In a message dated 3/17/05 12:01:22 AM, Tom Egan writes: << Has anyone used a wind powered gen on a trawler? I was thinking about trying it if I could find a small one. My thought was to mount it so it would be removable and used only during windy periods when at anchor. I have seen some that are small enough that would not look silly on a power boat. Any thoughts or comments? >> Tom, How much power are you planning to generate? The power output of a well designed wind generator is proportional to the swept area of the blades and to the cube of the wind speed. To generate an appreciable amount of power the average wind speed should be higher than 10 to 15 kts, preferably in the 20 kt. range. The blade diameter should be at least 6 ft. to generate 200 to 300 watts of power. If you want a reliable kilowatt in less than gale conditions, you better plan on a 10 to 12 ft. diameter blade. That's a lot of wind generator for a trawler. We had a small sized wind generator with a 2 1/2 ft. blade diameter on our sa ilboat to keep the battery charge up during long periods of sailing. I would estimate that the average generated power was less than 50 watts. Eventually we got tired of the complexity and the noise and replaced it with a solar panel. The trade off is that the wind generator will produce power at night and in cloudy weather, the solar panel will produce power in the daytime and in calm wind conditions. Larry Z