned around the end of the island

I got a nice breeze of 16 to 20 knots

all afternoon Sun even came out I got a

bit of Sun Tanning in and we were just

flying along six and a half to seven and

a half knots for the last eight hours so

though it was just just perfect the

clouds have come in a little bit now and

the wind is just within the last half

hour his guide a bit but let's just see

what we're doing here so we're still

doing 6.2 knots I got 15 knots of wind

that's what called a beam reach no it's

a it's almost directly to the beam in

Aviv me

the wind with the first day out I've

gotten six or seven days of sailing

ahead of me and I gotta get back in one

piece after some damage that I've heard

on the way here and I even learned some

things this time

when I first put the sail out this

afternoon the rear edge of the sail of

the main soul which is called the leech

was flapping just violently back and

forth about about that far really really

hard and I said you know it's never

gonna survive that so I have to do

something well there is a tension lining

that tensioner

my and that causes tension in the in the

in the rear edge of the of the of the

sail but I had already he can't Eakins

that's what this means I have already

put in two reefs so I've got Theresa

animal how do you tension the line once

you got in the reef and so I learned

something about my sail today that I

never knew and it's right there if you

see white plastic thing there's another

one up there higher for the third reef

[Music]

the the trickling edge that sail is just

sitting there perfect you know I was so

happy with that because I was afraid I

was gonna damage the sail on my very

first day out and I got a long ways to

go so great day of sailing the the I've

lost the son looks like I made me a

little rain tonight on the a is there is

upside and I haven't seen since I left

the island not another boat got another

sailboat not another commercial vessel

vessel and no snow fisherman so alone

again naturally so let's hope it's a

quiet uneventful night I'm doing six

knots that's wonderful with the two

reefs in and I've eased the boom way out

so the the equipment isn't under any

stress we'll just do this I'm trying to

- as far as I can North because the wind

is gonna veer to the north and then it's

going to be difficult to go go north so

I'm trying to get as far north as I can

before it does that while it's easy to

do that and

let's hope that all works out so it

looks like it's going to be a quiet

uneventful night I

you