Hi Clint: Our experience with water generators is covered in detail in Offshore Cruising Encyclopedia. In general, forward-facing works fine to absorb energy–but it takes a lot of blade area which is, of course, drag.

While we used these units on a number of boats years ago, the drag (and noise) penalties were too high for us. I prefer to use engine now, which these days we find is on at least an hour a day or so on every passage.

With a cat like you are building I would forget about the water generator, and go with solar panels.–Steve.