Do we now need an electric boat forum???

kashurst said:
Just to help reduce EV ignorance and prejudice. One more time:

o9R1uUT.jpg
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Similar climate control usage figures for my electric car, of the total energy used to travel 205miles today, 4%was used for heating, 4% was used for lights, dashboard and other ancillaries, 92% used for the motors.

That was with the temperature set to 20c. It was probably 7c outside, on a mostly motorway journey probably averaging 70mph on the motorway
 
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The ol thread seems to have literally drifted towards the joy or misery of electric cars, which seems to be about as easy going as a Brexit debate with just as many insults thrown around. Just to ignite the fire further, one of my mob has recently (few months) bought his first Mercedes EV and loves the power and the gadgets inside are cool but finds the faff of charging and owning the thing quite annoying. He's not a 'petrol in his veins' kinda guy like me either.

Anyway, anyone got any boaty electric thoughts before we sharpen our pitchforks and chant "Burn the fossil fuel driver.. Burn him!"?
 
julians said:
Similar climate control usage figures for my electric car, of the total energy used to travel 205miles today, 4%was used for heating, 4% was used for lights, dashboard and other ancillaries, 92% used for the motors.

That was with the temperature set to 20c. It was probably 7c outside, on a mostly motorway journey probably averaging 70mph on the motorway
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Will you please stop posting actual facts, it ruins the Technofear narrative of this thread.
Ye Naysayers are circling the wagons , give them a chance to feed their horses at least ?
 
Fire99 said:
The ol thread seems to have literally drifted towards the joy or misery of electric cars, which seems to be about as easy going as a Brexit debate with just as many insults thrown around. Just to ignite the fire further, one of my mob has recently (few months) bought his first Mercedes EV and loves the power and the gadgets inside are cool but finds the faff of charging and owning the thing quite annoying. He's not a 'petrol in his veins' kinda guy like me either.

Anyway, anyone got any boaty electric thoughts before we sharpen our pitchforks and chant "Burn the fossil fuel driver.. Burn him!"?
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It takes a while to adapt to any new vehicle…in fact you tend to drive a new car exactly like your old one…until you have had a chance to familiarise yourself with any new features or quirks. Usually your mind absorbs new features one at a time until you need it. I drove my Tesla exactly like an ice car until I slowly absorbed the many new features.
Now I don’t look at charging as a chore…more like I am grateful I don’t have to visit a petrol station anymore
 
Fire99 said:
The ol thread seems to have literally drifted towards the joy or misery of electric cars, which seems to be about as easy going as a Brexit debate with just as many insults thrown around. Just to ignite the fire further, one of my mob has recently (few months) bought his first Mercedes EV and loves the power and the gadgets inside are cool but finds the faff of charging and owning the thing quite annoying. He's not a 'petrol in his veins' kinda guy like me either.

Anyway, anyone got any boaty electric thoughts before we sharpen our pitchforks and chant "Burn the fossil fuel driver.. Burn him!"?
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A chap on Colonsay placed an order for an EB but decided not to purchase.
UK Shore-Power Facilities Compendium
 
I certainly think in the next 5 years or so we'll see a split

So small sports / dayboats and tenders may well steer towards electric. Massively powerful electric motors are cheap but the batteries aren't so a very powerful motor with a small battery (relatively) will give thrilling performance but a bit of a rubbish range - but if you are only out in your boat for 2 hours doing 30% at idle, 10% flat out (accelerating to watersports speeds) and then the other 60% at about 20kts then it could work well. There will be foiling and so on and a few things will change.

Larger (23-25' + I Imagine) cruisers will stick with outboards

Much larger will stick with Diesels.

For now.

But legislation is what will change it. When manufacturers have no option, they will change - lets be honest if you can afford to buy and run a 50' motorboat a couple of thousand litres of diesel won't make all that much difference to you - BUT if legislators were to change the rules for new boats, then we could see some changes - Hydrogen perhaps, synthetic fuels - I don't know. Large electric boats other than some type of Hybrid can't happen with current technology - the batteries simply cannot store the amount of energy needed to move a 5+ tonne vessel at planing speeds - the power required is simply too much.

Even huge improvements in batteries won't fix this - a boat with twin 500hp motors would need a very similar power output with electric - so 1000 hp working at 2/3 or3/4 throttle (compared to a car working at 5% or 10% throttle most of the time) would consume say 600KW to do 22knts - so you'd need a battery that could store 6MWh of energy to give you 220m of range - that's Grid Storage levels of storage - 100 times larger than the batteries currently in an electric car - and at 32a Shorepower would take 835 hours to charge at 7.2KW (assuming some losses) or 34 days....

You would need a 350KW charger running at full capacity for 17 hours (bear in mind these running to charge a car only need about 18 min) and once you got to 80% the rate of charge would massively drop off.

I suspect in reality, some form of synthetic fuel will be needed - and many might move to sail or Solar powered Cat's which actually DO seem to work, albeit only once you get up to 80' or so (I guess they need the area of the hull for all the solar and long thin hulls need less power to drive them).

I can also see a bit of a switch back to sail, although if you are a motorboater that might not sit easy.
 
SaltIre said:
A chap on Colonsay placed an order for an EB but decided not to purchase.
UK Shore-Power Facilities Compendium
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Perhaps because Colonsay on the West side of the Hebrides was perhaps the least feasible place for a boat only able to cope with 1m wave height. And the idea of a 2,350 open sea delivery trip from Sweden in short hops to fit a sub-50 mile range (in perfect conditions) a complete fantasy.
BUT it would be a great boat for a superyacht toy in the Med, or indeed in the Solent.
 
Fire99 said:
The ol thread seems to have literally drifted towards the joy or misery of electric cars, which seems to be about as easy going as a Brexit debate with just as many insults thrown around. Just to ignite the fire further, one of my mob has recently (few months) bought his first Mercedes EV and loves the power and the gadgets inside are cool but finds the faff of charging and owning the thing quite annoying. He's not a 'petrol in his veins' kinda guy like me either.

Anyway, anyone got any boaty electric thoughts before we sharpen our pitchforks and chant "Burn the fossil fuel driver.. Burn him!"?
Click to expand...
Clearly 638 pages of self-excitement wasn't enough for them in 'The Lounge'...they had to come here.
 
The more weight added the more energy required to move it.
There has been an inexorable rise in the length, volume, weight of boats and this combined with some " Willy Waving " marketing , has resulted in the
" Our boats are a tiny weeny bit faster than the opposition " sales marketing.
In order to promote this plan engines have of course got bigger and bigger to push this dead weight around.
Of course in the UK some only available to some boaters low taxed fuel is on tap, so who cares about consumption, install a couple more marble worktops. :)
A little bit of the engineering ethos of Colin Chapman would need a lot less batteries ?
 
oldgit said:
The more weight added the more energy required to move it.
There has been an inexorable rise in the length, volume, weight of boats and this combined with some " Willy Waving " marketing , has resulted in the
" Our boats are a tiny weeny bit faster than the opposition " sales marketing.
In order to promote this plan engines have of course got bigger and bigger to push this dead weight around.
Of course in the UK some only available to some boaters low taxed fuel is on tap, so who cares about consumption, install a couple more marble worktops. :)
A little bit of the engineering ethos of Colin Chapman would need a lot less batteries ?
Click to expand...
In fact I was reading a boat review only this morning...the reviewer was praising this new model because there was full standing headroom in all three bedrooms...why, he asked, do some manufacturers design boats to look like Lamborghinis rather than for people to stand up in them🤷‍♂️
 
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