The DuoGen combined water / wind generator produces
enough electricity to run most, if not all, of your
on-board equipment |
FACT: Towing
a water impeller as you sail is the most efficient and
effective way to recharge your yacht's batteries. |
FACT: DuoGen
in water mode produces a steady 8 amps at 6 knots, 11
amps at 7 knots, 16 amps at 8 knots. |
FACT: DuoGen
is easy to deploy, troublefree to run, non-intrusive,
simple to recover. |
The well-equipped cruising yacht incorporates an increasing
range of electrical and electronic equipment designed
to make cruising on board simpler, safer and more enjoyable.
Welcome as these innovations are, they impose increasing
demands for electricity on the ship's batteries. A modern
cruising yacht may well be operating auto pilot, radar,
as well as marine radio, computerised plotting, pressurised
water and navigation lights. None of this equipment is
of any use if the ship's batteries are flat. |
DuoGen in water
mode produces more power to help run your on-board electrical
and electronic equipment as you sail, without the worry
of flat batteries. |
Ideal Renewable Energy Device |
As committed yachtsmen, we at DuoGen are well aware
of this problem, and sought to address it by considering
what constituted the ideal renewable energy device for
use aboard a yacht. Based on extensive discussions with
experienced yachtsmen, a product specification was drawn
up and used as the basis of a development programme which
has led in time to the production of the DuoGen machine.
Many existing systems, promise large electrical outputs
in very high wind speeds. This is of limited use to most
yachtsmen who generally avoid high wind speeds, and do
most of their sailing in more benign Beaufort numbers.
This is when most power is actually consumed aboard a
yacht and, by definition, when most power is required
to replace it. |
Maximise Generation While Cruising |
All yachtsmen, however, already own a large wind machine,
and that is the yacht herself. Whereas a normal micro
turbine, suitable for mounting on a yacht, may intercept
7 - 10 square feet of air stream, the sails of a typical
cruising yacht will intercept many times that figure.
For this reason, the way to maximise generation whilst
cruising is by drawing energy from the yacht's motion
through the water rather than directly from the wind.
This fact has not been entirely lost on the marine industry
and several wind/water combinations are available
They tend to be adaptations of single purpose machines
and are characterised by being problematic to deploy and
recover, and time-consuming to switch from one mode to
another. |
|
DuoGen's water mode in action. Picture of Nimrod during ARC2004, kindly provided by Andy Williams.
|
|
|
