Maryline: Are lithium iron phosphate batteries more dangerous than AGM on boats? Rafael Escobar: Know if installed correctly. Amanda Haley: What's your take on the Battle Born batteries? Rafael Escobar: Battleborn Batteries, I have got away from them before any of these issues came up because of price point and technological advances with their competitors. Great company though still. Amanda Haley: Okay, What is one upgrade you tell every cruiser to make first? Rafael Escobar: put my cell phone number in your phone. Maryline: Today we're introducing you to Raphael Escobar from Blue Water Yacht Tech. Welcome Raphael! Rafael Escobar: Hey Marilyn, glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Maryline: Raphael is here to talk to us about smart systems when it comes to power generation on boats, and he's got a specialty on catamarans that he'll tell us more about. And the reason we're here, especially with Raphael today, it's to obviously put in light that a boat's electrical and electronics package is one of the biggest drivers of both its usability, the enjoyment of the boat and its value, especially when it comes to resale. Amanda Haley: And guess what? You don't have to be an electrician, but you do need to know the right questions to ask and that's why Raphael is here with us. Maryline: How long have you been in business, Raphael? And how did you how did you get here? Rafael Escobar: Sure, Bluewater is a relatively new company. About 15 months old. But my history started 18 plus years ago in the catamaran niche. before it really got popular working with all the big boat builders. One of my last company was much, much smaller. So I got a lot of opportunities to grow with Leopard and Lagoon and CFP Rise Up and then all these other boat builders popping out of the woodworks these days. And it's great for the industry, all the new competition. Competition always drives quality, which it's fun to be a part of and it's fun that such a small niche in the yachting industry worldwide. It's everyone so tightly closely together and stays friends and is friendly in the industry and always driving each other's level of excellence. So Blue Water Yacht Tech is sort of derived out of my passion for electronics. I'm a big guy. I started the industry 18 years ago working on diesel engines working on boats with small engines and you end up what they call engine room yoga. And I sort of liked that, so I really got interested in electrics and electronics and sort of my passion in that direction. So really got focused in and was blessed to early get in on the development of lithium batteries. And was able to get in on training with Victron Energy early on when they were a tiny company. So I really got my hands in early integrating lithium and the brand leader in integrating lithium into yachts, I would say would be Victron right now. So we've been really blessed to ride that wave of the catamarans, the lithium, like all the conversion companies and just be at the right place at the right time to enjoy and have the chance to try all the new products, the 48 volt, the high output alternators, all the cool stuff. So it's just been fun and living in Fort Lauderdale, born and raised. It's sort of just a prime place for all those things. So definitely feel blessed. Yeah, that's awesome. And blessed to be here in Fort Lauderdale, be part of Amanda Haley: Me too, me too. Rafael Escobar: Bluewater and starting this new company under a much bigger parent company indirectly for a boat builder like Fountain Peugeot. Amanda Haley: And we know you do work heavily with catamarans, but what's different really about wiring a catamaran versus a monohol? or is it more about the cruising program? Rafael Escobar: Yeah, the wiring overall depends on the boat builder. Some catamarans are really hard to work on and some are easier. Same with Monos. Its accessibility, it French, is it South African, is it American built? Cruising program has a lot to do with it for sure. There's a lot greater needs on a catamaran. There's a lot more... air to fill if you're trying to invert aircons and more space to cool down. So there's all those different variables. I mean when it comes to installs you have one that heals over you have to worry about exhaust on engines versus catamarans so you don't even think about it hardly. So there's all those fun things and catamarans. Yachting industry if you're good at product it doesn't matter what boat you're on it's just if like the other day I was on a 72 meter changing out two lithium battery banks and it's a boats a boat it's just more complex and more liability on the light a million dollar boat versus a hundred million dollar boat you know it's it's fun Amanda Haley: Yeah, exactly. Maryline: When a when a boat owner calls you, Raphael, does it tend to be a new boat upgrade, let's say, more of a refit or more reactive to some kind of, you know, something's broken on my boat emergency? What is the bulk of the work that you do? Rafael Escobar: In this season, I would say it's more the emergency and brokerage sales side. You guys have done ton of great videos on the current market. New build sales aren't super hot. In the past COVID times, it was all new boats, you know, or a lot of brokerage boats too. But right now, a lightning strike, parcel sunken boat, a lot of stuff I'm working on right now. Amanda Haley: Right. Rafael Escobar: other damages, fire damages having to do not with lithium, electrical wiring issues, but just a lot of reaction and right now it's a lot of brokerage boats. Boats going for sale, trying to make them pretty, make them the best they can be for the survey. Amanda Haley: That's great. Maryline: So Raphael, let's start with lithium batteries and it's a word, a term that's thrown around a lot and for different applications. So what does lithium mean in the boating world for starters? Rafael Escobar: Lithium, lithium means just having the ability to use your boat a lot better. When you have someone that's been reluctant to switch over and they're an experienced sailor, when they... Amanda Haley: You Rafael Escobar: come back to me for the first time, like, my god, that was a game changer. It's just the voltage drop that happens with lead-based batteries versus lithium. It's just your electronics work better. Usability is much greater. And then, of course, if you're a performance sailor or someone who likes to go fast on a powerboat, the weight makes a huge difference. mean, it's truly a game changer. Amanda Haley: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Maryline: And can you just dump it down for those of us who don't really know the the the chemistry behind lithium? Lithium for a boat battery, let's say, or a laptop, those are different things. Can you just tell us how these compare or how they're different? Rafael Escobar: yeah, yeah, so... Chemistry so I think about I recently joined the test the crew And then it helped me understand tests I know lithium and I'm like I never really go into the test the world and you're like, you see cars catching on fire And you're like, all right, that's why they find out what chemistry they're using my car outside is a performance model So it needs higher draw faster charge and it uses NMC nickel metal cobalt In boats we're using what you hear a lot of people call lipo for or lithium Amanda Haley: Hahaha. Rafael Escobar: Iron phosphate and lithium iron phosphate. I like I'm old car person grew up around cars I think it's like the station wagon. It's like the family van. It's not performance It's what you use to get a to be and you're not like trying to race on a track That's what the lipo for is. It's stable. They've actually Amanda Haley: That's a good analogy. Rafael Escobar: Yeah, they add extra in all the cells. They add fire retardants. So most of these batteries, if you throw them in a fire, cannot catch on fire. You sink them in underwater, they won't catch on fire because of the chemistry of the cells and what they do to the cells to keep them from being dangerous. But yeah, the stuff on boats outside of all the toys, the stuff you use for house banks is very, very safe if installed correctly. Amanda Haley: Yeah. So for someone who's only ever known lead acid or AGM, practically what changes with lithium as far as use capacity, cycles, those types of things. Rafael Escobar: Yeah, I mean, think this is a pretty common knowledge these days, but you go from 50 % using 100 amp hour battery, you can only go down 50%. If you wanted your gels or your AGM back in the day, the last forever, you go to 70 % only, you like use 30%. And that's the only way you can get seven, eight years out of a battery. And I saw it happen and I'm like. how did you get this battery to last that long? They're like, well, it never got below 70 % state of charge. I'm like, okay, that's not really using a battery. But that's the way it was back in the day. But with lithium now, you can draw them down to 20%. The sweet spot is between like 20, it's pretty much 30 to 80 % staying in the middle. You do wanna go to 100 % often, but yeah, just the ability to have Amanda Haley: Right. Rafael Escobar: bank say going from 700 amp hours of lead that you can only use 350 and you go to 700 lithium you can use well over 500 it's just the space the weight your ability to run longer with before you charge or if you have a bad rainy day from your solar I'm sure we're gonna hit that topic next you can wait longer for the Sun to come back up again so it's just so much better in so many ways Amanda Haley: Yeah. Maryline: And excuse my lack of knowledge on the matter of brands and batteries, I'm sure are not all created equal, but are you an authorized distributor for certain brands like Victron or MasterVolt? How does this work and how do you help an owner choose if they don't know the difference between a good lithium system and a cheap one? Rafael Escobar: Yeah, I mean, I've worked with dealer and distributor for many brands over the years. Currently, my go-to batteries, number one would be Victron Energy. Number two would probably be the Epic brand for price point and Victron Integratable. Also, they've been heavily... recording ABYC and following all their standards to the tee and becoming a real lead brand. I do work with many other brands and have worked with many other brands over the years but my go-tos are those. Master Bolt isn't as big with bolt builders in the US, more in Europe. they're incredibly expensive, but their safety protocols and engineering integration is on another level compared to a lot of other battery brands. So that's what a lot of European companies love using Mastervolt. So it's more the niche, Mastervolt's trickier, there's not many people that know it, so I really love getting involved because it's sort of fun to jump in on something no one has a clue on, which seems to be so easy. But yeah, my go-to brands, I've worked with Superbee, I've worked with Battleborn, I've worked with Relion, I used to be the face of Relion. Amanda Haley: You Maryline: Yeah. Rafael Escobar: when they came out years and years ago. I've worked with a lot of different battery brands. Genesun even was the first battery I've ever installed and they're not even a brand anymore. a lot of things come and go in the battery industry. Amanda Haley: Ha. Absolutely, we definitely have seen that. So let's talk a little bit now about BMS. What is it and why can it be a double-edged sword? Rafael Escobar: Battery management system, it's basically, since lithium is a little more volatile in essence, you need to have some more protections from what they call thermal runaway. You don't want the batteries to get fully discharged to zero, like your endo start battery gets dropped to zero. It happens to everyone. Nothing happens. You just created your battery, it's done. With lithium, if it drops to zero, the electrons inside the battery can get out of control and that's where the thermal runaway comes from. So you need to protect from those bottom numbers and the overcharging. So the BMS is that fail safe to protect internally so that the batteries can never get to those dangerous thermal runaway points. Amanda Haley: Gotcha. Got it. Rafael Escobar: Yeah, so when you have back in the day we used to have all the time a Chinese built battery where someone just buy the cells from China, them over and buy some ABC Elemental P BMS and wire it in themselves. It was so easy to mess up. It's so easy to have a situation where someone didn't program it right even. It was just too many variables without an engineering level degree or experience. So nowadays we have internal BMS and external BMS. Amanda Haley: you Maryline: Yeah. Rafael Escobar: protects it from the highs and lows. It controls chargers from anywhere, your short charger, generator charger, solar charger, alternators, from overcharging or then on your other side the house draws or your inverters from drawing it too low. So it's sort of the brain inside watching every cell for thermal, for voltage high low, for ambient temperatures. There's a lot of variables that you need to keep those batteries safe to perform at their best. Maryline: And you just mentioned alternated charging, which we know is like very scary for a lot of boat owners, perhaps because it's misunderstood. But can you explain why perhaps it's it's thought of this way and what what else do you see as dangerous integration points when you do a lithium conversion and and how do you solve for those? Amanda Haley: Yeah. Rafael Escobar: Yeah, alternators, there's a lot of fear-mongering and in general it rarely happens. But when something does happen, it's a good reason why there is a little fear-mongering at times. What happens when you have an alternator, I know if you've ever seen an alternator fail and cook a lead battery where they boil over and they gas off. It happens, it happens. Amanda Haley: Mm-hmm. Rafael Escobar: in cars, it happens in boats. and all that. can happen with lithium is you have an alternator that gets out of control and it starts, say a 12 volt bank is trying to put 15, 16, 20, 30 volts or just keeps pushing amperage in and the battery is full and the battery is like I'm full, my BMS and C and my cells get a little too high, we're getting uncomfortable so the battery, what does it do? It disconnects itself. It has the drop-in batteries that BMS has actually a or a solenoid per se, internal, that'll open the contact. And so now your charging source, your storage unit, your tank disappears. And so you have this flood or rush of current, think of it as water, it's got nowhere to go. It's like a... like a river running through something and all of a sudden there's a dam smacked in the way. So now it's got to find a place to go and it finds anything with a capacitor which is a storage unit. So it first finds your charger, blows out all the capacitors in your charger. You got digital switching with capacitors in it. It'll blow up every digital switch on your boat. It'll start finding your electronics. So it's not like a fire can start but just catastrophic things can happen. But for that to happen Maryline: Right. Rafael Escobar: it takes it's a very very incredibly rare instance that that happens. So those are probably one of the biggest scares with the alternators. There's videos out there with people doing bench tests with alternators. Here's a standard alternator without external regulation on a lithium. And if you know anything, sometimes you see them turn up the dials and they're like, that's not even real numbers. Like they're just, they just push it as far as it goes until it smokes on purpose. You're like, that's not even real world. So there's some videos out there that are ridiculous and they're trying to prove a point because lithium's capacity to receive energy is astronomically higher than lead. You can charge it so much faster and it'll take it in. So that's the biggest issue is temperature. Amanda Haley: Right. Maryline: I Rafael Escobar: overheating alternators and damage to them. Those are probably your biggest concern is shorting the life of your alternator. Amanda Haley: okay, but what else has to be upgraded when you're swapping from, AGM to lithium? Rafael Escobar: Yeah absolutely, the number one is the alternator when it comes to ABYC. The easiest way around that cost effective is to do a basic DC to DC charger. Your standard alternators on most Volvos or Yammer is about 100 amps approximately 100 to 120. You leave those on your start battery, you take a DC to DC charger from your start battery to your house and it converts it to the profile and the profile of the lithium and God forbid your Maryline: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Rafael Escobar: batteries disconnect. you're not going to damage those DC to DC chargers as well as your alternators are protected because it's going to a tank already. It's already going to the start battery so it has a place to go if the house bank disappears. So that's the easiest most cost effective way to go. The higher end way to go is obviously external regulation. When you do external regulators you end up doing high output alternators. Alternators can cost a couple thousand dollars. Regulators another thousand dollars. The size of cable you got to put in is about this big when you're on a 12-volt Amanda Haley: Got it. Maryline: Mm-hmm. Right. Rafael Escobar: system. Your cables cost a couple thousand dollars so you're 10-15 grand. You can spend 20-30 grand on a high output if you want to. So those are the key number one areas. Number two, most charger these days have battery chargers from short generator to solar have lithium profiles. So all you have to do is have the right charger in place. All you have to do is change the setting. It's pretty simple on that side. It's really the biggest concern. Amanda Haley: Ready? Rafael Escobar: is installation quality and then the alternators. Amanda Haley: All right, so talking about numbers, you brought it up a little bit. What is Ballpark, a proper lithium conversion from AGM for let's say a 40 foot cruising catamaran, what is the cost of that? Maryline: If you Rafael Escobar: Yeah, 40 foot catamaran approximate lithium install. There's a bunch of variables. You could probably keep it basic under 10 grand pretty easily. Depends on the size of the bank, depends on the quality of the battery, depends on if you just want to do a basic drop in versus something that's integrating into, say you have a Victron system already there. So there's a bunch of little variables, but you can get away with under 10 grand easily. a 40 foot cruising catamaran. If get into the alternate regulation it escalates quickly. Amanda Haley: And what would you say is the payback versus the traditional lead acid or AGM? Rafael Escobar: Just time on the water guarantee you'll enjoy it so much better. You don't have to pay such close attention. If you drop the batteries too low to where they disconnect, you're not going to destroy your battery bank. You know, you could do it a bunch of times. It will shorten the life, but you're not stuck on the water with a dead battery or you're going to generate a 24-7 just to get home. So it's definitely a lot more peace of mind when it comes to usability on that level. Amanda Haley: Gotcha. Right. Maryline: And then talking about really true independence, a lot of the clients that come to us at Current Yachts, whether they are looking for a boat already equipped or they just bought a boat and they want to upgrade, they wanna understand what the the modern charging picture would look like in incorporating solar. Where does power come from on a well set up cruiser? What would that system look like? Could you describe that for us? Rafael Escobar: sure, solar is definitely just the best way to go. I remember doing... starting to do larger solar installs. Back in the day, a thousand watt install was like, that was a big deal, you know, like, because we didn't have lithium as much back then. And now like the ability, lithium, another thing with lithium, absorbs power faster. So you get more, so you have a huge solar arch on your boat and you switch from AGM to lithium, you instantly gain 30 % faster charging just because the nature of the batteries being absorbed faster. But yeah, solar is a beautiful game changer for people. You can't have enough solar on any sailing or powerboat in my opinion. Because there days where you don't have enough sun. So you can't have enough solar. But I really think the freedom solar gives you is, think the clients, especially sailors, are looking for peace and quiet. Amanda Haley: Yeah. Right. Rafael Escobar: the more solar you have, the less you have to run other power sources. You're alternating off the engine or even your generator to regain your power back. So it's just, I think it's a lot of freedom when it comes to having just that free power and not having to think about running your engines as often. Maryline: And we heard the words the PWM, which is the pulse width modulation versus the alternative, which is much more expensive, the max powerpoint tracking or MPPT. Can you talk to us? Maybe this is more advanced, right? This is solar in charging 2.0, but give us a little bit of your take on that so our audience can understand where you stand on this matter. Rafael Escobar: I had to think about it for a second because I haven't even heard of... the alternate in a long time. It's so far behind now. basically, if you're selling solar, you're selling MPPT now. It's sort of become the complete standard. The rest of it's, if you have one on your boat, it's probably a tiny little thing this big from something that had like a one little tiny panel charging your start battery or something. Like, I haven't seen those in a long time. Yeah, yeah. So it's sort of almost not even in the conversation these days. But MPPT Amanda Haley: MPPT. Yeah. Maryline: Not anymore. Got it. Rafael Escobar: just the technology goes from, gain at least 30 % more efficiency out of your panels instantly. They have a little computer that processes super fast. And there was a point where people were boasting how fast their processors were than MPPTs. Victron used to have one of the fastest and they used to be the best and they're still one of the best, but it's sort of become, if you're buying solar controllers, it's just an MPPT. It's not even a thought anymore. Yeah. Maryline: It is what got it. Not even a conversation. Got it. Amanda Haley: So I'm a sailor and so I have heard people say and I don't know if this is true or not, but when the boom or the sail is covering a portion of the panel, is that killing my whole battery bank if they are grouped together? Is it sometimes each panel is given its own controller? Is that a thing? Rafael Escobar: Yes, absolutely. think individual controllers per solar panel is industry standard. There are some scenarios where wiring you might want to put in parallel with shading never series, but there are a lot of panels when it comes to a single controller single panel, higher quality panels have more internal diodes that protect the individual cells from shading. So in the past, we did videos years ago Amanda Haley: Okay. Rafael Escobar: with a YouTuber where we shaded directly across the panel and it literally blocked all power out production by just putting like a one inch shadow straight across it. But more modern panels have more diodes that help protect that. It's obviously the biggest concern with sailboats. You have lines, you have a giant mast. And I would say the only time you might get away with doing a few in parallel is you're doing the solar racks in the back when there's less shading. But anytime there's heavy shading, Amanda Haley: Interesting. Rafael Escobar: without a doubt, do one per pan. Maryline: Yeah, and I was gonna add to your point. obviously you've designed custom solar for clients. we've seen with Fontaine Peugeot they do a lot more of the deck integrated solar at the factory. A lot more builders are doing that. what other creative ways are you finding f for those who have older boats older boats where it's not already integrated? Can you speak to some of the solutions you've helped create? Rafael Escobar: Sure, obviously the easiest go-to is putting some kind of solar rack or arch on the back. From aluminum or stainless, that's the most cost-effective way of going about it. When it comes to adding walk-ons aftermarket is incredibly expensive for wiring, let alone covering your deck and having to get custom shapes made. But creative ways we've been doing it, a lot of clients... If you have a catamaran, trampolines, we'll cover the trampoline with a semi-flexible panel. If the pros of it is great to put out when you're at anchor, the cons is storing it somewhere. You have to have a big enough boat to be able to roll up something with them. Maybe the best you can get down is maybe 18 inch roll and slide it in somewhere. Exactly, exactly, so. Amanda Haley: Mm-hmm. Maryline: Here goes your four peak storage. Amanda Haley: Yeah, exactly. Rafael Escobar: If I've had clients with such big boats they carry glass panels and they lay them out because they have a big boat and it's a couple on a big boat and they just don't care. They have a room they can store things in. So that's the creative way all the way down to there's a couple companies that do what's called sail cloth. It's not for your standard consumer where they'll actually put solar in your sail, but I've had them produce like canvas attachments where you could strap it down. Maryline: Mm. Rafael Escobar: and like perfectly cover your trampoline or if you have a big sun deck up on the fly you can cover the whole sun deck stuff like that it's depends on that's a little costlier a little higher priced kind of thing but I've had clients where they go on Amazon and buy the backpacks for campers where the panels all fold up and they grab those and they throw them out but those aren't exactly Amanda Haley: Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Rafael Escobar: designed for salt air and salt environments. So those have usually a shorter lifespan, those kind of things. Amanda Haley: So how close do you think we are to, for a cruiser, to realistically stop running the generator? Rafael Escobar: I have clients that are there. It really depends on your comfort level and your budget. There's a bunch of different things. It really depends on how long you want to run your air conditioners. If you don't care about running air conditioners, we're there. If you want to live like a Floridian and have 68 degrees inside all the time, we're not there. No, no, not in any way, form. The limitations with solar. Amanda Haley: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, of course. You No, we're not there yet, Rafael Escobar: is that we can improve lithium storage but solar the sun can only give us thousand watts per square meter. So no matter how efficient panels are getting I think the best you can buy is 24 percent efficient. There's guys in labs doing 40 to 50 percent on a cell like this big little tiny things it's like experimental. Even if we get to 100 percent it's only thousand watts per square meter it's it's physics we're limited. Amanda Haley: Mm-hmm. Rafael Escobar: So we can only go so far on that side. I think a lot of it's gonna come in the future technologies with batteries and alternative energy sources is gonna be the way to go. But with solar, you can get pretty close. You can go multiple days, even run your aircon at night for like say a single cabin before you need to run a generator. And on some boats, if you have enough space, bigger boats and you're very conservative, you almost never run your generator these days. Amanda Haley: Mm-hmm. Rafael Escobar: But again, it comes down to budget because doing that kind of stuff does cost. Amanda Haley: Yeah. Yeah, you have to have a very large battery bank to be able to do that. Yeah. Maryline: And so to wrap it up on the solar conversation, Raphael, if you could share with our audience, where do you see folks typically cut corners and underspend versus overspend when it comes to their solar setup? Rafael Escobar: Yeah, I think the under-span is the quality of panels. Sometimes we go for the cheapest you can find. There's so many options out there. It's hard to even know for someone like me that's done it so many years where brands are coming and going. My go-to was LG for the longest. I'm like, LG is a multi-billion international company. They're never going to go out of business. They're not out of business, but they got out of the solar business, like the DC solar. And there's other brands getting out of the DC solar because micro converters, there's more money in setting up fields for the government or putting them all over houses than the marine industry that wants a DC solar. So I think cutting corners is quality of panel. Like I say a full 100 watt panel, you can spend 50 cents to a dollar a watt on the cheap end. The better panels are going to cost $2 a lot for higher efficiency, better build quality. Maryline: Huge difference. Rafael Escobar: So say you bought a 40, 50 foot catamaran, you're going to put a stainless steel solar rack on the back, you're going to drop 10 to 12 grand in the steel work. And then if you're trying to save $1,000 on putting four or five panels on, it's being foolish. And then also price shopping for the cheapest guy. There's a difference between the guy that's $2,000 cheaper for the same install as someone else that's just a little bit more with a Amanda Haley: All right. Rafael Escobar: reputation that stands for years. The wires for when people are a couple thousand dollars cheaper it's usually the stainless is cut short or someone's trying to do it too fast the wires are too small of quality the wire runs aren't as clean you don't have all the ABYC experienced techs on board. Maryline: And probably w warranty I was gonna ask as well, correct? Rafael Escobar: Correct, yeah, having an established firm that's going to be around for a while, the warranty level on the installation as well as the product, buying a product that has good support in the US. That's the same for lithium. There's a lot of battery companies that, you know, I can get a lifetime warranty, ship it back to China. Okay, yeah, just buy another one. Amanda Haley: Yeah, sure, exactly. Maryline: In the next part of the conversation today, we wanted to talk to you about navigation, electronics, and connectivity. Obviously, huge changes in recent years. you build full NEMA 2000 networks from chart plotters to radars and VHF and so on. For a buyer looking out a boat and wanting to perhaps do an electronics overhaul, what would you be guessing is a good ballpark for them for again, maybe a 40-foot catamaran or perhaps a 45-foot monohol? You can maybe give us And I know it can vary a lot based on components, but when you start the conversation, what does that look like? Rafael Escobar: Yeah, I mean it goes to the type of boat. Sometimes it's just space. Yeah, you can fit a 7 inch plow around your boat. That's it. You're done. Unless you just bought a really cheap boat and you have the same amount of money you bought the boat for to put into it and then we're building yourself a new helm. Done that. But yeah, it really depends on the boat for space because a 7 inch chart plow is going to cost you a high end one, $1300. Amanda Haley: Sure. You Mm-hmm. Rafael Escobar: 19 inch char plotter you're talking about eight grand, you know, it depends on is that a power boat that has multiple screens. There's You can spend 15 grand doing an upgrade very easily. You can spend 80 very easily as well Just mind-blowing what you can do that the toys the toys are insane That's where you can go absolutely crazy with nav systems and especially the new AI cameras these days Yeah, it's it's it's getting fun Amanda Haley: Mm-hmm. Right, a range. Maryline: Yeah, fair enough. Rafael Escobar: Yeah, NEMA 2000 is really just so easy to work with compared to where I started with... It was NEMA, NMA, but 0183. was just... don't know how to compare it, but... You're gonna make me say something. I have friends. I have friends. So, my go-to... Please. Amanda Haley: Do you have a favorite over Garmin, B &G, Raymarine? Yeah, I am. mean, yeah. Maryline: We won't tell anyone. Amanda Haley: Except the listeners. Rafael Escobar: My go-to for a couple reasons is usually Garmin. Garmin is a company that is still owned by Garmin and they've been stable. Their support is absolutely phenomenal. When it comes to it, like, if you're into airplanes or anything like that, the standard is Garmin for a small aircraft. And yachting... They're all pretty equivalent these days and people are always like B &G for sailing, B &G for sailing. And yes, if you're racing and you're really a tactician or you're really looking at every little millisecond you can get out, you need a fraction of a second faster to get your wind data down to your processor. B &G absolutely hands down if you're a racer and you really are, your life is into racing. You can use BNG SimRat for any powerboat. I saw BNG on a... 130 foot sport fish I got called out to once and I was like why because the owner wanted the data like okay but Garmin my go-to just for Its product support mostly Raymarine's pretty dang fantastic these days. They've had some ups and downs They've been bought out a few times the same with B &G, but honestly it comes down to preference of the clients I sort of look at it as I'm the Android guy Android even though I'm an Android guy Maryline: We forgive you, Raphael. We forgive you. Amanda Haley: It's okay. We won't judge. No judgment. No judgment here. Rafael Escobar: You do? You didn't? No, I'm sorry. She wouldn't have had me on. So I sort of look at like PNG is like Android or PCs where there's a you can change and you get more access. Garmin is more like set and forget it. It's limited access unless you're really in deep on the OEM side. that you don't have think about it as much. And for boaters, usually the garment is better on that aspect and it's very intuitive and easy to work with. There are pros and cons to all of them, but when it comes to the sailing community it comes down to preference in my opinion I think they're all excellent at sailing. Their autopilots are all if properly set up right. There are a lot of complaints about the Garmin autopilot in the community, but most of time they've never been dialed in correctly by someone with experience. So yeah, there's a lot of options out there and honestly for people buying older boats that don't have the budget, there's a lot of new third party, there's a company out there called Orca, there's something called Signal K that takes all the old data and puts it on wifi and puts it on your iPad. So you can get a modern Navionics chart with old equipment with a third party integrator. So there's a lot of options out there for clients. Amanda Haley: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And let's go back to the old AIS, transmit versus receiving. And what would you say that every offshore boat should have and why? Rafael Escobar: Yeah, TX and RX, I just think about the times where I've seen clients that had close calls. Let's call it that. I remember early on in my career, I can't remember the boat, it might've been a 50 foot voyage or something, really decked out, really nice, all great equipment, but it didn't have an AIS. Single handling it out in the channels out off in the Atlantic somewhere. and he was just sitting in their autopods on, was enjoying dinner, and all of a sudden he heard a crack. And he looks up and he sees a giant ship just grazes him and it casts his shroud and ripped the mast and could have absolutely killed him, destroyed his entire boat if they were just off by a few degrees. And I'm like, so what are you doing now? He's like, I'm putting an AIS in. Amanda Haley: you Rafael Escobar: And the key is, especially for sailboats, these big ships, their pilot houses are so high. And if you have a little anchor light or even a tricolor, you can barely see it sometimes. And if you're just running without a tricolor, your nav lights are down low and your waves are running five, six foot, and your bridge deck's only five, six foot high, they can't see you at all. So having that AIS, and even if they do hit you or come close to hitting you, Amanda Haley: Yep, you sink down. Rafael Escobar: They have no excuse when you have an AIS because someone wasn't paying attention. But yeah, it's an absolute must and the costs are not that high. The big brands, it's like $1,000 for all the big names for an AIS. You can buy your VHF nowadays with the AIS TX and RX built in. for about thousand bucks. So you get a VHF and the AIS. And there's also a lot of other smaller name brands that are half that price that you can get AIS on board very easily. And now, the Bahamas require it, right? To even cruise the Bahamas. So there's been a lot of uptick on smaller boats getting AIS lately for that reason. Yeah. Amanda Haley: Great. That's good to hear. Maryline: I had a silly question from earlier when you mentioned different brands, equipment for electronics. Is it ever possible to mix and match? Let's say you buy a boat, it's great minus a few things, and you wanna you want the Garmin shop plotter and it's got a raimarine system, yes or no? Rafael Escobar: Yes, absolutely yes. You can mix and match, but there are limitations. Say you come on the boat and you have a five-year-old Raymarine and you're like, man, gosh, I don't want Raymarine, I want my Garmin or my B &G. The first move you make in planning your budget is you change the chart plotter. So the chart plotter... Amanda Haley: Right. Rafael Escobar: will talk to any of your winds, your depth, any of your smaller navigation communication, it'll also work with your autopilot. The things it won't work with is what is not attached to NMEA 2000. NMEA 2000 is a standard protocol, so it's standardized so you can talk on any brand. It's the proprietary high speed network. So like your computer network cables you'll see on the both RG45s or the Raynets or the Synnets. those connects your chart plotter to other chart plotters. So you can't mix chart plotters. Say you have one inside, you only want change the outside, that doesn't work. You can't talk to the radars. You can't talk to, say, your depth sounder modules, your sonar, your serious weathers, the things that integrate on the high-speed networks. They're all proprietary. So if you say you have the easiest change out, or the simplest of all is a chart plotter and a radar. That's the first move you make. And then over time, if you ever eventually, your other equipment starts to fail, you start changing your and your depth and all those kind of things as you go. So those are the moves you make when changing and mixing and matching. Some people are so picky about a look, it doesn't match. know, lot of people will make that move, but yeah, it all depends on the budget. Yeah. Maryline: Yeah. Yeah, thank you for that. Amanda Haley: So let's talk about Starlink now. And remote monitoring, it's gone from a luxury, right, that most people couldn't afford, to now almost near standard. are you installing this the most? How are you educating your clients on it when it comes to Starlink? Rafael Escobar: I mean Starlink it's so easy. I I have one sitting in a case behind me I take the boats just as a backup. It's so cheap. It's so simple. It's this big little Starlink Mini. Location, a lot of clients are doing the installs themselves these days. I mean it depends on you know they put it out and bring it back when they need it. Hiring clients want to have all the wires hidden. They don't want anything to be seen so I get a lot of those installs. The biggest thing I run into is the usability. mean, are you running a business from your boat? Or are you streaming movies all the time? Are you an avid sports fan? Do you have to be heavy using? Or are you using it for email and the occasional movie? Or just like you said for remote monitoring like so you need RAF to jump in because their boat just shut down because the lithium was freaked out because someone pushed a button and it happened to me yesterday. So you can remote in and you see what's going on and you can assist the client and then a lot of times Amanda Haley: you Rafael Escobar: I've helped people with Starlink in the middle of the Pacific, like troubleshooting stuff. Back in the day, if you could afford the sat phone with the dish in the back, it'd be like that, that, that, that. Amanda Haley: Yeah. Rafael Escobar: You can't, it was worthless. spend maybe a thousand dollars and you make a phone call in the middle of the Pacific and you can't understand what's going on. You can't help anyone. Now you're just pulling out WhatsApp and you're just video streaming and talking live while you're remote supporting at the same time. So it's really the data plans. I think what Starlink first came out, everyone was buying the RV. It was 50 bucks a month at one time, unlimited. Everyone's streaming all day, every day. Now I had a client recently go out, avid sports fans, avid movie goers. Amanda Haley: Rest. Right. Rafael Escobar: just love watching TV when they're on the boat. Each is out. They went out for a week, came back with a $800 bill off the one week and they had a decent plan. So I got in touch with my buddies at MTN who are the commercial third party, the biggest Starlink providers in the world commercially. So they're the cruise ship guys, you all the big, big, big commercial boats. I said you need to talk to them because they understand better than anyone. They got them on a plan that's you know they could Amanda Haley: Mm-hmm. Yep. Rafael Escobar: end up being a thousand bucks a month they're paying but during football season they're happy to pay it because they're watching five games a day all day. So for them the value is there in spending a thousand dollars a month and then they can bring it down when season's over. So it really comes down to usage when it comes to Starlink. Amanda Haley: Right. Yeah. Maryline: And I'm gonna share my my own personal warning. make sure you toggle off ocean mode when you're done with it, because ocean mode stays on unless you turn it off pro tip. ask me how I know. Amanda Haley: Yeah, I've been there, done Rafael Escobar: Hahaha Amanda Haley: that as well. Yep. Rafael Escobar: That's expensive, yeah, for sure. Maryline: So I wanted to ask you some questions now on evaluating boats. a lot of buyers have questions when it comes to both electronics, of course, but just the electrical system on board boats. And as you probably realize, a marine survey is a snapshot in time. A general surveyor will typically not go in depth into reviewing electronics or electric system. And I wanted to ask your opinion on whether or not buyers looking at a significant investment like, you know, maybe about five hundred thousand dollars, four hundred thousand dollars and up, should they consider a separate electrical inspection? And if so, who do you hire to do this sort of thing? Rafael Escobar: Yeah, I mean, I think nowadays some of the better surveyors are studying at the ABYC. They're challenging themselves. I don't know if it's any standard in the Surveyors Association or not, but the better ones are getting good at it. But again, like you said, they're general surveyors, so they understand enough to be dangerous in some ways. So a lot of times I'll get calls from surveyors to get an opinion, to walk on and do an evaluation of, hey, I saw this and... They understand the ABYC code and the install side, but they don't understand why something's happened because they can't get into the system to test it. So a lot of times, someone like Bluewater like myself will come in with a Victron, the Mashable, and Expertise to come in and dial things in. I think you should if the boat has lithium, any way, or form, or has any higher end system installed on it. A standard AGM basic you can hire someone like me just to have a second opinion on because again Like generalists you don't trust a generalist to on a high-end sailboat for rigging, you know, always get independent rig inspection That's the same thing with electronics. You have high-end electronics, you know Get the specialists out there to look at the things same thing with diesel engines get a diesel expert To come and look at it. It's if you're making a significant investment and that's your boat Before you pull the trigger fully. I spent a little extra money Amanda Haley: Right. Yeah. Maryline: And I it's a really good point that the general surveyor may have that knowledge or should perhaps cover it. So, as a buyer, if you're looking at different surveyors and evaluating their services, asked a question. we recently worked with Scott Miller out in Annapolis. He did a survey with us on a Katie Krogan 48 10 year old boat, identified that behind a panel there should have been a plexiglass separator now to meet the new EBYC standards to separate DC from AC components and avoiding just kind of accidents like that. So he pointed that out in the report. It's not a true deficiency, I would say, as far as like the priority list, not at the top, but it is something that can easily be added. And your surveyor, if you pick them carefully, should be able to tell you how far they go into this review. And then to your point, Raphael, could be supplemented with a specialist, especially when there's newer components, lithium installed, and and you want to have absolute assurance that everything was installed properly and and to your liking. Rafael Escobar: See Amanda Haley: And for our listeners, their takeaway from listening all the way to the end of this podcast, thank you for that. What would you want them to know are the red flags to look for? Rafael Escobar: Absolutely. Number one red flag would be owner DYI installs. There are some guys that are amazing out there. I've had guys that were way way smarter than me not allowed to install their own lithium because their insurance says no you can because you don't do it every day. He's like well I'm this government designer engineer I do a practical hands-on. The guy's brilliant. Amanda Haley: Okay. Rafael Escobar: He had to call me who's I'm pretty smart, but I'm not brilliant on his level like he's he's Physicist like doctor all this stuff super smart, but I had to go do his install It was good. It good experience that I always like to learn from my clients Amanda Haley: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Rafael Escobar: I always thought I was pretty smart so I met really smart people and so I like to learn from other people as well in growing in my knowledge and experience in life as well. yeah, DYIs are dangerous. I just was on a boat. During the survey I got called in, asked how much it would cost to fix it up and clean it up and get the fire, scary hazard of that engine room safe. You know, and it was, I don't know. eight thousand dollar estimate ended up being eleven thousand dollar cost at end because then I could have probably spent another ten to make it absolutely perfect but you know it's it was necessary it was an owner install exposed terminals everywhere ten wires on one post and it worked for years and heavily monitored but the risk level was very high very high so yeah dyi is look out for those things Amanda Haley: All right. Hmm. Mm-hmm. Maryline: Yeah. And so let us translate really quick. What does that mean if you're a seller? Please hang on to your receipts. Please hang on to the proof of install so that the installer can be identified easily. The list of the work, you know, completed is is clearly outlined. you can't make up a receipt from a professional installer. So just save the receipts for the work that was done on the boat. And that goes for most maintenance and upgrades, but it's especially important for electrical. So Amanda Haley: Yeah, everything. Absolutely. Rafael Escobar: Good advice. Maryline: Thank you so much, Rafael, for spending this roughly forty minutes with us. We enjoyed having you and we will put the link to your company, Blue Water Yacht Tech, in our marine directory so that our listeners know where to find you. Thank you so much for being with us and we'll see you on the next one. Fair wins. Amanda Haley: Everyone can find you. Rafael Escobar: Thank you, Maryland. Thank you, Amanda. Absolutely. Amanda Haley: There wins.