Our solar panel installation is now done, and we are (semi) officially off-the-grid so that we can flush out any electrical system problems prior to departure.

I had some concerns about the solar, as I wasn't a huge fan of the idea of more stuff hanging on the back of the boat, but once it was all hooked up I was an immediate convert.

Especially now that we are counting amp hours, it's amazing to watch power flowing back in, I can tell that I am going to be obsessively checking the amp meter. Right now we're getting 3 amps in (not enough to cover this computer usage, but hey... :).

We purchased our setup through Wholesale Solar. They were good to work with, and I would definitely go with them again.

We went with a single Kyocera KC65T and a Morningstar ProStar 15M Charge Controller. Both seem to be very well built, and installation was straightforward.

As you can see from the picture, we currently have the panel mounted on our radar arch cross-bar, with the ability to tilt fore and aft. Eventually I would like to add an additional panel, and set them up on the port side arch post (opposite the radar) with a setup similar to Atom's solar tracker.

That however, will have to wait, because now I need to turn my attention to some other projects.