Load Bank?

Pardon the crass commercial message but a large yacht that was fitted with the system in December moored its large tender alongside next to the generator exhaust for over a week (with the generator running) and the engineer reports that there is no soot or staining on the yacht or tender hull. The deck gang is delighted, the engineer is very happy to no longer get blamed for extra hull cleaning work.

Hi,

That's quite believable, after the exhaust has burnt a hole in the tender and it has sunk there will not be anything splashing back on the hull and as all the normal black stuff floats the tender will be under it.

Shhh, don't spoil a good story! When they raised the boat it was spotless around the hole.

Seriously though, we installed a water separator that cools the exhaust nicely so that the overboard is as cool and clean as an alpine breeze in spring. The tender was about 2 feet away, held off by fenders.

And honestly, you cannot smell the exhaust, it really is just warm air. I am sure a visit can be arranged for anyone who would like to experience the pleasure of a clean generator exhaust for themselves.

Marmot

Is there a practical size/technology limitation for smaller gensets, say in the 12 to 20 KW range?

Hi,

Gas or diesel? 12 to 20 is doable but the size of boat they are installed in generally means there is not a lot of volume to work with.

We are in the process of obtaining a small generator to find out what the practical lower size limit is so stay tuned. We would have done this already but people have finally discovered there is a solution to the soot stained paint, stink, and water pollution so we have been very busy.

Gas gensets might allow a much smaller package as the exhaust temperature is normally much higher so regeneration is not a problem. But then, soot isn't a big deal either. An oxidation catalyst can reduce the CO by a large amount if that is the issue and we see there is a need for that in the freshwater houseboat and pontoon boat market.