What this covers
On today's Dock Talk, Jeff is spending some time with a gentleman who had a huge impact on his life, Nigel Calder. An author, off-shore sailor and all-around marine systems guru. In this two-part series, Jeff and Nigel discuss lithium batteries, grounding systems, lightning strikes, high output alternators, a new solar panel and an exciting new development in lead-acid battery technology.
As well, Nigel is introducing his new Boat How To course designed to teach boaters how to be self-reliant on the water and save money fixing things yourself. https://boathowto.com/#aff=pysystems
Also available on Anchor by Spotify https://anchor.fm/pacific-yacht-systems/episodes/Dock-Talk-with-Jeff-Cote-and-Nigel-Calder---Part-1-of-2-e13hmuo
www.lithionicsbattery.com www.oceanplanetenergy.com www.wakespeed.com www.solbian.eu/en/ www.abycinc.org www.nmea.org www.pysystems.ca
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Nigel Calder argues that marine electrical systems require knowledge and practices beyond minimum safety standards to ensure reliability and prevent catastrophic failures that discourage boat owners from cruising, and that proper design, installation, and component selection are foundational to sustainable boating.
- ABYC standards establish only safety minimums (fire, electrocution, corrosion prevention), not reliability or practicality—many critical practices like drip loops and positive bus protection fall outside standards
- High-power alternators and lithium batteries together create new failure modes (thermal runaway, unwanted fire suppression triggers, temperature sensor misplacement) that the industry hasn't yet standardized
- Most boat owners quit cruising due to electrical system failures, not cost or time—reliability directly enables the sustained confidence needed for long-term cruising dreams
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The ABYC (American Boat and Yacht Council) is focused exclusively on safety—specifically preventing boat fires, electrocution on AC systems, and sinking from catastrophic corrosion—and therefore many critical reliability and practicality practices that prevent system failures fall outside ABYC standards because they are not directly related to safety, such as drip loops on connections or booting positive DC connections.
“abyc is focused on safety it's not focused on practicality so there are things that we all should be doing like putting drip loops in front of connections on our wiring so if there's any moisture it drips off that's not a safety issue so it doesn't work its way into the abyc standards so that's why they are a minimum they're basically designed to make sure that the boat doesn't catch fire we don't electrocute somebody on the ac side or we don't sink it from catastrophic corrosion but there's a whole ton of stuff we need to do and know that goes beyond the standards so it's not in the standards because it's not directly related to safety”
ABYC participation has grown from approximately six people in the early meetings to over 40 at every meeting in recent decades, with engineers who check their company affiliations at the door and focus on technical issues rather than corporate interests, making it a remarkably collaborative organization focused on safety.
“when i first went there were maybe six people in the room uh and then uh for a decade or more now we've had over 40 at every meeting we've had so it's grown um very rapidly in terms of participation and they're mostly there are engineers in the room so and uh they check their company affiliation at the door some issue comes up and before you know it they're all focused on the issue rather than thinking about where would my company be on this issue so it's a really uh it's a great organization um that's really focused on safety and there's almost no um marketing or company pressure that that shows up in any of those meetings which is pretty remarkable”
Without low-RPM ramp-up capability, a 200-amp alternator that requires 2,000-3,000 RPM to reach full output effectively produces only 100 amps at anchor when idling at low RPM, making the high output spec meaningless for practical cruising applications
“well especially if we're battery charging at anchor uh because if you've got to run the engine you know two and three thousand rpm to get the alternator to wide open to a full output you're not going to do it so what you thought was a 200 amp alternator is really 100 amps yeah um so that that is is a really critical feature is getting it to ramp up the output at low rpms”
Lithium-ion battery management systems (BMS) will disconnect the battery if they detect a condition threatening the battery, and if this occurs with a navigation battery during a difficult reef entry, the boat loses all electrical systems at a critical moment, creating a serious safety hazard.
“coming back to the business of suddenly losing power this is really germaine at the minute with lithium-ion batteries because you know every lithium-ion battery has a battery management system and if their battery minus management system sees some condition arising that threatens the battery it disconnects the battery well if that's your your navigation battery and you're going through some difficult reef entry and all of a sudden all of your system shut down because the battery decided there was something going on it didn't light you're in serious trouble”
The lead acid battery industry is investing millions in research to improve AGM batteries using advanced tools like Argonne National Lab's physics-level observation of battery chemistry in real-time while operating, enabling design improvements that past empirical approaches couldn't achieve.
“the lead industry is pumping millions and millions of dollars into research to improve agm batteries um to make them competitive with lithium ion and they actually now have the capability of the argonne national lab in the usa one of these federally funded labs where they can they can watch what's going on inside a battery at fundamental levels of physics and chemistry while the battery is in operation so all um development in the past has been empirical you change something the electrolyte or the blade and then you test it and see what happens but now they can see in real time what's going on inside the battery”
Calder wants lithium-ion batteries with a UL 1973 sticker indicating they have passed the most aggressive abuse testing standard in the marine marketplace, ensuring they won't go up in smoke even if pushed to their published limits or if stupidly operated.
“the other thing i want with my lithium-ion batteries is a sticker on the battery that says it's tested to ul 1973. that's the most aggressive abuse testing standard in the marketplace in the marine marketplace at least and it means so whatever i do stupid and i do do stupid things like everybody else plus i i push these these systems to their published limits just to see what happens i mean it's part of what i do for a living uh but with lithium-ion if you get it wrong it's likely to go up in smoke and you lose the boat so with that ul 1973 sticker on the battery you can be pretty certain that there's just about nothing stupid you can do that's going to cause that battery to catch firing”
Temperature sensors on batteries are frequently installed incorrectly: taped to the top instead of bolted to the post, placed only partway down the side, or not bolted to any connection, all of which measure air temperature rather than actual battery temperature due to insulation from an air pocket at the battery top.
“temperature sensors i see them taped on the top of the battery every time they i if you bolt them to the post that's one thing and they should be bolted to the negative post because that's the one that gets the most heat but uh positive post is okay but if they're not bolted to the post they've got to be at least halfway down the side of the battery because otherwise they're not working because there's an air pocket in the top of the battery that acts as an insulator and i see it over and over again on brand new boats they've all attached sensors in the wrong place”
If a fire suppression system is dry powder (cheaper initially), triggering it destroys the engine because powder clogs the air intake; if it's a gas system (more expensive), it's less destructive—but many boats use dry powder and the cost of engine replacement (far exceeding the initial savings) makes this decision making catastrophically wrong.
“if it's a dry powder system it will destroy the engine yeah because the air intake yep if so so the other thing we need to do first of all we need to move those sensors to where they're not anywhere near to the alternator and secondly we need to make sure that the boat owners are using uh gas cylinders and not dry powder and typically they like the dry powder because it's a bit cheaper but it's so wow a lot more expensive if it destroys the engine”
A single stainless steel washer with only 8% the conductivity of copper, left between a fuse and cable lug, acts as a resistor that heats up enough to melt a fuse even without any overcurrent situation, causing failures that were blamed on the alternator rather than the installation detail.
“we discover some tiny little thing like we put an a l fuse in there with uh which has got stainless steel bolts to hold things together and one of the washers finds its way between the cable lug and the fuel you're done stainless steel washer it acts like a little resistor it gets hot enough to where it melts the fuse even though there's no over current situation 100 alternator and it blows the ultimate time testify did it uh one of my first jobs uh i literally did it 100 i remember literally the fuse holder melted melted because that mountain it was a game changer”
Nigel Calder developed an integral alternator system with an 8-kilowatt output that can put enough energy into a battery bank during 30 minutes of engine run time (at anchor or leaving dock) to power the boat for 24 hours, eliminating the need for constant worry about state of charge.
“in our case you know we developed that integral system uh alternator that puts out eight kilowatts yeah i saw that i need a battery bank that will absorb eight kilowatts of charging power and on our boat because we don't have air conditioning uh but we don't have you know fridge and freezer and microwave and all kinds of bits and pieces uh but in uh on half an hour of engine run time when we're pulling up the anchor to get out of an anchorage or we're leaving the dock in the time it takes us to do that we can put enough energy in that battery bank with that integral alternator to run the boat for 24 hours”
A draft ABYC standard for lithium-ion batteries, developed over five years, requires that battery management systems provide an external message before disconnecting, which immediately disqualifies all 'drop-in lithium-ion battery' products from the market because they lack the ability to communicate.
“one of the things we've just written into a draft abyc standard we've been working on this damn thing for five years um because this is this is uh difficult and controversial but one of the things we wrote in there is that these bms's have to provide an external message before they disconnect and that immediately gets rid of all of those people advertising drop-in lithium-ion batteries because they don't have the ability to communicate if they're going to disconnect uh so many of those batteries that we're currently fitting into our boats but don't will not comply with that it's a technical information built in rather than a standard but they won't comply with that when it comes out”
Calder continued Firefly testing for 3-4 months at a time, then fully discharged batteries to 35% and let them sit for eight months without charging, then returned them to normal charge cycling and they recovered to 100% capacity, demonstrating extreme durability under abuse conditions.
“and then i took the batteries and i discharged them down to 35 percent state of charge and i let them sit for eight months so and now i put them back on a normal charge cycle they came back to 100 state of charge and then the next year i get a whole bunch of pretty aggressive and brutal treatment on them i didn't break a single one of those batteries”
UL 1973 testing requires the battery management system to have redundant capability to handle a single fault within itself, and this testing is very expensive, which is why few batteries on the market have UL 1973 certification.
“they take the bms and uh they introduce a fault to it and it has to have a redundant capability so it can handle a single fault within the battery management system so and of course this all drives the cost of the batteries up and it makes them expensive but on the other hand what's peace of mind was yeah that's a challenge you know i see it all the day and you know it's funny people are buying... there's not many batteries have it because the testing is very expensive”
There are only two or three schools in the entire United States with year-long courses in marine electrical systems, and outside of those schools, the ABYC runs classes but focuses on safety rather than practicality, leaving a massive gap in marine industry education.
“there's no one place to learn this stuff in the marine industry there's maybe two or three schools in the whole of the u.s that have year-long courses and outside of that the abyc runs classes but abyc is focused on safety it's not focused on practicality”
The fuse holder design is inherently problematic because users don't read manuals—they simply pull out the fuse sideways and a washer falls in; requiring users to read documentation is unrealistic, so the design should prevent the mistake entirely.
“it the fuse holder effectively is a bad design because to have some no one is going to read a manual to put in a fuse i mean people don't even read a manual put an inverter there's no way they're going to read a fuse manual and uh they just make the mistakes the mistakes are bound to happen absolutely bound to happen”
Many sailboats don't have generators due to space constraints, and some catamarans increasingly have generators, but the real solution is improving alternators since most boats only have one engine and no room for additional generation systems.
“you know from a cost perspective i could afford a generator on my own boat and i would do one but where am i to put it there's just no place you know i'm going to give up such a huge amount of space and it's going to be impossible with service and so a lot of boaters are stuck with basically one engine and that's it and it's not a money thing it's just there's no other place and so i think the play is well what can we do with alternators”
You can't have both maximum technology benefits and simplicity in marine electrical systems—choosing higher power systems and advanced features inherently trades off simplicity for capability, and boat owners need to accept this trade-off consciously.
“you can't have it both ways you can't have all the benefits of technology and have simplicity you know you you're going to trade off like complexity for more benefit and that's why i tell people with lithium i'm like are do you need it or do you want it yeah like are you do you need a computer on top of your batteries what's the reason why you need that level”
Lithium batteries have no charge acceptance curve like lead-acid batteries do, so charging devices run at full output for extended periods (hours) rather than tapering down as the battery fills, which creates cable sizing and heat issues.
“because we've got lithium-ion batteries on the boat they don't have that charge acceptance curve that that acid batteries have so so then the uh the charging device is running flat out for maybe an hour or two”
Calder discovered a harmonic vibration phenomenon that could break automotive timing belts (used because they're very rugged) in four minutes, which the manufacturer had to spend significant money to solve—it was unique to his boat and specific speeds/resonance characteristics.
“there was one point with that testing where i'm where i discovered a means to create something called a harmonic vibration and i could break a belt in four minutes you know these are these are timing belts rip timing belts off a car that we were using because they're very roust and i could make this belt go totally crazy and break a belt in four minutes so so then uh the uh the manufacturer had to spend a ton of money fingering and figuring out how this was happening nobody else could do it it was it was unique to our boat and certain speeds and and resonant features and they figured it out and got to a point where i couldn't do it anymore”
Calder discovered a critical failure mode during testing: opening circuit the batteries (simulating a catastrophic disconnect) immediately smokes an alternator and blows diodes, but the integral system's controller reacted so quickly with dump load capability that it shut the system down without damage.
“one of the tests i i did was to run the thing up to eight kilowatts and open circuit the batteries to see what would happen you know with an option immediately smoke the alternator you blow all the diodes yeah that's what i heard our controller reacted so fast and it had such a decent dump capability that shut the system down without any damage oh wow that quick yep”
Firefly batteries require a minimum 0.2C charge rate (ideally 0.4C), and achieving 0.2C requires high-powered alternators that most boats lack—another reason high-output alternators are critical for lead-acid battery optimization.
“one of the challenges of course is that minimum point two c that they want as a charger which is actually one point four well now yeah ideally they want point four minimum is point two point four is almost impossible to give in most not if you have uh one of these super high powered alternators i mean that's another reason for you know putting all these pieces together as a package”
Lithium batteries have dramatically higher energy density than lead-acid batteries on a volume or weight basis—people claim four times as much energy density, but accounting for BMS weight, it's closer to two-to-one; however, because lithium allows cycling to 70-80% depth of discharge versus 50% for lead-acid, you need only a quarter of the lithium batteries for similar performance.
“there's on a volume or weight basis probably uh people say four times as much or energy density or a quarter of the volume but actually by the time you put the bms in and stuff like that you're probably talking two to one but then you know if we got that acid batteries we normally speaking we're using less than 50 of the capacity at each cycle with lithium we're probably using 70 if we really push it 80 um so then you need less of them so by the time you're done you probably are talking a quarter of the batteries for a similar performance”
The Firefly battery with carbon foam plates is currently the best lead-acid technology for marine use because: it's an AGM (normal charge acceptance), it can operate in partial state of charge for weeks without sulfating (unique among lead-acid), and it self-heals—capacity diminishes during partial state operation but fully recovers with normal full charging.
“at the moment by far the best lead acid technology for our purposes is the firefly battery with the carbon foam plates um for the simple reason that it's an agm battery so it has the normal agm characteristics in terms of charge acceptance and so on but you can operate it in a partial state of charge for weeks at a time and it doesn't sulfate and it's the only lead acid battery in the market that doesn't sulfate it acts like it's self-eating at every cycle you see the capacity diminish a little bit but when you get the opportunity to do a normal full charge again those sulfates all go back into solution and it goes back to 100”
UL 1973 testing includes placing a battery in an oven with a metal screen around it and heating until explosion, with the battery case required to be strong enough to prevent projectiles from passing through the screen, and testing scenarios that create unbalanced cell charge states to force thermal runaway.
“they put a battery in a with a metal screen around it and they put it in an oven and they heat it up until it explodes when you know which you can get pretty much any lithium-ion battery to explode and it has to have a battery case that's strong enough to make sure there's no projectiles that'll come through the screen outside you know stuff like this um they take one cell in the battery and they totally discharge it and then they fully charge all the other cells so the battery is totally unbalanced and then they put it on a full out charge rate to see if they can drive that one cell into thermal runaway”
An engineer working on oil rigs in Alberta emphasized to Cote that electrical codes should be treated as the minimum starting point, not as the holy grail or aspirational goal—codes establish the floor, and proper practice should build above that floor, not aim to merely meet it.
“this engineer uh with a lot of experience in the oil rigs out in alberta was saying you know about you know the difference between sort of what the code is and he was really emphasizing from a practical standpoint that it's you know it's the minimum you know the bar yeah and it's funny in our industry it seems to be opposite it's sort of almost a holy grail it's sort of this thing that you'll never get to but you know what if you were gonna do it you know maybe try to get there but if you don't then you know it's okay and and he was like no it's it's i was like what a great perspective you know it's it's not your objective it's like no no you got to have that covered as a men and then go from it”
Marine electrical systems at 12 or 24 volts create a false sense of safety among boat owners because they assume low voltage means they can't be hurt, leading them to ignore basic electrical principles and create dangerous situations without realizing the risks.
“that's probably the predisposition for many of us to get into these you know situations that sometimes you know it's you need that information to come from somewhere else you know and that's a great thing with forums nowadays and you know books is one way and youtube or whatever it is or talking on the doctor but it's the getting to that closer to that end point that is reliable and safe...it's harder than it seems i think and that's that's the challenge with marine electrical especially 12 or 24 volts because you're assuming you can't get hurt what could possibly go wrong”
The number one reason that people give up on boating is because of electrical system problems on their boats—they get frustrated chasing problems and finally surrender the boating dream entirely.
“i would say the number one reason that people give up on boating is because of electrical system problems on their boats and they just get frustrated with chasing the problems and they finally give up and do something else”
High-output alternators running hard for extended periods generate case temperatures of 100-120°C under normal conditions, or potentially 200°C (on integral alternators), and this heat exhausts from the alternator into small engine compartments, which can trigger fire suppression system temperature sensors set at 79°C.
“you know we're well above c on the case and then uh you know you've got fans typically you've got one of d10 blowing out the middle but they may maybe sucking and blowing out the ends but somewhere we've got all of that hot air coming out of the alternator and if we have a fire suppression system in the engine compartment and it has a temperature sensor that temperature sensor trigger is triggered at 79 c if that temperature sensor is in the path for the air coming off that alternator you'll trigger the fire suppression system okay and we're going to see more and more of that happening because we're going to the heat off of these are powerful alternators is going to heat up these small engine compartments and then we're going to trigger the fire suppression system”
Calder's design philosophy for the integral alternator involved specifying desired characteristics without technical capability to implement them, then finding engineers who could translate specifications into working hardware—this methodology resulted in a breakthrough system.
“you know i drew up a list of design characteristics that i wanted to see in the thing i have no technical capability whatsoever to to make it happen but i know what we want because i've been doing this for long enough and dealing with the with the kit that we have and the failings that they have so i know what i want uh it's a matter of finding the people that can then take that and translate it into a piece of kit that will do that yeah and and that's what we were able to do with that project”
Most electrical system problems on boats are not random failures but are the result of installation and design problems built into the boat from day one, and Calder has never done a thorough electrical audit of a boat without finding at least one circuit that lacks adequate overcurrent protection.
“most of those problems are they should not be happy their insulation problems their their design problems they're built into the boat from day one i have never done a really thorough order electrical audit of a boat without finding at least one circuit that didn't have adequate overcome protection on it”
Jeff Cote has encountered many boat owners who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on boats (300k-1M for 40-50 foot catamarans) but then try to save money by buying cheap lithium batteries, creating a dangerous misalignment between boat value and battery safety investment.
“you know i see it all the day and you know it's funny people are buying you know some people you know we're very few people are putting lithium in a 10 000 value both you know you're seeing i see but voters that are buying you know catamarans for you know half a million you know 300 400 750 a million dollars which sounds like an obscene amount number but i mean that's some books are costing that and that's not on the top end that's you know that's a 40 foot 45 foot 50 foot camera right and and yet they've they've spent x on the boat and then they're looking and i have to have some orders and it's it's almost like a misalignment in values and they're like i need to save as much money as humanly possible on a battery bank”
High-output alternator standards have evolved significantly: APS makes a 12-volt alternator rated at 360 amps and a 24-volt rated at approximately 260 amps, delivering enormous power from small-frame alternators.
“one of the aps 12 volt alternators i think is rated at 360 amps yeah i believe it is and that's just a regular small frame alternator yeah unbelievable and then um uh one of the 24 volt alternators is is rated at 260 i think which is you know quite a bit more”
A brand new boat fresh from the yard in England with lithium batteries and high-output alternator triggered the fire suppression system on the way downriver from the boatyard (during initial testing), destroying the engine and requiring replacement; Calder identified the temperature sensor placement as the problem but the builder initially refused to believe it was possible.
“i was on a brand new um boat in in england came down the river from the boat yard fresh out of the yard lithium batteries uh high alberto snater uh triggered the temperature sensor on the way down the river from the boat from the boat vehicle and destroyed the engine uh so then they immediately had to hold it back out put a new engine in it that's a bad day i told them what i thought was the problem and they said no that's not possible it could no way it could do that so i'm hoping they moved that temperature sensor or by now they may have done it again”
When pumping out high current from alternators, you need fancy controllers, and modern wake speed controllers represent previous-generation controllers 'on steroids,' with impressive capabilities but complex programming that often requires professional help to configure.
“you need a pretty fancy controller yeah this uh when you're pumping out that much current and now we've got these uh wake speed controllers which are like uh the best of what we've had historically on steroids i mean that's oh yeah it's unbelievable really impressive piece of kit but of course the problem with that is uh the the more powerful these controllers get to be the more complex they are to program so you really have to have someone helping you i mean i can't program one of those yet i haven't done it i know what it can do it's mental it's it's it's so one of the things we we've done at ocean planet is to create a little piece of kit that you can plug into uh one of those that will give you a whole bunch of drop down menus to simplify the programming because it does get to be pretty complex and if you screw up programming then you're going to have problems”
Many boat owners with life-long dreams of cruising have delayed gratification for 40+ years, saving money and working extra years to build their 'cruising kitty'; electrical system problems on their boat can stop them from achieving this delayed dream.
“a lot of them wait you know work work work and then they their talk about it it's their dream and i'm meeting them every day and it's like 40 years sending their kids to university doing the work you know working extra years to get the you know cruising kitty up you know delayed gratification delayed gratification delayed gratification then they buy the boat they get it ready it's always more than anticipate and then to have those electrical problems actually stop them and at one point maybe a voice of reason in the family says you know what this is this is just too hard”
The primary challenge in persuading boat owners to make safe electrical choices is that they 'can't connect the dots' between their choices and consequences; they resist being told what to do, but will come to the right conclusion if given explanations and reasons rather than directives.
“i think that's the problem is people can't connect the dots they they they're very um they just don't want to go there because the price is that's our job you have to help them connect the dots yeah yes and of course if we do it right they'll listen to us yeah and that's what this you know it goes back to uh it's a little bit the spirit of this conversation right is to try to people have a hard time being told what to do in general that all of us certainly myself but if you tell me why i should do something tell me the reasons you give me an explanation and i'll come to that conclusion then yeah i'm all in”
Calder has photographed large AGM battery banks (each battery around 700 dollars) where all batteries melted due to thermal runaway, with the temperature sensor placed at the top of the batteries where it could not detect the heat.
“i've got some uh photographs of some a big agm bank you know these are 700 each uh where they're all melted down because the temperature sensor was on the top and they did go on and they did go in the thermal run away and the temperature sensor didn't know there was anything going on”
Lithium-ion battery marketing claims a 3C (three times capacity) charge rate capability, but this is nonsense—most marine lithium batteries are limited to 0.3C charge rates, which is substantially less than AGM batteries, and virtually no boat can source the chargers needed to even approach 3C rates.
“a lot of people are advertising like oh you know lithium can charge at three times capacity it's nonsense you look at the lithium batches we have in the marine marketplace and most of them don't want to be charging more than 0.3 c yeah exactly is substantially less than an agm battery”
Nigel Calder's introduction to marine electrical systems came from building an Ingrid 39 sailboat from a bare hull in the late 1970s and early 1980s, where he had to install all systems himself with minimal guidance, leading him to rebuild most systems because he didn't initially understand electricity or mechanics, which prompted him to write books so others wouldn't struggle the same way.
“i started working on the oil rigs because the pay was really good this is you know the late 70s early 80s and it provided the income to to build the ingrid we bought the hull uh but it had no ballasts no deck one bulkhead to stop the sights caving in...we basically we did everything on that boat built it ourselves and in the course of doing that um i installed all the systems and and although i'm pretty capable i don't i didn't know the first thing about electricity and not a whole lot more about mechanics and uh there was no decent information available to help so we kind of struggled through it and i ended up having to rebuild most of those systems because i didn't get much of it right and uh when i figured out if i needed to know that stuff other people did as well”
The integral alternator development cost three million dollars of corporate funding plus additional money contributed by Calder, representing an intense development program to achieve the desired performance characteristics.
“we spent oh what my nose is stitching again we spent three million dollars of of uh some big corporation in the u.s funded that project three million dollars developing that wow yeah yeah that was then and then we had other money that we put in so it was a pretty intense uh development program”
Jeff Cote has iterated through five versions of his electrical system on his own boat, demonstrating that proper electrical design requires iterative learning and refinement that most boat builders and owners experience through trial and error.
“it's funny you know my journey or even with my own boat i think i'm at iteration five on my electrical my counting at 36 meaning you know i've had literally later with it now i'm i'm i'm basically version five of the electrical”
Nigel Calder's boat has lithium-ion batteries and he is testing experimental electrical and propulsion systems on a Malo 45 (actually 48 feet) that was used by the European Union's hybrid marine project, of which he was the technical director.
“and this was replaced by the same boat but with experimental electrical and propulsion systems which we're going to talk about it was used by the european union hybrid marine project of which nigel was a technical director for his extensive testing in hydro hybrid propulsion system”
Ocean Planet (Calder's company) has created a simplified interface that plugs into advanced wake speed controllers to simplify programming through dropdown menus, addressing the barrier of technical complexity for boat owners.
“one of the things we we've done at ocean planet is to create a little piece of kit that you can plug into uh one of those that will give you a whole bunch of drop down menus to simplify the programming because it does get to be pretty complex and if you screw up programming then you're going to have problems”
Cote encountered his own stainless steel washer failure on one of his first electrical jobs and literally melted the fuse holder, making it a formative learning experience about connection integrity.
“one of my first jobs uh i literally did it 100 i remember literally the fuse holder melted melted”
The Firefly battery inventor lives near Cote's location (about 20 miles away), providing opportunity for direct technical engagement with the innovator.
“the inventor is one of your guys isn't the inventor of that battery uh he lives here down the road yeah 20 miles yeah”
Calder has written eight books; the two most well-known are 'The Boat Owner's Mechanical and Electrical Manual' (known in marine circles as 'the bible') and 'Marine Diesel Engines Maintenance, Troubleshooting and Repair.'
“nigel has written eight books and is most well known which i've given to all my technicians over the years is the boat owner's mechanical electrical manual which is uh known in our circles as the bible and marine diesel engines maintenance troubleshooting and repair”
Calder's first edition of the Boat Owner's Manual received critical feedback from ABYC about violations of ABYC standards, which prompted him to rapidly publish a second edition and then commit to attending ABYC meetings for 30+ years, where he has learned more than from any other source.
“for that first edition of the boat owners manual i uh i went to a bunch of boat shows where i could talk to the gurus of the day um rick proctor dave smead bill montgomery of belmont and all those early early leaders in the field um and with the uh smart regulators high output alternators the early generation of inverters uh i never could afford to stay in a hotel so i'd rather rent a car and sleep in the car and go to various boat shows to collect information and then uh published the first edition of the photo manual and i immediately got a bunch of naughty letters from the american voting yacht council abyc because there was stuff in that book that violated the abyc standards so i started going to their meetings and um i very rapidly went to the second edition i cleaned it up from a standards perspective”
Calder began his sailing dream as a teenager after seeing the first single-handed round-the-world race (won by Robin Knox Johnson in Sue Haley's 32-foot double-ended boat) which was headline news in England and inspired a generation of dreamers to want to sail around the world.
“it goes back to the 1960s actually when they had the first round the world race single-handed round the world race the one that term robin knox johnson won and in sue haley you know like a 32-foot double-ended boat yeah and it was headline news in england for weeks and so a whole load of us on our teams then would sit at school dreaming about singing around the world so i guess that's when i got the bug”
Calder's oil rig career provided sufficient income to fund boat building and later provided writing time during low-activity periods, demonstrating how non-marine income enabled his ability to pursue boating and document marine systems knowledge
“i didn't get the opportunity and until i started working on the oil rigs because the pay was really good this is you know the late 70s early 80s and it provided the income to to build the ingrid... the heyday of homebuilt boats so there was actually a market for that information so and that's what prompted me to uh to write the books and at the time uh the life on the rigs was either insanely busy or else there was a lot of down time so i had a fair bit of time out there when i could write so i did much of the initial writing my diesel engine book was the first one and i put on the rigs during the quiet periods”
Calder and his wife set sail around the world with two small children and after 18 months they changed plans and now take shorter cruises mostly in the North Sea and extensively in the Caribbean.
“nigel and his wife set sail around the world with their two small children and prem quarters there was a change of plans after 18 months now they take shorter cruises mostly in the north sea and extensively in the caribbean”