Yachting World - July 2018

85

For the first ten days the solar panel was able

to daily recharge our batteries enough to power

the solenoid valves installed on the gas stove

and the electric water pump to transfer water

from the tank to bottles every day.

But by day 18 of our crossing, the solar panel

couldn’t squeeze any more power into our

batteries, probably because of the progressive

decay of the batteries. So during the last couple

of days we used a small camping gas stove to

cook and manually pumped water out of the

tank to fill the bottles.

The YB Tracker had its own battery so

families and friends were able to monitor our

progress. The tracker also allowed us to send

and receive short messages to stay in touch on

a daily basis. And, thanks to a small USB solar

charger, we were also able to regularly recharge

our smartphones, tablets, and an mp3 player

for music.

With all these small workarounds in place we

safely landed in St Lucia on 5 December after

20 days at sea, proud of having completed a

transatlantic crossing the ‘old-fashioned’ way.

Seraphina’s route was mapped on the YB Tracker –
the team finished 4th in their division

Crossing the ‘old-fashioned way’, using a

compass and paper charts

Arriving safely in St Lucia

An LED

masthead tricolour

light will draw as

little as 0.3A, but an

incandescent 25W

bulb would

draw around

2A (at 12.5V)