I am not YET an owner but have been looking hard at the R29, R31, and the C30. (I want diesel, not outboard). I have a few questions and a few comments.
1) While the webinar was intended for owners to maximize their use of the boats, do not underestimate its value to shoppers like myself. It was extremely valuable to me.
2) Until this webinar, I did not appreciate how well Fluid has equipped the boats with power. Your flyers mention AGM batteries but I had not focused on them. Nowhere do they say 4 house batteries. I had to do a deep dive into the owners manual to find that out, after you mentioned the 31 had 4, and I now see the 29 does also.
3) Until this webinar, I would not have appreciated what 4 AGM house batteries would do for me from a practical standpoint. Even had you listed 4 AGM in the flyer, it would not have meant much. Now it does. Its a hard thing to sell, but its really a great aspect to the boats.
4) An observation / suggestion: switches, individual readout devices and so forth seem littered around the boats in various odd places based on where there is a flat surface to use. The scattered nature seems to cry for more centralized organization into an easily accessible spot. The use of the quarter-berth / midship-berth kinda-sorta upsets that berth as a clean and organized guest bunk. Perhaps it isn't possible, but maybe an organized bank of all of this located in the forward cabin on the bulkhead facing the berth, that backs to the head? Or alternatively, on the bulkhead backing to the head coming down the stairs into the cabin (yeah, there is the door that folds into that). Cover the panel with either a wood door or smoked glass and it would still look cool, and it would be more accessible than having to lift a dinette seat when guests are under foot, and would be close to the helm station. What brought that really to mind was the advice to switch on and switch off devices actively to conserve power, and one begins to picture lifting the dinette seat in the 29 up and down all day.
5) The issue of consolidated information on power flow usage and battery power available seems to be a problem begging for a clean readout solution. Pull all of that together onto a screen based on solid data from sensors, or into an iPad app, and you have a patent-able product that solves a need the way Garmin has pulled a lot of data onto their screens. Especially if you made it more of a full to empty readout. Like a gas tank.
6) Air conditioning isn't a big deal in the PNW but it is in the East / Southeast. What does that draw? Can that be run on battery power, or is shore / generator a basic requirement when on AC? The question was highlighted by the comment the ice maker was a shore / generator power only device.
7) After getting focused on AGM batteries and doing a basic google search on pros and cons of them, I see advice to draw them down to 50% before recharging to prolong life. So: a) how does the solar panel interplay with that aspect? b) how does a use of motoring out to some picnic cove for the afternoon, use batteries for a few hours (say 20%) then motor home with engine recharging them, interplay with that aspect?
Once again, a fine job with the webinar. I look forward to future installments.
