December 05th, 2025

Right across theed of November and the beginning of December has been incredibly busy and a teeny bit stressful for me. I had marked Dec1 on the calendar with Paul Renshaw to fix Pentargons exhaust and turned up on 2nd to find he has a major engine job with no end date to finish before having time for mine.. Against all the odds and in gale force conditions I had taken Pentrargon on Dec1 from Hillmorton to B87 and had my solar panel swept off the roof in a squall but luckily it stayed attached and was retrieved and shipped before I nailed the boat to the armco to await the morrow.  Tues. dawned clear sky and looked like presenting the first real chance I would have since mid October to get some charge into the Sterling LiFePO4. 

Tues 2nd Dec and an early morning sky allowed me to raise the panel and charge the battery. As the day went on the boat was moved progressively to get the best sun and I got an hour on each side on noon when at last the charge reading which had been stuck at 53% since the end of October finally passed 54% and then 55% where it now is. The fine detail is in the ships log for 1st and 2nd Dec.  Basically the Sterling controller has to see in excess of 14.4v before it will begin to bulk the Sterling.  However within seconds of doing that the line voltage will collapse to 12ish and the Sterling controller isolates the Sterling from the boat circuit.  The solar then punches in more wattage the volts climb and on passing 14.4 the controller allows bulking to continue.  And the cycle repeats.  Today there was sufficient continuous sun for the Sterling to get up beyond 54% and now the Sterling is fee​ding the boat to maintain 12.4 in the line.  Subject to continued testing on return in mid December it would appear that the whole system is finally delivering

A clear horizon from dawn useful wattage early on serious wattage later and in the midday hour with a light breeze and a bright sun and the panels vertical the Sterling went from 53% to 55% in an hour whenever the wattage got over 116W. beyond the midday hour the wattage just wasn't there so I moved to Butchers (via swindlers where I enquira battery) and tied up while visiting Renshaw and getting the bad news that he would not be able to take me on for at least ten days.  I was booked to fly to Dublin on 6th back on 10th and Ottilie's birthday party in on 12th so it looks like Pentargon is going to be alone for some time. Also I have ongoing war with Willowtree to get certification for CFS and this is mopping much of my nervous energy. I am writing this in the lounge on Fri5th and will be flying out of Stansted tomorrow evening to stay with Shay/Patricia returning late evening 10th with vacuum plans