Extending the range of your Torqeedo outboard with a portable Honda Generator

[AngusMcDoon]

The concept of using a Torquedo with an internal combustion engine is not so absurd. As said many vehicles and ships use diesel electric for propulsion.

It's not really a valid comparison saying that because hybrid is good for a ship it's good for a 2 hp engine pushing a flubber. A large ship will burn through millions of $£€ of fuel in its life, or year for the really biggies. They are running almost all their life as well. Therefore it's worth developing the technology and making the investment to get the last bit of fuel efficiency as possible. However...none of that is true for a 2hp engine pushing a flubber out to the mooring and back on a weekend for a few summer months. It would be too heavy, too expensive, vulnerable to the salt water.

Strewth, we all have enough problems keeping our 2 hp outboards going as it is without introducing a generator, electric motor, electric power circuitry and a whole load more gubbins onto our dinghy (that we never maintain properly anyway).

 

[Floyd Raser]

Until the problem of recharging time is solved, if ever, they will never be more than a minority choice as they just don't fit in with most people's lifestyle. That explains why sales are so poor despite the guvmint subsidy - most people are sensible enough to see that flowery language is no substitute for practicality and cost.

The developments are coming along at probably a greater pace than you care to think in charging, battery technology and electric drive. All driven by noise, smell and convenience.

 

[Greenheart]

I wish I could write like that; I would probably sell more books! :encouragement:

Give it a few more years and electrics will be a natural choice.

Cheers Floyd. :encouragement:

It's fascinating to me that even without any engine as yet, I already don't want one. Actually I'd like to manage without electricity too, aboard the mini-cruiser I'm looking at...

...but as long as lights, GPS, VHF etc require battery and charging, I could be persuaded to increase the volts and amps developed, to provide some auxiliary thrust as well...

...but I admit, I wouldn't consider it if companies like Honda hadn't made suitcase gennies so compact & quiet, or if batteries were all still lead-acid, or if solar set-ups were still limited to those little low-wattage types mentioned earlier. Plus, clearly a different approach is required, because electrics at present can't substitute for hard-working I/C auxiliaries.

All a question of habit I s'pose...my habit is to accept that almost all my time afloat requires the wind, so I can easily accept the notion of only very limited auxiliary power...

...whereas, chaps whose ingrained reliance upon an oily auxiliary is intrinsic to their 'sailing', naturally can't imagine coping with the output which current electric systems offer.

But it's unfortunate that their deep negativity always pervades these electric-boat threads, despite how irrelevant to their purposes the whole concept probably is. G'night! :moon:

 

[AngusMcDoon]

But it's unfortunate that their deep negativity always pervades these electric-boat threads, despite how irrelevant to their purposes the whole concept probably is. G'night! :moon:

If you want to sail in a low electrical powered boat with no engine, then I say great, whatever floats your boat, go for it. But when you start talking about a solar powered hybrid engine for a boat, I just think engineering naivity.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

The developments are coming along at probably a greater pace than you care to think in charging, battery technology and electric drive. All driven by noise, smell and convenience.

I know how developments are coming on thank you, but until power for 500 miles of motoring (for cars) can be put into batteries in less than 5 minutes, which is what is needed to fit in to most people's lives, there is not going to be a large uptake. The technology is nowhere near that at the moment and there is no emerging technology that looks like it will be able to achieve it. Until then all electric cars, and boats, will just be a very small minority sideshow.

 

[dartmoor]

I am a former owner of a Torqeedo Travel 1003. Great concept, but I am sad to say flawed in design. The connections were delicate and fiddly, and so often it would show an error code until you cleaned up the contacts and tried again. Tiresome! Then range - just not at all good enough - face any current and wind, and I am not talking significant at all, and your range drops dramatically and you are forever looking at a rapidly falling battery percentage. You have to drop down to less than 2 knots to save power and limp home. If the tide is against you, even 2 knots will be caning the battery.

And then, as has been reported here, you have to pray you never ever break a sheer pin (and they are thin). If you break one - and I did just on a piece of seaweed, then you have zero chance of replacing on the water. And because you can't lock the prop, very tricky to undo the prop nut.

Solar panel has been mentioned - the Torqeedo one costs £800! And then you need a big flat area to lay it out.

I think there clearly is a future for these kind of motors, but I would say that Torqeedo are still offering quite a conceptual product rather than one that actually does the job. And they obviously don't have the economies of scale in manufacturing to make them cheap enough. Manufacturing them in Germany also doesn't help much! I reckon we are probably around 5 years away from a 3-4hp electric outboard that will truly replace a petrol one.

The noise is an acquired taste - the Torqeedo is by now means "silent" and is actually quite noisy in its own way.

I now use a four stroke - and it does sip very little petrol indeed, and is not horrendously noisy. To beat that a motor would have to cost say only 25% more, and have a range of half a day rather than less than two hours in perfect conditions. Even Torqeedo say their battery drops in recharging capacity by at least 5% a year. So after 5 years it would have a max of 77% of its original capacity. So the claims 120 minutes range would be dropping to 90 mins in that lifespan.

 

[Tranona]

...whereas, chaps whose ingrained reliance upon an oily auxiliary is intrinsic to their 'sailing', naturally can't imagine coping with the output which current electric systems offer.

But it's unfortunate that their deep negativity always pervades these electric-boat threads, despite how irrelevant to their purposes the whole concept probably is. G'night! :moon:

Why do you have to use that type of language? The development of cruising yachts would have got nowhere without IC motors. They make cruising for the average person viable. Just using windpower is simply too limiting - but if that is what you want to do, then accept the limitations and enjoy what you can.

How can realism be termed negativity, when dreaming the (current) technical impossibility and ignoring it is what is really negative - that is denial. As I said above, by all means dream but recognise that not only is your dream way beyond anything that is remotely possible with current technology, neither is it on the agenda for massive investment to discover any means of making the dream a reality. In the meantime we enjoy what we have - seems a pretty positive outlook to me.

 

[Tranona]

The developments are coming along at probably a greater pace than you care to think in charging, battery technology and electric drive. All driven by noise, smell and convenience.

May well be for road transport where you have markets with the potential of millions of users and government subsidy to encourage developments. However in a market like yachting where demand is so low that provision of even conventional fuels is problematic, what chances for accessible charging points for every yacht? Never mind the investment required to develop actual propulsion technology suitable as a replacement for all the IC engines currently in use.

 

[Greenheart]

Why do you have to use that type of language? The development of cruising yachts would have got nowhere without IC motors. Just using windpower is simply too limiting - but if that is what you want to do, then accept the limitations and enjoy what you can.

Alright, I'm sorry to offend with my 'language', Mr T. I'm sure I didn't mean to. Just defending an idea which, despite its inoffensive character, always gets an unearned kicking, here.

I wonder how a sailing forum's users would respond if, in its infancy, all reference to using sails to move a boat was bombarded by derisive criticism by mobo enthusiasts...

..."why, it's such bloody hard work"..."what, you zig-zag double the distance against the wind?" :biggrin-new:..."often there's no wind"..."sometimes there's too much" ...

Not much about sailing makes sense, but we love it anyway. If you routinely need an oily auxiliary to enable your use, that's fine, it's just not the approach I'd prefer to take. Mobo users might advise you to dispense altogether with sails, and really enjoy the convenience of diesel...as you said above, windpower is simply too limiting. Aren't you tempted?

...accept the limitations...

That is the opposite of my plan. Thank you anyway.

How can realism be termed negativity, when dreaming the (current) technical impossibility and ignoring it is what is really negative.

That's the point, I think...the reality is itself pretty discouraging at the moment, but the prospect of tackling it by small steps, and by changing style of use of auxiliary, remains interesting to me and others. But the fact that it offers marginal usefulness for the majority, hasn't stopped them pi55ing freely on the idea every time it's mentioned.

And that's no help at all.

 

[Tranona]

always gets an unearned kicking, here.


And that's no help at all.

That is surely the point - the "kicking" is well deserved! Cruising under sail only is already available and the limitations well known, and acceptable to some people. Don't see how changing the style of use of auxiliaries can make any difference. The only viable alternative is currently hybrid and that is a poor substitute for straight IC - indeed its only benefits come in high usage patterns, exactly the opposite of auxiliary usage! Pure electric will remain out of bounds for anything but the narrowest of applications such as lake and river boats where the low power and regular shoreside charging regime are less limiting until somebody breaks the current mould of energy generation and storage.

But then I am repeating myself (and others!). By all means have the dreams, but don't accuse the realists of negativity - not everybody sees the dream as desirable without even considering the impracticality. Current and forseeable alternatives do not offer even marginal usefulness, to use your term.

 

[dartmoor]

That is surely the point - the "kicking" is well deserved! Cruising under sail only is already available and the limitations well known, and acceptable to some people. Don't see how changing the style of use of auxiliaries can make any difference. The only viable alternative is currently hybrid and that is a poor substitute for straight IC - indeed its only benefits come in high usage patterns, exactly the opposite of auxiliary usage! Pure electric will remain out of bounds for anything but the narrowest of applications such as lake and river boats where the low power and regular shoreside charging regime are less limiting until somebody breaks the current mould of energy generation and storage.

But then I am repeating myself (and others!). By all means have the dreams, but don't accuse the realists of negativity - not everybody sees the dream as desirable without even considering the impracticality. Current and forseeable alternatives do not offer even marginal usefulness, to use your term.

Exactly. I would praise Torqeedo for their innovation, and for putting something in production. My argument with Torqeedo is that I think they exaggerate the claims of what their product can do. Fine for lakes - possibly fine for Rivers with slow currents. Possibly fine for just using your tender to get to and from a mooring. But as an auxiliary in coastal/estuary waters - pants

 

[rptb1]

I got really interested in Mastervolt's "podmaster" system, which encloses an electric drive in a pod that bolts under your boat. You can then put battery banks in your engine compartment (or elsewhere) and run a generator to top them up. I got a long way thinking about this and then rang them up for prices.

Eventually a rather embarrassed sales rep told me they don't work in salt water, and admitted they ought to mention that on their web site.

Their site no longer mentions the podmaster range at all.

Definitely an area for caution, but also ripe for experimentation!

 

[RupertW]

Exactly. I would praise Torqeedo for their innovation, and for putting something in production. My argument with Torqeedo is that I think they exaggerate the claims of what their product can do. Fine for lakes - possibly fine for Rivers with slow currents. Possibly fine for just using your tender to get to and from a mooring. But as an auxiliary in coastal/estuary waters - pants

I guess we will learn a bit more in our second season using one but I agree I wouldn't like to use it in an area with tides/currents over about 2 knots, or if I was anchored more than a mile at most from the town quay or restaurant I was after. But it's made a doddle of getting the engine on and off the tender, it's great not having any petrol on board or trying to find some and having the outboard engine recharge as we motor along on the main engine.

Biggest impact has been the massive massive labour saving from having to just turn a knob to start it, not pull at a cord. I now do not have to go ashore or shop unless I feel like it, and can keep up tanning/swimming/reading. My value, it turned out, was to be there to restart the old outboard by pulling the cord.

 

[lw395]

...

Biggest impact has been the massive massive labour saving from having to just turn a knob to start it, not pull at a cord. I now do not have to go ashore or shop unless I feel like it, and can keep up tanning/swimming/reading. My value, it turned out, was to be there to restart the old outboard by pulling the cord.

Likewise I found it made a difference when we upgraded/downsized our outboard to a 2hp Yamaha that SWMBO can start easily.

I'd quite like a tender that does not rely on the infernal combustion engine, but it would have sails rather than batteries!
Maybe a new thread?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

IT is all down to energy density. A Li-Ion battery has a MAXIMUM energy density of 2.63 MJ/L; that's probably a VERY generous figure for batteries at the cutting edge of research. Diesel has an energy density of 35.8 MJ/L. In other words, a litre of diesel contains 13.6 TIMES as much energy as a litre of battery. If you look at it by weight, a Li-Ion battery has an energy density of 0.875 MJ/kg; diesel 48 MJ/kg - that is, a kilo of diesel has nearly 55 times as much energy stored as a kilo of Li-Ion battery. And that's using a high performance battery technology that might not mix terribly well with salt water; lead-acid batteries are down at 0.56 MJ/L and 0.17 MJ/kg, with correspondingly worse comparison figures with diesel.

I carry about 90 litres of diesel. To get the same range from batteries, I'd need 1224 litres of Li-Ion battery, or 4,455 kg of batteries. I might find a cubic metre of space by replacing the engine with batteries, but 4.5 tonnes extra weight on a vessel displacing 4.5 tonnes???

And it's not just about preferring to use sails only. I use little diesel; I put in around 50 litres a year, and the moment when we can cut the engine is greatly looked forward to. But even so, the engine - and the range I have - is a serious safety matter. I sail where the only wind direction where I'm NOT on a lee shore is a northerly, and northerlys are pretty rare! And then again, I sail where there are serious tidal gates; if I don't have a means of being sure of making them, I might not be able to pass them at all, without potentially spending weeks waiting for the right wind direction at the right time - something which we read of as being commonplace in the days of sail, when we read of vast flotillas building up in the Downs, waiting for a wind-shift that would allow them to progress down channel.

Yes, we all hate the I/C engine; it is noisy, smelly and polluting. But it ALSO enables us to spend time at sea when we might not otherwise be able to and make passages that would otherwise be impossible within the time constraints that govern all of us except those who can drop all other commitments for weeks on end. Electric power, for the reasons I've given, is far from being able to even compete on the same playing field, and there are at present no developments that look like coming close in terms of energy density. A Radioactive Thermal generator would be better than either, but I don't think you want a red hot lump of radioactive isotopes aboard

 

[Greenheart]

Cruising under sail only...the limitations are well known, and acceptable to some people.

Glad that's clear, then...I agree the limits would be severely restricting, but if one had time, one could manage some fairly arduous but undoubtedly rewarding passage-making, without any engine at all. Didn't two chaps in the Wayfarer Hafren sail right round the whole mainland of the UK last year, in about five weeks? So it is quite possible...

...and the addition of any form of non-sailing propulsion, be it manual, electric, petrol, diesel or trained tethered porpoises, must permit some improvement over sail alone...

...still agreed, I hope? So unless the diesel-hegemony is paranoid about a few enthusiasts exploring alternatives, why are contented oil-burners so free with their opposition?

Don't see how changing the style of use of auxiliaries can make any difference.

Evidently. Why should you, when the cheapness and widespread availability of diesel, and (I presume) your cheerful obliviousness to the noise, smell, vibration of the engine's running (and we'll overlook the countless diesel-problem threads which litter every week's forum-contents page) allow you not to bother thinking at all about alternatives?

I'm genuinely happy for you, even if I don't share or envy your outlook. It's a pity you can't likewise read a pro-electric thread without releasing the same old dismissive torrent.

Plainly, electric propulsion won't suit a whopping majority of yachting folk, for whom accessibility to chosen sailing grounds and the arbitrary need to be back in the marina by a specific time/day regardless of tide, require a certainty of range and speed which likewise have nothing to do with actual sailing...but we are not all in that pressured category.

What's so boring on every thread which attempts to discuss electric propulsion, is the invariable assumption by contented diesel-users, that they are being expected to adopt a less user-friendly form of auxiliary, despite how conspicuously unsuitable it would be for their use. This is a misunderstanding. I don't care how anyone else propels his boat.

It'd just be nice if the critics would cork-it for a bit. Their reasoning has been heard; the difficulties are clear, and massive. And they haven't eradicated thinking on the subject.

High time I corked-it myself, now. Good afternoon. :sleeping:

 

[AngusMcDoon]

What's so boring on every thread which attempts to discuss electric propulsion, is the invariable assumption by contented diesel-users, that they are being expected to adopt a less user-friendly form of auxiliary, despite how conspicuously unsuitable it would be for their use. This is a misunderstanding. I don't care how anyone else propels his boat.

That is not true. I have no fear that electric propulsion is going to be foisted on me in the forseeable future.

What we, the engineers who you dismiss as just being negative, are trying to point out is the engineering naivity of your idea. The technology does not exist for what you want to do in any realistic, practical and economically worthwhile way. And there's no indication either that it will in the near future to make it worthwhile for leisure boats. It's been pointed out to you that hybrid systems are suitable for large units that run a high proportion of the time - ships, trains etc. Can you not see that is not how leisure boats are used, especially sailing boats?

You now have the figures from Antarctic Pilot and myself for battery storage capabilities and power production from solar panels. Why don't you do the maths, because then you may be convinced of the problems. Is having 80 square metres of solar panels or 4.5 tonnes of batteries practical on a small sailing boat? And what would that all cost to install?

 

[Mctavish]

That is not true. I have no fear that electric propulsion is going to be foisted on me in the forseeable future.

What we, the engineers who you dismiss as just being negative, are trying to point out is the engineering naivity of your idea. The technology does not exist for what you want to do in any realistic, practical and economically worthwhile way. And there's no indication either that it will in the near future to make it worthwhile for leisure boats. It's been pointed out to you that hybrid systems are suitable for large units that run a high proportion of the time - ships, trains etc. Can you not see that is not how leisure boats are used, especially sailing boats?

You now have the figures from Antarctic Pilot and myself for battery storage capabilities and power production from solar panels. Why don't you do the maths, because then you may be convinced of the problems. Is having 80 square metres of solar panels or 4.5 tonnes of batteries practical on a small sailing boat? And what would that all cost to install?

Couldn't you call any early adopter naive? Isn't that missing the point of early adoption? I think it's been important to industry occasionally.

 

[Greenheart]

Couldn't you call any early adopter naive? Isn't that missing the point of early adoption? I think it's been important to industry occasionally.

:encouragement: :encouragement:

 

[Greenheart]

What we...are trying to get through to you is...the technology does not exist for what you want to do in any realistic, practical way.

Well then, give up old chap, because despite or perhaps in consequence of your laudable clarity and...:sleeping:...repetition, you're not hearing what I'm proposing.

Is having 80 square metres of solar panels or 4.5 tonnes of batteries really practical on a small sailing boat?

I guess the basis for those figures is an imagined like-for-like electric equivalent to substitute for the average diesel’s output. But that isn’t what I hope to achieve.

The logical engineer's approach has explained that electric power storage cannot even nearly rival oil in today's typical yachting applications...and that I accept & believe...

...but my undiminished enthusiasm for the idea involves significant adjustment of the application itself, so an electric option isn't impossible, because demands upon it are light.

I daresay that's far from what you call "...realistic, practical and economically worthwhile...". Subjective phrase, that! And likewise...

...that is not how leisure boats are used...

...speak for yourself! Hence I objected to the assumption that I'm pushing for adoption of electric propulsion for general use, when transparently, the technology doesn't enable it.

But I'm relieved that you're not afraid of having to start using electric propulsion. I couldn't really see why you might be!

Now you understand that I understand the limits presented by physics, may we continue without superfluous repetition of the obstacles to generic uptake of electric propulsion?