E-propulsion I-Series (inboard)

[DangerousPirate]

We live fairly off grid already.
Rainwater collection, 1200w of solar allowing electric cooking, and a sailing rig for the dinghy meaning we don't use the outboard much. We very occasionally catch fish too... but it's quite hard to grow onions or produce flour on a boat! We're experimenting with herbs but not really reaching harvestable quantities.

Of course we will use the engine but rarely for more than half an hour at a time, and even that could often be reduced if I wasn't fussy about giving it a decent run each time.

But we have no schedule, no time pressure, and are sailing in a place with very favourable conditions.

Well, maybe the engine is suitable for you. I just think of bad conditions that surprised me once, where I definitely had to motor along the coast for multiple hours before I was somewhere safe. It's certainly nice, but it's not for everyone (yet)

Needing to motor 450 miles in one go is rather an edge case? 3 days motoring at 6kts with perhaps 2 fuel stops; a 35' AWB with 15kW and an arbitrary 70kWh could do the same distance in 4 days motoring with 4 charge stops of ~12hrs. Maybe ferry skippers would baulk at this but most people don't relish doing non-stop coastal pilotage for 72 hours and might like 40 winks.

Well, may friend didn't motor it in one go, it was more a "wind always out of the direction where I need to go" sort of situation, and he didn't have the time to tack his way down. I wasn't there though, just repeating what he said.

 

[lustyd]

OK then, required power is 15kW if you want to use full throttle. I took that as read.

I’ve never met anyone using a diesel engine at WOT all day every day, why would anyone do so on electric?

 

[lustyd]

and he didn't have the time to tack his way down

I suspect if your friend was honest with himself he did have time. Tacking doesn’t add significant time, just most casual sailors are lazy/impatient/lack training. Once diesel hits £10/litre I’m sure he’ll work it out!

 

[Alan S]

I’ve never met anyone using a diesel engine at WOT all day every day, why would anyone do so on electric?

I didn't say anything about continuous use at full power. The point is that if you want to use full power at anytime even for a few seconds you will need a battery capable of providing 15kW.
Note that is 15kW of POWER.
The kWh of ENERGY required depends on how long you want to run at what power level.

 

[lustyd]

Still no idea what your problem is. If you fit a diesel with a small tank or tiny diameter fuel lines you’ll also have issues. Just design a suitable system. Nobody is suggesting you can buy a motor and wire it in as the only change to the boat, that would be ridiculous.

 

[Alan S]

It's just that you said I was incorrect to say that the required power for that motor is 15kW.
That's all, have a good day.

 

[Tranona]

Needing to motor 450 miles in one go is rather an edge case? 3 days motoring at 6kts with perhaps 2 fuel stops; a 35' AWB with 15kW and an arbitrary 70kWh could do the same distance in 4 days motoring with 4 charge stops of ~12hrs. Maybe ferry skippers would baulk at this but most people don't relish doing non-stop coastal pilotage for 72 hours and might like 40 winks.

Not at all. In 2010 I "sailed" my Bavaria 37 from Corfu to San Carles in Spain en route to UK (road from there). Under sail for maybe 15 hours. Rest motoring at 5.5 knots with a Volvo 2030 at 2300rpm. Fuel stops twice in Sicily, once in Sardinia and once in Majorca. Time constrained delivery trip and not unusual in the Med. Simply would not have been possible with electric.

Advocates waffle on about how it might work with lots of solar, regeneration and always having enough power for emergencies and getting in and out of port. This reminds of the linear programming problems I used to write for students - as you add more variables to the list of constraints the number of solutions declines. That is the number of boat/voyage/sailor combinations that can operate within those constraints gets smaller and smaller. You end up with the Umas of this world or the rich who can afford a 50' boat that is fast enough under sail for regeneration and big enough to carry lots of solar doing long passages in areas of the world with reliable favourable winds - and no time constraints. However, even for those select few the vast majority also fit large generators!

Look at the examples of boats on the Oceanvolt website to get a good flavour of where and how electric is being used now. Then compare that with the mass market, even for new boats never mind converting older boats.

 

[lustyd]

50' boat that is fast enough under sail for regeneration

To be fair Uma is fast enough to regen 1KW under sail with their set up. They are not 50’ I think maybe 34’ or 36’

 

[DangerousPirate]

To be fair Uma is fast enough to regen 1KW under sail with their set up. They are not 50’ I think maybe 34’ or 36’

Wasn't the reg something like 1kw/h at 7kts sailing? Which is fair enough, but it still doesn't help you when you need to continuously motor somewhere.

 

[penfold]

Not at all. In 2010 I "sailed" my Bavaria 37 from Corfu to San Carles in Spain en route to UK (road from there). Under sail for maybe 15 hours. Rest motoring at 5.5 knots with a Volvo 2030 at 2300rpm. Fuel stops twice in Sicily, once in Sardinia and once in Majorca. Time constrained delivery trip and not unusual in the Med. Simply would not have been possible with electric.

Once battery costs fall below $100/kWh a lot more boats will be offered with electric drive; either manufacturers will move to ferrying their AWBs by ship or they will start loaning generators to ferry crews. The tiny number of people who want to motor continuously for 200nm+ can install generators.

 

[Tranona]

To be fair Uma is fast enough to regen 1KW under sail with their set up. They are not 50’ I think maybe 34’ or 36’

I doubt there are many old simple boats like Uma that have that configuration where the installation cost of the propulsion system probably exceeds the value of the boat. A single example is not good evidence of the viability of the concept.

The many examples on the Oceanvolt site are, however, because they are real. Any kind of analysis of how people have applied the technology as it stands now will show that the Uma approach is a fringe activity that gets clicks on youtube but is meaningless in the real world and unrelated to where the real world applications are. However, these in turn are far removed from the mass market for new boats let alone the retrofit for existing boats.

 

[Tranona]

Once battery costs fall below $100/kWh a lot more boats will be offered with electric drive; either manufacturers will move to ferrying their AWBs by ship or they will start loaning generators to ferry crews. The tiny number of people who want to motor continuously for 200nm+ can install generators.

Why do you say it is a tiny number? You do not seem to have any knowledge of the Med environment for example where such passages under power are commonplace if you want to move around that vast inland sea. My passage across the Med was not unusual. The cruising environment is very different from the European coastal cruising where 150-200 hours a year under engine is common because passages from one safe haven to another are relatively short. Then you could look across the Atlantic at the constant movement of yachts up and down the eastern seaboard from New England to Florida, much of it under motor rather than sail.

 

[penfold]

They'll lump it; a ban on new sales and retrofits for diesels will come and there won't be any choice.

 

[Tranona]

They'll lump it; a ban on new sales and retrofits for diesels will come and there won't be any choice.

That is so far in the future, if at all and not something worth thinking about now. Powering boats has always been at the tail end of the development cycle and reducing reliance on ICE for industrial use (which is where boat engines come from) has not even come on the horizon yet. Given that the main users and makers of such equipment are in the "developing" world which has not been the leader in the current developments in the automotive world other than profiting from it no hope that it will even happen at all.

 

[Kelpie]

Yet boats had to get rid of two strokes nearly 20yrs ago whilst garden equipment remains exempt.

 

[penfold]

I admire your optimism. We have incredibly weak politicians who at times govern according to whatever the Daily Mail have decided to be hysterical about; why are boat owners going to escape that meretricious scrutiny? Large capital projects already have to account for their emissions, it's a short trip from there to requiring plant to be zero carbon, probably either battery electric or hydrogen but there are other possibilities. They won't care that banning yacht auxiliaries doesn't actually save much emissions as we'll be swept along with concrete mixers and minidiggers, the MPs will walk through the lobby as good little soldiers for Lord Rothermere and co.

 

[lustyd]

not something worth thinking about now

Perhaps not for people who don't expect to be sailing in 2040, but for some of us it's certainly worth thinking about. Those with kids might like to leave a viable planet for them to live in too, rather than thinking entirely of what's convenient for themselves.

 

[DangerousPirate]

I admire your optimism. We have incredibly weak politicians who at times govern according to whatever the Daily Mail have decided to be hysterical about; why are boat owners going to escape that meretricious scrutiny? Large capital projects already have to account for their emissions, it's a short trip from there to requiring plant to be zero carbon, probably either battery electric or hydrogen but there are other possibilities. They won't care that banning yacht auxiliaries doesn't actually save much emissions as we'll be swept along with concrete mixers and minidiggers, the MPs will walk through the lobby as good little soldiers for Lord Rothermere and co.

It's all about looking good and getting quotas without offending the lobbies. The biggest pollution comes from the industrial areas, and even those are quite tame compared to how the third world pollutes the world because they are so poor, that they become obsessed with profit and never learn to care about others, or fully grasp the concept of a future

 

[Tranona]

Perhaps not for people who don't expect to be sailing in 2040, but for some of us it's certainly worth thinking about. Those with kids might like to leave a viable planet for them to live in too, rather than thinking entirely of what's convenient for themselves.

While there may be attempts to impose restrictions on new boats there will still be all the existing ICE powered boats in use. Unlike cars where the average age is around 14 years so the replacement cycle is relatively short, boats have an almost indefinite life. Electric and hybrid cars already make up 50% of the UK market this year which means that around 1m ICE cars will leave the parc this year alone and not replaced. Very different from boats where new production is a very small proportion of the total boats in use and rather than replacement they are additions to the number in use.

As for "thinking" about it at an individual level we are powerless to do anything, so just as in every other change we will react to whatever happens to maximise our own personal utility. Most will cling on as far as possible to their "old" ways, some will withdraw (or die off) and some will adapt. This adapting process will take years. Your date of 2040 is probably a reasonable estimate of when electric sailing boats become the norm for new boats given the current state of development. Unless there is an outright ban on the use of existing ICE boats it will likely take another 40 or 50 years before older boats fall out of use.

As for leaving a viable planet, any actions of such a trivial nature as banning ICE in leisure boats has close to zero influence over emissions in a global sense.

 

[lustyd]

As for "thinking" about it at an individual level we are powerless to do anything

This statement makes me deeply sad. We can and should all do something to reduce our impact. If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem.