Penalty Shoot Out!

Most of us cruise for pleasure and, where possible, make our passages when conditions are favourable, that is, in moderate winds, preferably on or abaft the beam.
With 15 knots of wind set fair for a fast downwind passage, a wind generator of around 1 metre diameter will be producing some 3-4 amps as you remove the sail covers ready for departure.
As the yacht settles on her course at 5-6 knots, the apparent wind across the deck drops to under 10 knots, and you will be lucky to see 1 amp from your wind generator.
At the same time, with the yacht's VHF, autohelm, radar and instruments operating, lots of power is being drawn from the battery bank.

This is where DuoGen scores

Deployed in wind mode in harbour, you get 4-5 amps of charging power in 15 knots of breeze, plus the benefits of slow speed, quiet operation, self furling and minimal weight aloft.
As you ready the yacht for sea, it is a 60 second job to change DuoGen from a wind generator to a water generator, and to deploy it.
As the yacht settles on her course you see the difference.
At 5 knots boat speed DuoGen produces a steady 6 amps. At 6 knots this rises to 8 amps, and if you can coax the log up to 7 knots you will see nearly 12 amps from DuoGen.

GOAL!

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DuoGen vs Towed Impellers

Did you see a copy of the July edition of Yachting World magazine? There was a report of a survey carried out with participants in the ARC 2001.
Skippers were asked to rate on-board equipment from 0-10 in five categories, reliability, value for money etc.
We were particularly interested in the section on water impellers, the heavy impeller on 100ft of rope variety. It seems that these are not widely used in spite of being a good way to generate lots of energy.
Problems raised by users and non-users ranged from the rope knotting up , the impeller jumping out of the water, the cost of drag, inadequate generation on larger yachts, through to the impeller being eaten by a shark!

None of these problems arise if you use
DuoGen water mode.

There is no long tow rope, deployment is quick and easy, the impeller operates in the same wave as your boat, drag is 30% lower, amp for amp, and DuoGen carries on generating at higher boat speeds.
We have set out to solve the problems inherent in towed impellers. The comments by users in this survey point out the very problems we identified, and we welcome the opportunity to re-state the benefits of DuoGen.
For a fuller report, please visit our web-site.

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PRIZE DRAW

Tell us what you think about DuoGen and you could win a
KESTREL 1000 HAND HELD ANEMOMETER
worth £80!
Just fill in the multiple choice questionnaire on our web site and your name will go into a draw to win this useful and compact piece of kit.
The draw will take place on 31st July.

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