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Aglaya – a complex technical system


for Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hans Gerd Dohmen, my dear brother-in-law

The main energy source for the sailor - wind, of course. But if you want to live on a boat, that's obviously not enough. Aglaya has two bathrooms, each with a toilet, shower and washbasin, all cutely small of course. Furthermore a kitchen with a four-flame gas stove with upper and lower heat (very rare on such boats), a sink, a refrigerator, a freezer. And of course a complete water supply system with a total of 8 pumps. And of course a diesel engine.
The stove is supplied with energy by a gas bottle, which is still relatively simple.

Electricity (voltage) comes from the socket - but only if the boat is moored at a jetty that has a power connection - shore power. This supplies the batteries with electricity via a charger, which works very tricky, and charges them.

At the same time it regulates the distribution of the electricity, because there are four additional solar panels attached to the railing, which can be placed so that the sun shines on them. Then they bring up to 13-15 ampere into the boat. There is a starter battery that starts the engine, it is separated from all other consumers. There are also three large batteries for everything else - a total capacity of 670 ampere hours, in a 12-volt system.


The engine is an 86 hp turbo diesel. Pretty big, the boat we sailed across the Atlantic in 20 years ago had a similar engine, but was two metres longer and six tonnes heavier than ours. A lot of power when you have to manoeuvre, that's reassuring.
Of course, there are various navigation instruments, an A.I.S. radar that shows ships nearby, two GPS receivers, depth gauge (echo sounder), log (speed indicator) and much more. All very complex, very tricky.
When you are outside, you can't even go to the garage if there is a problem. Of course there are also shipyards and repair shops, but they are usually far away and you have to try to repair or replace as much as possible yourself.

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