Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Solar setup on boat

I'll probably add a solar setup this year and take advantage of the federal tax credit on the total cost. It will likely consist of Davits (a rear platform to mount the panels), 600W of Solbian high efficiency solar panels on the davits, Victron Multiplus hybrid invertor/charger, Victron MPP solar controllers and 800aH of lithium batteries also by Victron likely. Looking for someone to do the work now. I'll likely look at someone in Annapolis. By putting it all in at once, that gets me the credit against all that work is the plan.

Boat insurance dropped price beside of new marina

I had to add the Liberty Marina so my boat insurance to rent the slip. My boat was previously registered with BoatUS (GEICO basically) as located at the broker (Riverside Marina in Riverside, NJ). Happily, my premium dropped 300 dollars when I did this so basically it's 1500 a year right now.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Secured a slip close to office for first year

I've arranged an all year slip for the boat at Liberty Marina in Jersey City. It's right beside my office and I can keep the boat in the water all year round, they run bubblers in the winter. I'm having a Webasto 5.5kw diesel heater installed on the boat in preparation for the NJ/NY winters. Thats a 18k BTU unit with 6 outlets so it should be enough. The slip was basically 12k a year with direct billed electricity on top. Sewage is free and water is free. I'm planning on staying quite a bit on the boat which will help shorten my commute enormously, 15 minutes rather than an hour or more some times. Plus, I can go for runs around Liberty state park so I'm looking forward to using that time saved to run more. The slip includes two parking passes also so I can park my truck there year round while living aboard the boat.
Right now, the boat is having some equipment including the Webasto installed and should be delivered to the marina during the latter half of April.
This will allow me to get a lot more use out of the boat. I can use it like an apartment as well as go sailing after work during the summer evenings/weekends as well as fall/winter weekends also.