Environment
I guess to some extent, it is an odd situation talking about environmental concerns when you are driving a large power boat. However, we have done some things that can reduce the environmental footprint of the boat and there are also some mitigating factors involved.
First the mitigating factors. Buena Vista will be our home for many months of the year while cruising, therefore any environmental impact must be offset against our current footprint at home. For example, where we live in Victoria, electrical power generation is almost exclusively by brown coal power stations, just about as dirty power as you can get. We are also in a long term drought and water resources are a scarce resource with water storage down to less than 30% of capacity at the time of writing.
Compare this to our new home aboard, we are self contained using diesel power, a much cleaner fuel than brown coal, we make our own water from sea water so we are not a drain on a scarce resource and of course we are not driving our cars. Therefore not everything is negative.
Now for measures we have taken in design to minimize our carbon footprint.
Just over 1kW of solar panels are fitted to the boat's hardtop, providing green energy. These panels will provide base load for the boat including lighting and refrigeration etc and the batteries can mostly be topped up while moving from one anchorage to another, therefore minimizing generator usage.
Many of the light fittings are converted to LED, which use approximately 10% of the energy of the standard halogen lamps. The additional benefit of this conversion is that the LED last at least 10 times their halogen counterparts and so cut down on maintenance.
Cooking is via LPG rather than electric, which also cuts down on generator usage. The exception to this is a convection microwave, which will only be used as a convenience to provide rapid and easy preparation of some foods.
Although fully air conditioned, the interior has been designed to allow free air flow fore and aft and athwartships by making the aft saloon window and the port and starboard windows by the galley, sliding windows with insect screens. These opening windows together with the hatch in the Pilothouse should provide a good usable air flow throughout the boat. To maintain safety, removable storm covers have been added to the opening windows.
Also, as the master stateroom only has opening ports and no opening hatch, a fresh air blower has been added to this area. The above modifications are all to minimise air conditioning use and thus diesel generation.
The boat is fitted with fairly large sized grey and black water holding tanks to support living on the hook for extended periods without discharge into the anchorage.
The port and starboard diesel filling locations are fitted with spillage dams to avoid any overboard discharge if the tank is overfilled or any backpressure during filling.
So while Bueans Vista is no "Toyota Prius", measure have been taken to minimise where possible, our affect on the environment.
|
|