Before setting off on the Pacific Puddle Jump 2026 — four weeks at sea between Panama, Mexico or the Galápagos and French Polynesia — one question came up again and again aboard: will we have enough power and water to go the distance? Two skippers who have now completed the crossing, Christophe and Laurent, agreed to share what they learned, while rally organiser David Allouch of Sail Tahiti offers a wider view of the trends he saw across this year’s fleet.

Solar panels: essential, but not enough on their own

Aboard Nam Phong, Laurent had doubled the solar array on his Nautitech 44 after feeling “a bit short” on the Atlantic crossing — 2,200 watts in total, split between the coachroof and the davits. The reality at sea, in the trades and under full main, turned out to be very different. “The shadow of the mainsail covers half the solar panels on the roof,” he explains, and those panels produced far less than the ones on the davits. Of 2,200 nominal watts, the array was really making around 1,000 watts in the middle of the day.

On his Sun Odyssey 380, with panels mounted on the stern arch, Christophe confirms that solar is formidable but short-lived: the panels deliver “an enormous amount of energy” between 10am and 3 or 4pm, but as soon as the sun drops or the sails throw shade, production falls close to nothing.

That said, David Allouch points out that the technology keeps improving — “solar panels are getting more and more efficient, and with bifacial panels we’re now seeing very high output, easily enough for a transpacific.” He tempers it immediately: the more you produce, the more you consume. “Whatever the boat and whatever the equipment, we always end up in a slight energy deficit,” largely because of the growing number of freezers, fridges, washing machines and other comfort items aboard, all of which are hungry.

Hydrogenerators: a useful supplement, not a miracle

Both skippers tested the same type of Watt&Sea hydrogenerator, with mixed results. Laurent, distinctly unimpressed, doesn’t mince his words: “If I had it to do again, I wouldn’t buy it.” On the Atlantic he had never exceeded 200 watts, a long way from the 600 watts quoted by the manufacturer. Christophe ran into the same limits, with one extra drawback on his pod version: noise.

The other significant frustration — already familiar on the Atlantic-to-Caribbean route, and nothing to do with the equipment itself — was sargassum weed fouling the turbine, forcing crews to back down mid-ocean to clear it. David Allouch confirms the pattern across the 2026 rally: “Hydrogenerators work very well when you’re moving, but not at anchor.” He is clear that they are a top-up for the boat’s electronics, not a way to run the fridge or the watermaker. He also flags a technical point that often gets overlooked: the wiring connections. Several rally boats had the beginnings of electrical overheating this year — a melted bolt, a suspicious smell — caught in time, but a reminder of how much a careful installation matters.

The second alternator: a reliable answer

Given the limits of solar and hydrogeneration, a second alternator on the engine shaft stands out as a dependable complement. Both Christophe and Laurent had one fitted, with very different experiences in practice. On Christophe’s boat the second alternator worked well overall, producing “80 to 100 watts” overnight — enough to cover Starlink and the basic electronics.

Laurent had the failure that really hurts: his 125-amp second alternator gave out after 675 hours, in the middle of the Pacific. He draws a valuable lesson for future crews: “It’s worth carrying a spare regulator.” Without that spare aboard in the middle of French Polynesia, he now faces several weeks’ wait for a replacement alternator shipped from mainland France. David Allouch confirms the solution remains popular, particularly with crews who have moved to lithium: “With two alternators, when there’s no sun you can run the engine for just an hour and recharge the batteries very quickly.”

Lithium or gel: a question of budget and vigilance

Here the two skippers went different ways. Laurent sails with four lithium batteries fitted from new by the Nautitech yard, a set-up he finds comfortable without being infinitely expandable: “I’d say we lived very comfortably — we could have been a little more frugal.”

Christophe, on a smaller monohull, had conventional gel batteries. Unfortunately they wore out prematurely en route, which meant dealing with the awkward logistics of ordering replacements to the Marquesas, delivered by cargo ship with several weeks’ delay.

David Allouch confirms lithium is on the rise across the fleet, while insisting on one safety point: “We see a lot of problems with amateur installations using cheap Chinese batteries.” He recommends sticking to established brands, “Victron and Mastervolt for example”, having the work done by professionals, and checking the tightness of connections regularly at sea.

The watermaker: indispensable on a long passage

On water, the watermaker is the one point everyone agrees on. Laurent, whose Nautitech has a 105 litre/hour unit, is unreserved: “Every day, we could take a shower.” He still advises keeping tanks full at all times as a precaution, and even carrying a manual emergency watermaker in the grab bag.

Christophe was using a watermaker for the first time on this crossing, with a more modest 35 litre/hour model: “I’d have been happy with the bigger one, because 35 litres really isn’t much.” That said, power draw is proportional to output, so the smaller unit is a sensible choice in that respect. He also notes something particular to the Marquesas: the water in some bays carries a lot of sediment and clogs the prefilters quickly, which then need changing weekly.

David Allouch, who has watched the equipment become mainstream year on year, sums up its value better than anyone: “Making a transpacific without a watermaker isn’t difficult as far as drinking water goes. But for showering and washing clothes, the watermaker changes everything.” He adds a less obvious argument: travelling with half-full tanks, because you can make water, takes several hundred kilos out of the boat, with a real effect on performance. He does slip in one technical warning from his own experience — on boats with lithium batteries, a voltage drop can damage the watermaker’s electric motor.

No single answer

Beyond the hardware, the same message comes through in all three accounts: there is no one miracle solution, but a combination of complementary sources — solar, alternator, hydrogenerator — which, paired with real discipline about consumption, should keep any crew comfortably supplied. Though as David Allouch puts it, the real question may be more philosophical than technical: “Isn’t it better to leave with just one fridge, rather than two freezers, three fridges and a washing machine, and spend your whole transpacific worrying about it?”

The PPJ in numbers

6 — the number of crew aboard the Excess 14 Takaya 6, the largest crew in the Pacific Puddle Jump 2026 to answer our online survey. It didn’t hold them back: they covered the 3,938 nautical miles between Panama and Hiva Oa in 25 and a half days, with a best day of 196 miles.

4,159 miles — the longest distance sailed on the transpacific rally, by the Contest 52 Kivaveva, from Panama City to Mangareva in the Gambier. But the crew who made the most of the crossing were aboard the Hallberg Rassy 42 Kudis, who spent 36 days at sea between Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and Nuku Hiva.

35–40 knots — the strongest conditions met by participants in this 2026 edition, most often in squalls. The Excess 13 Karma even recorded 44 knots, though what most crews remember is the sea state rather than the sustained wind.

3 days — around 10% of the crossing time, the average that PPJ 2026 sailors had to resort to engine to escape windless zones and get the sails back up as soon as possible. Special mention to the Nautitech 44 Open Vahiere, which managed entirely without engine, and to the 32ft cutter Fantasia, which ran hers no more than an hour every other day to charge the batteries — never to make ground.

50% under genoa — half the crews who answered the PPJ 2026 survey preferred to sail under genoa or solent downwind, sometimes with a poled-out staysail. Code D sails, gennakers and multipurpose codes — all on furlers — came second among preferred headsails. Snuffer-hoisted spinnakers, including Parasailors, are appreciated by some in ideal conditions but are associated with too much complexity, instability and stress to be fully adopted, particularly at night.