Has anyone any first hand experience in living with electric propulsion on their boat? I would especially like to know of peoples experiences cruising, wheather a generator was used, any useful regen under sail, how much solar carried, lithium or lead acid batteries, how much capacity... etc? Can anyone reccomend any australian suppliers?

I found this couple on utube, they used an old electric motor.
'sailing uma'.

It sounds a good idea!

This looks cool

probably not for long range though ...



Cheers
Byrds

I used to follow this website a bit, as I was interested in the tri-maran. It's the old Bullfrog/Verbatim. Might be worth a look at how he used electricity on his boat.

currentsunshine.com/

The Sailing UMA crew are quite friendly and respond back to everyone who writes to them on Patreon, if you go on there you could ask them directly of their experience, they are currently upgrading their battery system/ engine to be able to drive the yacht through the french canals all under electric power.

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santanasaga said..
Has anyone any first hand experience in living with electric propulsion on their boat? I would especially like to know of peoples experiences cruising, wheather a generator was used, any useful regen under sail, how much solar carried, lithium or lead acid batteries, how much capacity... etc? Can anyone reccomend any australian suppliers?

Well I have had a fair bit of experience with cruise ships and diesel electric drive. All the modern ones use diesel generators to drive azipods. Diesel is still the cheapest way to develop electricity by a long shot. The Torqueedo E motion drive is just an inefficient version of an azipod. Azipods are usually puller props but that would upset the pre balance on a rudder blade.
If I owned an SS34 mark 1 I would consider that a perfect solution would be an efficient diesel engine/generator and an electric drive from one of the many electric motors now available. I would stick with lead acid batteries to double up as back up and run the accessories. Diesel electric drive installations allow you to mount the usually heavy diesel in the best spot in the hull. The short shaft on the electric motor makes alignment easy. Diesel submarines and cruise ships don't seem to be limited in range.

What sought of boat

No personal experience , but "ocean volt " looks ok .....

I've always wanted to have an electric motor instead of diesel but solar panels and battery banks might need to be too big so far.

My noisey old Volvo Penta 28hp generates 20kW of power. Those big solar arrays on the solar race cars generate 1kW when its sunny. So assuming 100% efficiency (not!) I need huge solar panels collecting full power (1kW) for 20 hours to be able to equal the Volvo Penta running 1 hour.... and huge batteries so I can motor at night. A car battery can supply 1kW for one hour so I would need 20 car batteries for one hour of motoring at 28hp .... roughly

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Santana is a 40' long keel blue water cruising vessel, displacing 13 tonnes. Weight is not an issue. I generally sail as much as possible, however have previously motored for long distances offshore to beat weather systems.

I currently have 800watts of solar and a wind generator. Inwould probably install a genset as a range extender.

I am currently looking into two systems. One a replacment for my 50hp auxillary, or looking at a pod/rudder drive aka hanse 315. I see the advantages of this system as no cooling problems for the electric motor, improved manuverability and no more stern glands!

Looking at 25kwh 48v battery power probably lead acid agm as this is cost effective.


Saltram Saga 40

Hull Type: Long keel w/trans. hung rudder

Rig Type: Cutter

LOA: 40.00' / 12.19m

LWL: 32.00' / 9.75m

Beam: 12.08' / 3.68m

Displacement: 30480 lbs./ 13826 kgs.

Ballast: 11220 lbs. / 5089 kgs.

You can buy Hamilton Jets that work in reverse now with out a defector one on either side of the main bulk head would me any yacht highly manoeuvrable .
Making it possible to turn a yacht in its own length m . Run By electric motors and would be able to steer it self vis two throttles
And by adding a large Dorade that was capable of having a radiator inside it a water cooled light weight diesel could generate power for the whole boats systems


run it on Kero or turn it into a diesel

and if the motor was a valve less motor it could be controlled by the engine computer system to be 2 cylinders that could become a compressor and used as air winches a two stroke diesel and run by the Engine 's PC system


so if you were motor sailing you could use one Hamilton jet and the other in clesar air far less drag and chances of propeller
entanglement

Plus fit sea water batteries where the yacht lead keel was ans this used as part of its keel counter weight instead of lead Ingots.
So the batteri4es become part of the counter weight
will work on keel encased fibre glass yachts like my old boat

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Ramona said..

santanasaga said..
Has anyone any first hand experience in living with electric propulsion on their boat? I would especially like to know of peoples experiences cruising, wheather a generator was used, any useful regen under sail, how much solar carried, lithium or lead acid batteries, how much capacity... etc? Can anyone reccomend any australian suppliers?

Well I have had a fair bit of experience with cruise ships and diesel electric drive. All the modern ones use diesel generators to drive azipods. Diesel is still the cheapest way to develop electricity by a long shot. The Torqueedo E motion drive is just an inefficient version of an azipod. Azipods are usually puller props but that would upset the pre balance on a rudder blade.
If I owned an SS34 mark 1 I would consider that a perfect solution would be an efficient diesel engine/generator and an electric drive from one of the many electric motors now available. I would stick with lead acid batteries to double up as back up and run the accessories. Diesel electric drive installations allow you to mount the usually heavy diesel in the best spot in the hull. The short shaft on the electric motor makes alignment easy. Diesel submarines and cruise ships don't seem to be limited in range.

Which is also the approach Lagoon has taken with their "Lagoon 420 Hybrid".