Yep, regen rarely lives up to its promise. I'll say this again, I have not heard of any verifiable claim of generating more than 100W at 5kts boat speed or less. That's less than 2A at charging voltages for a 48V system.
Depending on where you live and boat, wind also has a difficult time living up to expectations. The typical wind generators create no power under 7 or 8kts wind speed and take about 15kts before they generate any significant power. So anytime your apparent wind drops to about 10kts you're not going to be putting much into your batteries. I've known a few people that have gotten complaints in regular marinas about the noise made by their generators. That said, wind generators can be an effective way to keep a battery system topped up and in some areas can do a decent job charging.
Of the onboard, renewable choices, solar seems to be the most consistant method. Properly sized and placed, a solar array can provide significant power while sailing and may recover a depleted battery bank in a few days of full sun. Solar panels are truly silent and add very little drag, unlike wind or water power alternatives. Some small boats may have a difficult time finding enough room for than 100W of PV panels, other boats have room for much more capability.
Fair winds,
Eric
Marina del Rey, CA
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "vega1184" <vega1184@...> wrote:
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> Is regen that bad, I have similar plan (see other post) but will have limited batteries and wanted to recharge by regen. Would wind gen be better than regen.
>
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