Bought a Never splashed Colvic Countess 33 on eBay, Looking for infos
- Thread starter GregOddity
- Start date
GregOddity
Well-known member
pvb
Well-known member
hehe you Licked them
Of course not, there's only dust in the bilge, no seawater.
GregOddity
Well-known member
Who am I to argue with the guy that designed my boat? But I can question his reasons for recommending that engine can I not? As with many things in boat design many vectors come into play. He also designed a VERY conservative sail plan that most have changed. None of the Colvic Countess that I have so far visited have the mast height he recommended (3 so far) and have a different sail set up then the one he recommended. So, should we argue with him? NO but we can question his motives and change according to improvements on design and tech not available at the time. Does that mean I think he was wrong? Not at all, I like his work and am very happy with Oddity. But then again, I’m also doing a lot of changes to that boat that were simply not possible in 1982. As for the engine he did recommend a couple more options if I’m not mistaken. As he did for the sail plan.
GregOddity
Well-known member
A dry bilge is a good bilge. No "tasting" involved.
Skylark
Well-known member
Ensuring that a boat is clean and dry in the engine bay and bilges is just part of routine maintenance. Here's mine:-
Graham_Wright
Well-known member
Too right! My mast is 2 feet higher and my boom is long enough to avoid being garrotted by the main sheet! The tops of my bilge keels are fuel tanks. All with his approval.
GregOddity
Well-known member
Ensuring that a boat is clean and dry in the engine bay and bilges is just part of routine maintenance. Here's mine:-
Now THAT is what I think an engine compartment should look like. Clean and well organised. I’m hoping mine looks half as good at least when I finish it.
GregOddity
Well-known member
Most extended between 2 and 3 feet. I'm inclined to go with 3 as the boat can certainly take it, but most definitely 2. Oddity will benefit majorly from that increase in sail area. Mine is the fin keel version. I’m also thinking of having a fuel tank over the keel area.
anoccasionalyachtsman
Well-known member
So we're back to 40 minutes? If you want to get out of most Solent harbours to a point where you can easily sail onward you'll need 3kW on a calm day at slack water and with everyone overtaking you. To get out of Hamble against the tide on a breezy Southerly type day you'll need about 10 minimum. 10kW for 40 minutes is 550Ah of 12V batteries. Say £5,500 (around £10 per Ah in 100Ah sizes). And they're now ruined because you have no reserve and have flattened them.
I see that a Zoe battery was about 40kWh when new. Anyone know how much capacity they lose per mile/year? Because a Renault owner can't buy a battery outright (it seems to be cost of change plus fresh ongoing lease) I'd imagine that any decent ones from crashed cars will be pretty valuable. I'd guess at at around £2k - the hire cost being £100/month.
Greg, I think the idea of marinising an automotive engine is excellent, and has to be the most £ efficient of all the options. Curious as to why you wouldn't fabricate the conversion yourself, you've obviously got the skills to do that (and beautiful welds too btw).
I see that a Zoe battery was about 40kWh when new. Anyone know how much capacity they lose per mile/year? Because a Renault owner can't buy a battery outright (it seems to be cost of change plus fresh ongoing lease) I'd imagine that any decent ones from crashed cars will be pretty valuable. I'd guess at at around £2k - the hire cost being £100/month.
Greg, I think the idea of marinising an automotive engine is excellent, and has to be the most £ efficient of all the options. Curious as to why you wouldn't fabricate the conversion yourself, you've obviously got the skills to do that (and beautiful welds too btw).
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NormanB
Well-known member
I do not know about the Zoe but Nissan increased the cost of their battery to $8000 last year (up from I think $5000) so second hand prices from crashed vehicles will be priced accordingly, in other words not cheap. There is also high demand for them for ‘power walls’.
In terms of how much capacity the batteries lose, the answer is a lot less than everyone expected.
Renault had a putative business to repurpose ‘degraded’ vehicle batteries into ‘power walls’ - the business has not got off the ground as there are so few batteries coming back from the lease fleet.
obmij
Active member
Marine diesel is dirt cheap and and insignificant cost in the running of a small blue water sailing vessel - you're talking a couple of quid or so an hour maximum, for a couple of hours a day.
If the oddity team are as competent as they make out then the cost of maintaining a marine diesel engine will be limited to oil, filters, coolant and the odd gasket set.
A new and engine & gearbox combo can be bought from a company on this thread for less than 5K. In the overall cost of refitting and SAILING a bluewater cruiser - that is cheap as chips.
So what is the real driver of this hybrid drive project? It is obviously not cost...
If the oddity team are as competent as they make out then the cost of maintaining a marine diesel engine will be limited to oil, filters, coolant and the odd gasket set.
A new and engine & gearbox combo can be bought from a company on this thread for less than 5K. In the overall cost of refitting and SAILING a bluewater cruiser - that is cheap as chips.
So what is the real driver of this hybrid drive project? It is obviously not cost...
GregOddity
Well-known member
That’s a good question and deserves a good answer. There are two main drivers for the Hybrid drive. The First is price. I do find Marine engines and quite a lot of “marine “stuff less then ideal and sold at prices that make my eyes water. I simple cannot justify to myself paying 6k for a glorified tractor engine. Besides I do have to earn that cash and I tend to work hard for it so I therefore do not part easily with it.
The Second and perhaps the most important is that WE would like to avoid a Diesel Engine altogether. I personally hate the fumes and the smell that leaves on a boat just by being inside.
Sailing for me is quiet and peaceful. It’s using the wind to move the boat. Having said that I am not a purist, I believe the world must evolve. The next logical step is indeed to go electric. We aim to make the battery pack grow as we can afford it to the point that the diesel is used simply in an Emergency.
Going electric however is not without it’s if’s and buts due to the tech, price and complexity of a high efficiency installation. For that we will have to make do with what we can afford and devise our own solution.
I also did some work on Hybrid Vehicles on the electronics and software side of things. Not directly related to the drive train the work I was doing but talking to colleagues and seeing it in action made a convert out of me. The tools alone cost a bundle. In Germany there are companies sprouting like mushrooms out of the ground, creating all sorts of electric and Hybrid vehicles. Quite a lot of them for industrial uses.
In the UK I worked for a Scottish company but I’m not at liberty to discuss the work that I did. Suffice to say that sometimes I had to check specific software and hardware on Heathrow Buses which happen to be Hybrid and every time I visited there was one or two being repaired. I had to log that. Funny enough it was always the Diesel part that needed repair. In two years, I logged a large percentage of mechanical breakdowns against the electrics.
Some of the things that I did involve RT Systems VOIP and GPS. So, I had to visit quite frequently. The more I did and the more I looked at the hybrids the more I wanted to put that on a boat.
On our “electric” boat we have no option but to install a diesel and create a Hybrid so we can have autonomy or power on demand and redundancy. But that can be a number of options. From a gen unit to a Marine engine or marinized engine. It’s all a matter of cost and what we’re more comfortable with.
To sum it all up we want to be as electric as we can afford to and we’re having fun messing around with the tech.
Bit of a pipe dream perhaps as the tech is expensive and the ideal way would be with a Fuel cell but we’re sadly still light years away from being able to use Graphene as a membrane to create a more efficient fuel cell and reduce the production cost.
There you have it. Were a bit mad by UK standards, I guess. But then again, I was trained to be a German. (my wife insists on it) (… and she's VERY insistent!)
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GregOddity
Well-known member
We never left the 40 minutes. A glass can be half empty and half full at the same time depending on perspective. Your perspective is not incorrect but we decided to refit Selkie exactly to check our own ideas against what can happen. We’re trying to use Selkie as a test vessel for our Ideas and see what’s practicable or not. We have sailed against the current and got in at max current into Gosport. We’ve sailed with barely a wisp of wind and used tick over to make headway.
The problem is more complex then simply the engine. It’s also a new philosophy of sailing. No more leaving Gosport not caring what the current is doing or if there is wind. Sailing on electric power needs to be more hands on then that. You need to check winds and tides and calculate where you going to be at what time and what is that going to do to your plans. A bit like sailing with only a few Litters of Diesel in your tank. No more relaying on the engine for going home for dinner time. You’re “there” till you get going and you arrive when you dock.
In a way it’s like the sailing that I was taught. If you only have 20m left on the batteries you sure cannot rush home to see the football. You stick it out.
Did I not look at the tides and winds before? Yes... but I also have an engine that I too easily switch on to get moving.
You need to change the way you sail for an Electric Sailboat. It’s not just about numbers on a paper.
Selkie is going to help us decide what is it we can get away with and what is it we really want out of a Hybrid drive.
As for the marinizing, YES I do intend to do it myself but I find it easier to post a pic so that everyone sees what it is instead of asking a million questions that google can answer.
Thank you for the compliment on my welds.
NormanB
Well-known member
Ah no lick test- no likey. ;-)
GregOddity
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pvb
Well-known member
There's no reason why having a diesel engine should result in any fumes or smell inside the boat.
GregOddity
Well-known member
It always has a bit of engine smell to it no matter what you do plus the Diesel will make itself known. The fumes are one of those things as you just need a bit of wind from the wrong direction to have a good whiff of diesel exhaust.
pvb
Well-known member
None of my boats has ever smelt of engine inside, or of diesel inside. If the engine is kept clean, and the bilge kept clean, there should be no smell. Similarly, diesel will only smell inside the boat if there's been a spill which hasn't been cleaned up.
obmij
Active member
Thanks for the reply Greg - but I still don't understand
You need to buy and run an engine to charge your battery bank, and the bigger the battery bank the more you'll need to run it..
So there is no saving in cost, and the noise / smell will depend entirely on the quality of your installation, rather than what you are using the engine for..
You need to buy and run an engine to charge your battery bank, and the bigger the battery bank the more you'll need to run it..
So there is no saving in cost, and the noise / smell will depend entirely on the quality of your installation, rather than what you are using the engine for..
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