Canadian Boating May 2024 - 30

Figure 6: Two new Epoch lithium batteries.
Figure 7: Victron Cerbo touch screen.
Figure 8: Glass Helm station.
NAVIGATION ELECTRONICS
The Lagoon comes with what I would
call a glass helm station. It consists of a
Raymarine I70S networked display (with
multiple pages of available data such as
wind speed and direction, heading, waypoint
information), Raymarine Axiom Pro
12 Multi- Function Display (with radar),
and a P70S auto pilot control head. If you
look closely you can see the chart shows
the vessel tied up in Port Credit Harbour
Marina. You can also see the two Yanmar
displays for the two engines in the " glass
Helm station " shown in figure 8.
Located below the glass helm is another
compact but powerful unit. It is the wired
handset for the Garmin Vesper Cortex V1
hub VHF radio with AIS transponder and
remote vessel monitoring.
The handset offers single hand operation
with touchscreen, thumb wheel and
a few buttons. The Cortex unit has a
built-in AIS transponder to allow you to
see nearby vessels and them to see you.
Radioing vessels in a crossing situation
has never been easier; just tap the vessel's
icon on the touch screen. Applications
running in the Cortex system controller
allow the owner to monitor boat systems,
receive alerts (such as anchor watch) and
remotely control connected devices from
their smartphone. NMEA 2000 connectivity
is included allowing vessel data
to be shared among devices such as the
Raymarine MFD. Additional wired or
wireless handsets can be added for use
at other locations such as the internal nav
station. See figure 9.
Figure 9: Vesper Cortex handset.
THE RESULTS AFTER CRUISING
SOUTH
We contacted the owner in early April
2024 to ask how his project has gone.
The response was that they are happy
with the results. It's cost a little bit more
than he expected. In fact, it was about
equal to putting in a generator but in the
long run he feels it will be less expensive.
Backups and redundancy are always a
smart idea and they carry a little Honda
2,000 watt generator that they can fire
up to top up the batteries as needed.
Recharging the batteries at a marina can
be quite costly because they charge shore
power by the kilowatt. As a side note,
on many Caribbean islands, electricity is
produced by diesel powered generators so
that electricity is by no means 'green'. No
30 CANADIAN BOATING | MAY 2024
wonder it's expensive.
The owners also shared that overall, the
system is still being optimized with the
help of online service connections. They
recently added Starlink to the boat allowing
them to monitor it wherever it is. They
run 24/7 connections and that gives them
depth, wind information, security camera
connections and more.
They were planning to finish their
cruise in mid-April, returning to Georgian
Bay where they will be focusing on the
Parry Sound area to Killarney and then
the North Channel this summer.
OVERALL
Overall, the owners would certainly
recommend this solar system upgrade to
other people but for this first installation,
they wound up using several different
suppliers and working with many different
people because they wanted the latest
systems. For example, the batteries came
from the United States, the air conditioning
system was from Italy and the bifacial
solar panels came from France. By
the way, those bifacial panels look very
nice and people often comment on their
appearance. The big benefit is that they
also get 25 to 30% more power. They
learned a lot by being part of a Lagoon
owners group.
The practical benefit of having this solar
power system is that you sleep a lot better
when there's no generator running at
night. They also have some great luxuries
onboard such as a 50-inch plasma television
as good as home. The owner points
out that it's like being at home although
for obvious reasons they conserve energy
where they can.
They really enjoy the boat and they're
very happy with the solar power system.
However, they make the point that this
should be available as a factory option.
Whether you want it or not, the boat
comes equipped with old technology and
they had to remove that equipment and
discard it to be replaced with the newer
equipment - something the factory should
consider when building their option list.
Canadian Boating May 2024

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