Electric Boats

[vas]

Not sure of any safety developments vas - but with time I guess safety 'gets sorted'. I can recall my dad who lived on a boat in Cannes in the 50's saying he would never have gas on a boat or a petrol powered boat due to the preponderance of explosions/deaths due these-due to various reasons!

I just think that this may be a better option for those wishing to maintain what they have in terms of performance and ease of 'refuelling' and stay boating for any length of time and not worry about charging our batteries every hour or so!

had a chat a month ago with the director of a HC research lab down here, asking the same Qs re hydrogen. He was really worried on storing it, says it's v.corrosive, has to be kept under certain conditions else it's a bomb.
On the plus side, with Hydrogen boats we wouldn't have thread's like Bouba's leaking diesel tank. We'd have threads about how a tank blew half a marina in SoF ?

 

[Portofino]

Is leisure boating actually contributing in the first place to global warming ?
In terms of tiny % worth the effect to bother to green it up.

Yes I get the sum of the drips = the victory in the battle argument , but really show me a millionaire who became a millionaire by saving the pennies ,As a bit of careers advise -“ never mind education, simply save pennies when you leave school “ is theoretical nonsense.

Second further tier ( insert number ) emissions science will pop along .
Two forms
1- A more efficient burn inside the cylinder via design , or additives .
2- A more efficient scavenger system , which could be retro fitted to existing exhausts .

Thinking out of the box a carbon capture tax based on the hrs run .
This money collected goes directly to tree planting and other eco basically re planting schemes .
You could have a no claims period of hrs set by gov .Sort of zero tax for the first ( insert your no of hrs ) and after that a progressive climb based on the cc .

Tech wise even a widget fitted that Tele relays the hrs to the relevant tax grabbers and its deducted at source .

But the point is that carbon , damaging gases you have made after say 80 hrs or what ever actually is transposed into trees , re greening up .

Imagine this in years to come vast areas of Bodmin moor / Exmoor reforested called the “ Princess new Forrest “

So in effect the net carbon is neutral in your ownership and indeed you leave a legacy for future generations.
When you sell up you don’t claim the trees/ green back .

Mo bo ers get a green nod of approval.It’s turned all around we are the good guys planting ( well funding ) forests .

 

[Portofino]

Much rather get involved in reforestation, putting right the deforestation of the industrial revolution than aiding and abetting stuff like this .Tesla owners turn away now !

Aside keeping leisure boats diesel does not put strain on domestic electricity demand .
The greater the shift to renewables the less reliable production becomes ……when the wind stops , or sea becalms etc etc .
So it’s madness prompting more consumer appliances which in effect charge points are .Be it cars or boats .

Feels to me a VHS / Beta Max moment all over again . .
They both ran together for a while no one knew which one to get , which one would end up the leader ?

 

[petem]

Thinking out of the box a carbon capture tax based on the hrs run .

That's far too complex. Just get the marinas to collect an "Emissions Tax" for mobos based on the length of the berth. Job done.

 

[Portofino]

That's far too complex. Just get the marinas to collect an "Emissions Tax" for mobos based on the length of the berth. Job done.

What ever , it’s the principle of a bit of free hrs then a progressive payment based on usage .All put into reforestation.

You don’ t pay a flat fee for your phone it’s mostly on hrs mins = use age .
Tech moves on .
They are thinking of a “ far too complex “ as you say box in new cars to monitor speed .
Not just safety but green ness too ie next to schools etc .

 

[Farmer Piles]

What we need is lighter hulls and alas that means Carbon fibre panels for the go fast boy or girl racers. For the more adventurous the existing full displacement hulls built of anything except steel are perfectly OK, BUT in both cases the power to weight ratio of the batteries does matter. Alas nothing beats Lithium Iron, with NiCad's second.
Afghanistan has by far the biggest deposits of Lithium ore in the world, and none of them have been touched. The best ore fields are down South as they are mixed with ultra fine Gold deposits, so far more profitable than the deposits in central Afghanistan. China got the rights to the biblical Copper ore deposits in the North East, but the rights to the Lithium ore fields are still up for grabs. If we, as in the rich Western countries can get the Li ore fields it will make a huge difference to the cost of Li batteries.
The US, Canada and Australia have plenty of nickel and Cadmium, but no cheap Li ore fields.

We have two companies down here in Cornwall that are all set to exploit the lithium here. One is reckoning to quarry/mine it and the other is reckoning to drill and bring it up in solution. They are forecasting mining thousands of tonnes of the stuff. I realise that they would say that when they are trying to get permissions and investors onboard, but I think that it is pptentially very exciting.

 

[Farmer Piles]

That sour faced Gretta like Extinction rebellion and those other idiots do far more to turn people away from their cause than for it

Sitting on the M25 the other day waiting for the Police to move the silly sods made us totally against the whole thing. If we are expected to save the planet for the spawn of those idiots then I am out

Watching a self-righteous retiree glue his face to the road really didn't make me want to rush up to my loft with a roll of fibreglass.

 

[henryf]

The reality is that in the Solent a single container ship probably puts out the same pollutants and emissions from the Nab tower to her berth and back again as all the recreational boaters combined in a season. There is a visible dark cloud above the ships.

The solution I linked to on the previous page generates hydrogen as required to mix with the diesel so there are no storage issues.

 

[Rwc13]

So that’s okay then. Carry on all

 

[John100156]

I think that not enough is being said about hydrogen fuelled ic engines - there are currently trials being conducted by multiple companies with JCB already producing engines to power diggers and heavy machines - no emissions, fill time of tanks the same as diesel and not hours, with possibly fewer environmental concerns in manufacture and with possible performance closer to what we have now...........battery lobby winning?

We have H2 powered cars on trial at both ICL and NPL sites, the latter has its own H2 fuel station on site, which is useful...!

 

[John100156]

safety of storing hydrogen I thought was the greatest setback. Any new developments there?

We store hundreds of cylinders of H2 on one of our sites which at our last count had over 6,000 cylinders of mixed gasses stored or piped into labs, just did the feasibility for a new two storey Atex building requiring more gas pods, which we tend to locate externally and away from the building.

We have special sensors and gas detection and alarm systems in place depending on the type of gas used of course and its storage capacity, we have to undertake detailed risk and ATEX assessments for each lab or gas store. In the labs we currently have in Construction, careful consideration is given early on to where we place detectors (at high level of course for H2, so seal voids above). Otherwise pipework is orbital welded 316SS.

I wonder with boats where it might be stored, and at what pressure, any leaks could lead to H2 rising to accommodation above, so I expect that is where GD&A might need to be employed.

 

[Bigplumbs]

”tbh, whilst I don't disagree with what you say (although I think your first suggestion is plain silly, it's like saying why have more than 2kids, and who needs a seven seater car, and why have more than a 3bed house!)”

But all actually not silly questions in a world that surely must start to recognise sooner of later that the rate of population growth has been and is unsustainable, and where pure show off consumerism (where size/price/speed etc is not really driven by need) is likely to become very much less socially acceptable.

Whether we like it or not, change is coming for boats as the technology evolves to get closer to meeting the demands of customers - which it will - as with EVs. That change will either be driven by the consumer or by regulation eventually. So I think we should be encouraging rather than disparaging of those investing in new technology as they are most likely to be responsible for us being able to continue this leisure activity into the long term future.

So if you are like me and her indoors where nature prevented us from having Children and have not contributed to the population explosion we should be able to roar about in our boats as we see fit..........

 

[Bigplumbs]

So that’s okay then. Carry on all

If you would like to explain to me who was prevented from having Children by Nature why I should curtail what I wish to do in my retirement having worked all my life and never claimed a cent then I am all ears but if it is for other peoples Children well why should I

 

[Bigplumbs]

Watching a self-righteous retiree glue his face to the road really didn't make me want to rush up to my loft with a roll of fibreglass.

Quite............. Further having worked in Social housing for years and indeed knowing how much insulation and more importantly draft prevention has and is being installed they have got it all rather wrong. Quite how stopping cars and creating traffic ques with engines running helps the planet I know not....... Idiots the lot of them

 

[Bigplumbs]

We store hundreds of cylinders of H2 on one of our sites which at our last count had over 6,000 cylinders of mixed gasses stored or piped into labs, just did the feasibility for a new two storey Atex building requiring more gas pods, which we tend to locate externally and away from the building.

We have special sensors and gas detection and alarm systems in place depending on the type of gas used of course and its storage capacity, we have to undertake detailed risk and ATEX assessments for each lab or gas store. In the labs we currently have in Construction, careful consideration is given early on to where we place detectors (at high level of course for H2, so seal voids above). Otherwise pipework is orbital welded 316SS.

I wonder with boats where it might be stored, and at what pressure, any leaks could lead to H2 rising to accommodation above, so I expect that is where GD&A might need to be employed.

Imaging a Hydrogen Container in a Road Traffic crash.............

 

[Rwc13]

So if you are like me and her indoors where nature prevented us from having Children and have not contributed to the population explosion we should be able to roar about in our boats as we see fit..........

And this is why we make little progress

 

[dunedin]

Yes, it probably needs to be chemical conversion and therefore a fuel rather than a battery. Diesel releases a lot of energy per kg or litre. Batteries are not in the same ballpark at present and unlikely in the foreseeable future, if at all.

I won't quote MJ/L or MJ/kg, engine efficiencies etc. and just take some real life figures instead. Perhaps someone would like to check my very rough calculation to point out any glaring errors.

A 13.5kWh Tesla Powerwall weighs 125kg. and that's about the same weight of approx. 147 litres of diesel.

My Yanmar engine will take about 50 hours to use that amount of diesel if run at my usual cruising speed with about 12 hp at the prop. (equivalent to 9kW)

If these figures are correct:

125kg battery will give ~1.5 hours cruising​

125kg diesel will give ~33 hours cruising​

The battery would need to improve by a factor of 22 to match diesel. Other battery technologies aren't massively better than ones used by Tesla, don't expect a ten-fold improvement by switching brand.

You are still carrying around a 125kg battery when out of power and all diesel consumed. I realise that a diesel engine is going to be heavier than an electric motor and that offsets the weight to some extent.

Alternative fuels have problems but do seem more promising than a rapid improvement in battery technology on the scale required. Most likely candidates are generally based on hydrogen in one form or another (hydrogen, ammonia, hydrazine, lithium borohydride, etc.). All of these require development to overcome inherent problems. I know there are other technologies but at least the ones I mentioned just use oxygen from the air rather than carrying it around as part of the fuel.

Mistroma.

Your calculations are quite close to my calculations - which were based on larger battery packs such as Tesla 3, Zoe etc. Indeed from a purely "energy density" angle, my figure came to battery pack being around 23.8 times (very close to your 22x) as heavy as an equivalent amount of diesel. However, you also need to allow for the weight of the diesel tank. More importantly, there is a huge difference in weight of the actual power plant - you can see one person leaning in and lifting out their 20kW / 24hp motor on a Sailing Uma video. you wont do that even with a small 25hp diesel engine!

The big constraint though is probably not the weight, but the cost of a battery pack needed to provide any sort of acceptable range - even at 4-5 knots. This is again related to the energy efficiency of diesel - the gross energy of 1 litre of diesel equates to 10kWh, and even allowing for increased efficiency of an electric drive, by my calculations 1 litre of diesel equates to a nett equivalent of circa 3kWh.
So your hypothetical 13.5kWh battery is equivalent to around 4.5 litres of diesel - or a small tender fuel tank.

So any moderately sized cabin boat (other than a riverr boat, for example) will need a much bigger battery pack - closer to the 60-100 kWh supplied in most new EV cars. This is where the cost factors (amongst others) really hit home.
Of course, for a boat used for moderate sized trips out of marinas this is quite practical today. But for longer cruising range a battery only boat EV is not yet practical - but, per the other recent thread on here, a "serial hybrid" with range extending generator (like the early BW i3's) could be an attractive option for a new build.

 

[dunedin]

Who needs a boat at all?
Preach somewhere else.

I am not preaching - just trying to add a bit of balance.

If you read my input to the other recent thread on here about a "Solar catamaran" (which actually transpired not to be such a beast, but an interesting - but probably hugely expensive - new build power cat with electric hybrid propulsion) you will see I was cautioning the "electric enthusiast" on there - see post #3 on Solar Catamarans

But if we took anything away from what David Dimbleby, the late Sir Peter Blake and others at COP26 warned us, we will need to accept that some change to our lifestyle will be needed. The very experienced Jimmy Cornell was emphasising this need for boat skippers and crew to change mindset at his recent excellent talk at the Cruising Association.
But often that need not damage the core element of our enjoyment - in 10 years you may not be able to buy a Porsche 911, but you probably wont want to because the Taycan v9 will be massively better.

As noted on the other thread, having done a lot of tracking of electric propulsion examples I believe they are excellent today for a number of boating types - including inland craft, day sailing craft, potentially blue water sailing boats - and very recently for RIBs and PWCs (suspect electric RIBs will be mandatory toys for superyachts very soon).

But equally, to pour cold water on electric boats because they can't run stabilisers overnight is going to the other extreme. I am not an expert on this, but i suspect that even on this forum at least 80% of boats don't have stabilisers -and strongly suspect most don't have air conditioning. many/most seem to be enjoying boating with much more modest power craft - and demonstrating that we can enjoy 80% of the boating experience, potentially with 20% of the carbon footprint.

Some on here have power cats. A new build 40 foot power cat could easily be driven efficiently by a couple of 30kW drives, probably at 12 knots or more, A moderate battery pack of 60kWh or so would give a decent range at 8-10 knots - and a backup generator or fuel cell could give a range longer than most current powerboats. A cat has the benefit of being naturally much more stable on anchor. Indeed if the Op on the Solar catamaran thread makes the investment we will have an excellent case study to hear about.

So perhaps a more open minded approach, able to see both sides of the arguments, is beneficial to all.

 

[Mistroma]

Mistroma.

Your calculations are quite close to my calculations - which were based on larger battery packs such as Tesla 3, Zoe etc. Indeed from a purely "energy density" angle, my figure came to battery pack being around 23.8 times (very close to your 22x) as heavy as an equivalent amount of diesel. However, you also need to allow for the weight of the diesel tank. More importantly, there is a huge difference in weight of the actual power plant - you can see one person leaning in and lifting out their 20kW / 24hp motor on a Sailing Uma video. you wont do that even with a small 25hp diesel engine!

The big constraint though is probably not the weight, but the cost of a battery pack needed to provide any sort of acceptable range - even at 4-5 knots. This is again related to the energy efficiency of diesel - the gross energy of 1 litre of diesel equates to 10kWh, and even allowing for increased efficiency of an electric drive, by my calculations 1 litre of diesel equates to a nett equivalent of circa 3kWh.
So your hypothetical 13.5kWh battery is equivalent to around 4.5 litres of diesel - or a small tender fuel tank.

So any moderately sized cabin boat (other than a riverr boat, for example) will need a much bigger battery pack - closer to the 60-100 kWh supplied in most new EV cars. This is where the cost factors (amongst others) really hit home.
Of course, for a boat used for moderate sized trips out of marinas this is quite practical today. But for longer cruising range a battery only boat EV is not yet practical - but, per the other recent thread on here, a "serial hybrid" with range extending generator (like the early BW i3's) could be an attractive option for a new build.

Thanks for confirming my extremely rough calculation. I wasn't trying for great accuracy, just trying to show the difference between battery and diesel energy storage in real world terms. I only mentioned weight in passing in case someone thought it was completely one-sided wrt dead weight of a battery. Tank weight didn't even occur to me as I can hold my boat's diesel tank at arms length when empty. It's just a light plastic moulding on my boat. Weight of a tank just able to hold fuel to match range of a 13.5kW battery can safely be ignored.

I expected a diesel and gearbox would weigh around 200kg and an electric motor would be more like 15-20kg. However drivetrain components such as inverter and gearbox may bring this up to 65-75kgs. Adding the 125kg battery gets back to 200kg, close to the diesel. These were only guesses on my part. I said offset because I had not referenced any specific diesel or electric motor components. Just trying to show that weight difference with diesel had a great deal to do with weight of fuel.

 

[henryf]

Imaging a Hydrogen Container in a Road Traffic crash.............

As opposed to an articulated lorry containing 36,000 litres of petrol……

I would argue that a hydrogen leak dissipates into the atmosphere and quickly dilutes to a point where it doesn’t pose any danger.

Petrol on the other hand soaks into the surface and remains a hazard for some time.
I wonder if you remember the Buncefield depot fire in Hemel Hempstead from 2005.

Either way we currently transport petrol and LPG in industrial quantities on our roads. I don’t see hydrogen being any different.