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Fossil freedom.

Some months ago, when the gas and oil prices blew sky high, I advised a friend how to lower the consumption. He did it until he could affort his gas bill.

I spoke him last week. Here is the discussion.

What you do, really fossilfree, Peter, that is special.

  • “It is a choice. You can do it.”

I cannot. You know how I live.

  • It is a choice

Man, I live in a badly insulated house.”

  • Why this defending mode? I did not answer to finance your landlord. Just check what you can.

You know I hardly can do a thing.

  • Sorry, I estimate you as an intelligent friend, live your life the way you want. So you can. But if you really want help, I have some proposals.

Ok then.

  • What do you mean with “OK then”. It sounds like you already know them. Which is true. But I will repeat them, just to provoke. You have an induction cooker? You use a pressure cooker? You put it in the insulation box to cook it ready?

Come on Peter!

  • Come on what?

You wrote that already in your blogs, you told it.

  • Ah, so you DO this already? I don’t believe that

To be honest, no.

  • How is the draught between your doors and between your windows? How many rooms do you heat now when the gas prices went down? How do you do your transport?

You know we both need a car, we live 7 kilometers from the first busstop.

  • You live 12 kilometers from a city train station with every 15 minutes a train leaving, true?

Yes, true, but you think we can afford a taxi, that would be about 3 to 5 times a week for me, and also that amount for Caroline.

  • You are both self employed. So you can plan. Though?

Yes for sure. What do you mean?

  • The same as earlier. I estimate you as an intelligent friend, you live your life the way you want. So you can. But if you really want help in case you have a moment of zero creative energie, then I  can give you some advises. Like getting rid of two cars and buy a second hand electric car, serving you 5 to 7 years. And you can taxi each other to the station. You save about 500 Euro a month and in the car together is quality time. True?

OK.

  • What, again, do you mean with “OK”? Don’t you want to hear them? Don’t you want the help I offer you?

Perhaps not.

  • That is fine. Perhaps you prefer to stick to fossils. OK. You only reduce your gas consumption till the level that you can pay it. Fine to me. You only reduce your fuel expenses till the level you can pay them. That is OK to me, we are friends for ever. But tell me, why?

The way you describe it, that sounds like addiction.

  • I don’t know, Is it?

I think I am biased. I am programmed. I don’t know. Yes, perhaps it is addiction. Yes perhaps I like to heat my house with gas, perhaps I love to drive a diesel car. Indeed, I have no rationalities.
It feels like being programmed. I must be influenced by 50 years of commercials?

  • I don’t know. But it sounds to me that being fossil free could mean more to you.

Yeah, perhaps. It can be a break through. A freedom.

  • Let us call it fossil freedom?
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Two times a TOP 3 for fossil free sailing.

Top 3 for the rookies

  1. Check the weather and plan your route on the weather.
    So don’t bases your planning on an appointment that you made weeks ago and then up against the wind and down against the wind. We have great weather forecasts, so use (one of) them.
You want from Amsterdam/Ijmuiden to Lowestoft? If you have to take the green route, then take your Plan B and change your destination. Because it will be an awful lot of motoring, this is no pleasure, and by the way, we have no Planet B.(Courtesy PredictWind)

Check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0nx6UOBe58

2. Sail!
When you leave the harbour, you are allowed to hoist the sails, so what stops you to stop the engine and do it. And enjoy the piece and tranquillity.

Use only what you need (3) – Sailing

3. If going on the engine, then go slow
If you go slow, you enjoy the environment you sail through, it saves you an awful lot of diesel, it saves the people around you fine dust in their lungs and cancer, it saves nitrodioxides killing the biodiversity, it gives the sea mammals a less little chance to extinguish, and our next generations get a less unsustainable future.

Check  https://fossilfreearoundtheworld.org/why-go-people-so-fast-when-there-is-no-reason-to-it-just-spending-fuel-and-money/

Stop the dolphins from screaming

Top 3 for the advanced

1. Consider using an electric drive

Now that you sail more and motor less, and you have learnt to motor slowly, you are ready to consider an electric drive. And, when that is installed, you can easily start cooking electric at once. An induction cooker, a water cooker, a microwave, that is all comfort, and more safety.

Check the Ya as an example: https://fossilfreearoundtheworld.org/the-yacht-2/

2. Exchange your propeller to a variable prop
This saves energy, but you also get more regenerated when your electric engine is switched to the charge mode.

Check https://bruntonspropellers.com/autoprop/ for an example

3. Make energy till you are in balance
It is fun to make your own energy by solar, wind and hydro. It is a special, free experience to be in energy balance all the time. Day by day an extra to life.

Check https://fossilfreearoundtheworld.org/the-yacht-2/#The-(Auto)propellors-and-dynamos

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Stop the dolphins from screaming

It was 30 years ago and we were floating somewhere on the Atlantic,  sailing an old two mast Dutch lugger. The wind was dropping to zero and we, all six crew, just lowered all of the 500 square meter of sails. Then, the deckhand a loft yelled: “Whales! A whole lot-a-them!”

‘Our’ old fashioned lugger somewhere on the ocean

We started seeing them from deck. Big ones. Humpbackwhales. Slowly they were making their way to us. Till about some 200-300 meter. There they kept plunging, playing, but did not come closer. They were just checking us, we guessed. So, we enjoyed, waiting. The captain had a great camera, but they were just to far off for a good picture. He kept on trying while the whales played their game on the same distance. Then the engineer started the engine to help the captain to get closer. Half power we went to them. But 10 seconds later, as if they discussed it, all whales disappeared at once.

A whale swimming with Ya

Did you know, talking through water works great, much better than talking through the air. Water does not muffle the sound, like air does. Never thought of that? Neither did scientists, till the late sixties. They discovered that whales communicate over hundreds of miles by making a sound in the lower frequencies. Dolphins do the same on a higher frequency and shorter distance.

The relation

Every decade the human made noise in the ocean doubles. More frequently then ever, whales end up at our beaches. They were apparantly lost. Also the number of lost whales grow, despite the fact that there are less and less. Lately scientists hear dolphins screaming in the water, instead of the regular ‘talking’. The causal relation can not be proven, but the correlation is too strong to not take action.

What can we do to stop the dolphins from screaming?

Like a radio jammer

The noise in the oceans we make come from three sources. By far the biggest culprit is the ship’s propellers. When running on higher rotations, they create ‘cavitation’. This creates the noise you can compare to the noise of pebbles running through a steel pipe. What do you think, would happen to a whale’s ears? Or, suppose the whales are hundreds miles away, what do they hear? All props together must create a sound in their ears, like when you hear a continuous disturbing noise on your radio. Like one big radio jammer.

The whale hears a constant grinding rumble noise and in between that noise he has to distinghuish the directions of his fellow whales

You can bring your hand to the throddle and go slower. Making 4 knots through the water in stead of 6 , stops the cavitation. And by the way, your fuel consumption dives down with 50%, so that is good for your own wallet. This also contribute to reduce the second cause.

Sudden blows

This second cause is the bangs created by seismic research, mostly for oil and gas. The impact for a whale or dolphin close to it is obvious. Will the animal, just a mammal as you and I, be deaf perhaps? We don’t know.  And these blows can be heard a thousand miles away, so how do they interpret these signals? Like you and I would suspect: Is there is a war going on?

Continuous noise

The third source are the wind generators at sea. They produce a consistent low sound, just the frequency the whales communicate with.  Lucky us, we found technology to reduce it, even to stop it. It still has to be done.

Meanwhile you can use less energy, so then we don’t need to build that many. And it saves you in the wallet.

You enjoy music? For the sea mammal, our North Sea must sound like a bar blowing bad techno 24/7 on a loud volume.

IMO SDC 9 ;  the boring bureaucracy will do it

Rules can do the thing. Therefore we need bureaucracy.
That should work globally. Therefore we invented the United Nations. Short cutting now, we go straight to the Subcommittee on Ship Design and Construction, starting their 9th meeting this week. The USA, UK and Netherlands are members of influence.

The SDC-9 members are human beings, just as you and I, doing all the bureaucracy for us. Direct them in between all the lobby noise, and send them an email.

Give our members a push into the right direction.

Help stopping dolphins from screaming.

Send an email.

Send an email

You can send an email like this:

To info@imo.org
Subject: To the members of the SDC-9
Fill in what you want. An opening is:
Dear Members of the Subcommittee on Ships Design and Construction,

Here under a suggested subject to inspire you.

Cavitation and sea mammals in the current ecosystem

Cavitation disturbs the sea mammal communication. These mammals are crucial in the chain of ocean life in our current ecosystem. The ecosystem can do without mammals, no worries about that. But that will then be an ecosystem to the disadvantage of our next generations, with dying plankton, copepods, fish, and without human beings.

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An honest question

Going slow saves a lot. When you go faster, the necessary energy  (the fuel consumption)  grows exponentially? This graph shows the solution to save you some money and the world a climate problem.

This graph says how much power in kilowatts is necessary for every knot of speed, for a 12 meter cruising yacht.

An example.
Suppose your taxi driver drives slow, say 40 miles per hour. You ask him to go 60. So 50% extra. He says: “OK, but you have to pay me double money”.  Would you do that?  You would call him a rip-off, a swindler.

Another example.
Let us say you go 4 knots with your boat. Costs you 4.3 kW, about 2 dollar/Euro every hour. But speeding up with 2 knots to 6 knots, costs 8,5. Would cost you 4 dollar/euro per hour. So for only 50% extra, you have to pay double.

Why are so many people ripping themselves off?

Why are there so many people even trying to make even 7 knots in stead of 6 with their sailing (!) yacht, which nearly doubles the costs again?

In their spare time, even their leisure time.

I honestly don’t understand.

Are you one of them? Please mail and explain it, on info@fossilfreearoundtheworld.org

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Propellers for sailors

Most sailors love the propeller under their ship, because it is so beautifully shaped, the bronze thing with its blades, specially made for the job. Do you have any idea what the efficiency of the propellor under a yacht is?? I always thought it would be like 80%. Till I saw that Dick Koopmans, a well respected and seasoned yacht designer, has the rule of thumb to estimate 50%. That means: 50 % loss of all the energy the engine delivers.

The regular prop under a boat.

Designed for the fastest speed only

You know why? Because the propeller designers have to design the propeller for only one speed, the fastest. It means that the blades of the propeller are fixed to that pitch.

The pitch of the blade defines the angle of the water flowing along the blade

You can make the propeller for slower speeds, but the problem is that you can not run it faster. It would not only be very inefficient, but with too many rotations the prop damages itself. It is called cavitation.

The cavitation problem

This is the following process. When a prop runs through the water, it creates the desired underpressure on the thrust side (the side where the ship is heading to). So the prop will go forward. But when the prop runs faster than designed, the prop creates sometimes that much underpressure that bits of water evaporate. These tiny bubbles stick to the prop and a fraction of a second later they implode, with that much force that it leave a little hole, a little dimple in the bronze. It happens most frequently on the outside of the blade, the most effective part. The prop’s surface loses its smoothness and that gives resistance, and the chance on even more cavitation.

So that’s why a prop is made for its highest speed. To prevent damage.

We hardly ever motor on maximum speed, so then it is getting inefficient. The so-called ‘pitch’ is too small. Your prop is like a sail that is too flat for the job to be done. It doesnot hurt, but it doesnot make the speed.

the solution: the variable propeller

But, there is a solution! That is the variable propeller. The blades can adjust . They were invented in 1924, and although expensive, they were widely used on ships with variable speed. You had to adjust the most efficient pitch yourself.

Some years ago, they invented the propellor that can automatically adjust its best pitch. Ideal for leisure sailors. They tested it and even on a high speed, the variable prop is doing 10 to 15% better. On low speeds it will be more and more.

This is the Autoprop. Each blade rotates to its most efficient angle, the pitch.

When under sail, the blades of the Autoprop can be set in a feathering position.

Check the movie with the explanation

The prop costs more than the regular one, but it is something to think about, with the ever increasing diesel price.

Extra: no prop works well if you use it in reverse, to go backwards. But the variable prop adjusts itself to it and is just as efficient in reverse.

Therefore, the Autoprop is also a great prop to regenerate electricity in case you have an hydro alternator, or a propshaft alternator. So you can even get energy with it.

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Cooking Revisited

The reactions on the cooking blog ‘Cook fast, or cook slow, cook new style’ learned that there is more. Here they come: the closing lids, the half power, the Eco stove and the Solar Oven.

First of all: well closing lids

This basic of all basics was not mentioned in the last blog., sorry!

It is important that your lids close well. The cooking is not even effective with bad lids, because the top of your food will not be well cooked whilst the food on the bottom is already well done.

Half the power, 45% less

Do you always kick your pedal down till the floor while driving? No? Why do we do it with cooking then? Stop cooking on maximum power. You save a lot.

PLAATJe

(left) The temperature meter just over the lit shows a near 80 degrees C, and  (right) when  cooking on 50% the temperature heater shows 40 degrees. Both measured within half a minute with cold water in the pan.

The temperature gives the indication that much of the heat just flows away into your kitchen or galley, unused. If you measure the used gas, you can save 45%.

So use the gas you need and cook half power.

Insulation box or eco stove

Someone mailed us this beautiful and easy alternative for the hay box. It is not cheap, but it is good stuff. A typical Dutch invention and it is called (translated) the Eco-stove. Check https://www.ecostoof.com/

The Eco stove works basically as the haybox, with insulation. But this is a flexible, movable and good looking version.

Check the solar cooker

You can also cook without gas at all. Check the link: https://fossilfreearoundtheworld.org/ya-bakes-a-solar-cake/

Here Karen bakes a cake, but the Solar Cooker also works with vegetables, meat, just as an oven.
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A Merry and (de)lightful Christmas!

Christmas, the midwinter fest, when the light brings the faith for the future.

Good wishes and enlighten the future times with led.

You got your Christmas tree? You still have the old-fashioned string of light bulbs? Or did you put LED lights in it? Here 4 reasons on a row to do so and 1 reason to choose for the light bulb.

“It is the economy, stupid”, said Bill to Hillary while running for president, and he won. Led consumes four times less (or lesser) than the light bulb. It saves on the long run.

The Fun reason. You can buy such LED string with an extra little box. With the buttons on this box you can make it all flashy,  colors running the string. Here in the Caribbean, they love it! (and to accentuate that, they turn up the volume of their music a bit more).

LED works longer. A light bulb makes 2000 hours, a good LED light works 50.000 to 100.000 hours. Let us count only 15.000 hours for the LED string that you once bought for a very special price. So each 7th of December you tangle this bargain around your tree with so much pleasure, every time excited that it still works when you put the plug in. Well, this LED string will most probably still function when you are too old to tangle it around your tree anyhow. A little legacy.

Fourth reason is about the real legacy your led brings. You do less damage to the future generations. Because you spend less energy, so CO2. And, you create less environmentally hazardous garbage. It gives more change to the future of your children and grandchildren.

Let us finally save the honor of the light bulb. The bulb’s price is cheaper. Especially these days, because the salesmen knows that people will buy led for sure, so they want to get rid of their last stock. Tell him that you know that and enlighten your years with led.

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Cook fast, cook slow, cook new style now

Everybody in Europe is seriously economizing the energy bill. Some refuse to turn on the heater.
Funny thing is, that on the other hand we keep on cooking ‘old style’, so abundantly using energy like it is still as cheap as the last decades. That way your energy flies away through the kitchens vent pipe.

Just try out the next tips now, and you cook your Christmas meal just as easy in the new style. You will use at least half the energy and the taste of your food is better.

Cook fast …

If you cook in the pressure cooker, you can cook in a tiny bit of water. Simply because (close to) nothing of the just heated water evaporates. So, with that little water it cooks in the wink of an eye.

And, because cooking is just like politics, when things are under pressure, they are faster done. Good. Compared to the old style heating in a pan, it saves you half the energy. And all vegetable juice and taste, did not get the chance to evaporate and leave the kitchen through the vent. It is still in the food you eat, so that is what you want for Christmas.

OK, that’s the first 50% of energy save. Later more.

a pressure cooker has a one years pay back time these days

…or cook slow…

Remember the Slow Cooker? In the seventies it became trendy, and again in the nineties. Originally it is used for stews and old fashioned soups..The latter cookers were equipped with pretty good insulation. This works great.

Indeed, stews and many soups, and many  ‘forgotten vegetables’ just need time. Not heat, nevertheless we try it.

So why not cooking that way!  With lower temperatures you don’t lose much heat if your slow cooker is well insulated.

Newer slow cook models are great in the ways you can programme it. Your meal is ready when you arrive at home.  Still, the insulation could improve, but that will grow when the energy prices go up.

..or cook fast and slow.

Why not take best of both worlds? So, the fast (high pressure) and slow (insulated) cooking. Just put  your rice, potatoes, whatever, in a pressure cooker, with the tiny bit of water. It will cook quickly. Normally it has to cook on low fire for another 10 or 15 minutes, depending on the food. That would cost you another 30%. Don’t do that, but take the pressure cooker from the fire and put it in a well insulated box.

Our grandmothers (or grand-grandmothers) called that a ‘hay box’. An enormous box, and only one pan could fit in it.  Nowadays the insulation is 3 times better than hay, so the box is the size of a drawer.

The temperature in the pressure cooker will lower slowly. So it will be ready in a longer time, mostly 2 or 3 times longer. But, this saves you energy time, as well as a place on your furnace. And on board of a ship, it saves you a risk of a hot mess, because one pan is secured in the safe place of the hay box.

The modern version of the hay box, on board ‘Ya’

Cooking historically

The ‘old style cooking’ is historically grown, The stove was a central place to heat the room for the big household of 6 or 10, or sometimes 15 members. A water kettle was on it, in case you wanted to make tea or coffee. The stove was extra fueled for the evening meal and the evening.

Then later, the families became smaller. Meanwhile we got bigger houses, with a separate heating, and a dedicated gas stove for the meals. In that time, many housewifes started working. So these meals should be made quickly. And the energy did not cost much then. So, the best gas stove was the fastest. Some vegetables could be cooked ready in a fast way, and the other not. The latter ones we started calling them ‘forgotten vegetables.

When you cook new style, you can also enrich your kitchen with these reborn vegetables.

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For the warm-hearted sailor on cold, cold water.

The warm-hearted sailor sails as long the water is liquid enough.

But then, at Saturday night, you are on anchor somewhere, or in a harbour.  The sun lowers and then sets, and, oh man, that is cold, cold, cold.  Your yacht is built for summers, there is zip insulation and you start shivering.

You think: “The first thing I do this winter is installing a big big diesel stove.”

Not yet! That is Step 4! That would be most expensive choice, and lots of work and money and the worst for the environment!

Here are the four steps to keep yourself warm in your cabin.

Body reflex first – insulation

The best heating for the human body is the body itself. It spreads and distributes fully automatically and is extremely efficient. So do nothing. If the body loses too much heat, we have an excellent reflex and we prevent further loss with a sweater, a sleeping bag, as long as it insulates.

Conduction second – the jug

A jug is a nice solution. It is a very effective heat source, because it gives off the heat directly where you want it.

The jug is therefore an economical source of heat. If a liter of boiling water goes into it, that is about 100 Watt-hours of heat. The jug is then so hot that you need a towel as insulation to ensure that you don’t burn your feet. It easily warms your feet all evening, and in the sleeping bag all night too.

It is often more pleasant if it heats a larger area of the body, for example the entire back. Big portable water bags are often on board on seagoing yachts, as a spare or for a life raft situation. If you fill this with warm water, you have a better seat heating than in a Mercedez-Benz.

Radiation third – Infrared

The smallest emitter is the infrared lamp. Such a lamp is used en masse in chicken farms to hatch eggs and are very affordable. They are also available in a beautiful semi-medical version.

The lamps fit into a standard lamp socket. They are for sale from 60 to 250 Watt. You need a 230 volt connection and, of course, sufficient electricity. The port delivers that very well, and it is also possible with a larger battery pack. Between 300 Wh and 1.5 kWh is needed for an evening.

Mounted under the fixed cabin table, the infrared lamp works well to warm the feet and legs. Then a 150 Watt lamp is more than sufficient, and a dimmer is recommended. It can also be simple and take 2 lamps of 75 or 100 Watt, and you serve more feet. In any case, keep a distance of 20 cm.

If the area to be irradiated becomes larger, for example a row of legs of a race team, then a radiant heater is a solution. Keep the radiant heater small, for example 400 Watt. It continuously irradiates the same surface, where the heat builds up steadily. A piece of plastic that has become hot will suddenly catch fire in the long run. That can also be a sailing suit. In any case, start with a meter of beam distance and then look further.

The radiant heater is equipped with a tip-over protection, but it is still hot if it falls over. So when it’s on, keep an eye on it.

Conduction at 4 – at last the stove

A stove has to heat the entire room and takes a lot of energy to do so. A small diesel heater or electric blower heater already requires 1500 watts. This can amount to an entire central heating system with a boiler of 7 kilowatts or more.

A heater heats the air past it. That air flows up and along the ceiling, while the cold air comes along the floor and is warmed up along the stove. This is how the air flows around the room. Heating via an air flow is also called convection.

This is also possible with a stove that is concealed, for example in the storage box. Air is blown from the cabin past the stove via a ventilation duct, and this air, warmed up, enters the cabin again.

The air of the entire room is heated. It costs so much energy because the warm air cools down again along the cold roof, walls and floor.

In addition, the warm air escapes through cracks or through the cabin entrance.

Conclusion

Let the stove be your last resort. The ‘solution’ of the stove has grown historically, when large famiies lived in a small space and you had to cook in the same room anyway. The last decades we could continue with this solution because of the cheap and endless flow of fuels we had. But these days the fuel is expensive, and it will be much more expensive. And just don’t do it, to contribute to just such a good environment for your children, as you enjoy now.

Christmas morning on ‘Ya’. This yacht is fully insulated, and then you don’t need a stove even when it freezes.
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Can we buy local food in Rotterdam?

We prefer to buy fruit and vegetables from local farmers. Can we do this in the big city of Rotterdam? Well, Rotterdam is bursting with green initiatives, so the answer is yes, we can! 

Wendy takes out the groceries we ordered

“Rechtstreex” brings local demand and supply together, using internet and clever logistics. 

Map showing the ‘Rechstreex’ pick-up points in Rotterdam and The Hague

Once a week you order and a few days later you can pick up your groceries. 

Sign showing customers to the ‘Rechtstreex’ pick-up point; opened only once a week
The ‘Rechtstreex’ shop does not look like a shop – and that is correct, it’s a pick-up point. Of course you get your groceries fossil free: by bike!
Wendy is proud of the boxes filled with fruit and vegetables from nearby farmers, waiting for their customers to come pick them up
The fruit and vegetables are excellent

When you buy something, you can see exactly from which farm it comes. In their newsletter, ‘Rechtstreex’ tells the stories of the companies and the people behind the fruit and vegetables. This way, you get a better understanding of what it takes to grow your food.

Furthermore, the food comes from nearby, it is superfresh, from the season, and you buy it for a fair price. You know what the best part is? ‘Rechtstreex’ buys from farmers who contribute to a healthy and sustainable world.