"In 2-3 years time, we won't fit another Diesel engine"

[Chiara’s slave]

55 miles is a choice, maybe to keep weight down, which is a suitable justification on a trimaran, but still a choice. My Dragonfly 920 had a range of 200 miles.

That’s quite a lot of fuel, Angus. Our normal tank is 20 litres, if we are off somewhere I put another 10 litres in a can. That’s 60 to empty, but of course nobody would do that on purpose

 

[geem]

That’s quite a lot of fuel, Angus. Our normal tank is 20 litres, if we are off somewhere I put another 10 litres in a can. That’s 60 to empty, but of course nobody would do that on purpose

Wow! Our diesel tank is 500 litres?

 

[ChromeDome]

I'm not in the target group anyway.

I don't plan to buy a new boat and hopefully will not need a new engine.
If so would go to any length to keep the boat original (two identical engines).

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Wow! Our diesel tank is 500 litres?

That’s more than our total rated payload, if my wife and I were on board. Then theres water, food etc. Thats why we carry 30 litres

 

[capnsensible]

A marina near us has a small business in it renting electric boats to tourists. Very popular.

 

[geem]

That’s more than our total rated payload, if my wife and I were on board. Then theres water, food etc. Thats why we carry 30 litres

Our water tank is 800 litres. We carry two folding bikes, two full dives tank set ups, two sewing machines, two paddleboards, two kite boards, five kites, sailing rig for the 3.8m dinghy, 15hp engine, lots of tool and lots of spares and we still sit above our marks. Different boats for different uses?

 

[dunedin]

I'm sure the shift to electric power will continue. Geem and Chiara’s slave represent two alternative ways of sailing. 55 miles is a bit restrictive but plenty long term cruisers manage with much less than 1000 miles. I think the key will be in battery technology. Lots of boats are already festooned with solar panels, windmills, generators which provide part of the puzzle. Next is affordable storage to allow several hundred miles of range. As is usual with new technology, it will be adopted by a few at high cost and then trickle down to the rest of us and probably encompass retro fitting. I could fit a full tonne of batteries in the space where my fuel tanks and engine are. Maybe less 150kg for an electric engine.... An inventive mind needs to make it possible and affordable. If its not Elon, someone will appear with an answer (at a reasonable price).

Actually the practical solution for cruising yachts is already available today. A serial hybrid
- one or ideally two electric drives
- decent sized battery pack ( kWh of circa 2-3 times motor kW
- diesel DC generator outputting at drive voltage for when need longer range
Much more efficient than traditional diesel engine, and hence very long range

 

[Seven Spades]

Well I have just recently finiushed reading the Eric Hiscock book Wandering Under Sail. In the book he extolls the virtue of having a boat without an "auxiliary engine" and is pretty much contemptuous of yachtsmen who use an engine. Throughout the book he tells us how he sails into this harbour and that and how he pulls the boat off by using a buoy which then allows him to sail out of harbours. He does on occasion use an oar and skull the boat. I ready it took him something like sixty hours to go from the Channel islands back to the UK on one occasion.

I can't see how we could every turn the clock back, there is no realistic way to sail onto a finger berth. If we got rid of engines I think the majority of people would give up sailing. Realistically you will not be able to motor across the channel under battery power unless you have huge lithium battery bank and I don't think that most people are prepared to simply drift and be prepared for the wind to fill in.

I can see racing boats going electric/lithium because the weight saving is huge and they do just motor in and out of the marina. It will mean that if you have a racing boat a mid-river mooring or a buoy is not a realistic preposition.

 

[doug748]

Actually the practical solution for cruising yachts is already available today. A serial hybrid
- one or ideally two electric drives
- decent sized battery pack ( kWh of circa 2-3 times motor kW
- diesel DC generator outputting at drive voltage for when need longer range
Much more efficient than traditional diesel engine, and hence very long range

I think this is the nub of it. Spirit may be up for fitting electric propulsion and that is all very virtuous. Fine if you have the money and displacement to carry it off. However when the battery runs out 1/3 of the way to Cherbourg, the generator will come on.
As of right now, it's probably more honest and efficient to fit a diesel in the first place.

.

 

[Beneteau381]

Watch Sailing Uma, who now have an Oceanvolt saildrive (suspect supplied for free or minimal cost) - definitely a huge benefit of electric drive on yacht is the silent journey out of marina - particularly as zero noise till start moving, so no noise and emissions when preparing ropes etc as with diesel boats

But they bought a Honda genny when they were up north!

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Actually the practical solution for cruising yachts is already available today. A serial hybrid
- one or ideally two electric drives
- decent sized battery pack ( kWh of circa 2-3 times motor kW
- diesel DC generator outputting at drive voltage for when need longer range
Much more efficient than traditional diesel engine, and hence very long range

It's an option on the boat I'm buying - at a cost of £85k.

 

[Supertramp]

Actually the practical solution for cruising yachts is already available today. A serial hybrid
- one or ideally two electric drives
- decent sized battery pack ( kWh of circa 2-3 times motor kW
- diesel DC generator outputting at drive voltage for when need longer range
Much more efficient than traditional diesel engine, and hence very long range

I agree with you - with a diesel back up generator you can use electric for all the short spells of entering/leaving and run the generator for long trips, all backed up by various recharge options. Provided its not a Fischer Panda.....

My car does this quite effectively, but it is expensive requiring in effect two engines. And petrol. A green consumer expert would possibly say an old fashioned diesel installation offers less whole life environment impact if the particulate emissions problem is ignored.

So stay as we are until technology makes a leap forward.

 

[johnalison]

Well I have just recently finiushed reading the Eric Hiscock book Wandering Under Sail. In the book he extolls the virtue of having a boat without an "auxiliary engine" and is pretty much contemptuous of yachtsmen who use an engine. Throughout the book he tells us how he sails into this harbour and that and how he pulls the boat off by using a buoy which then allows him to sail out of harbours. He does on occasion use an oar and skull the boat. I ready it took him something like sixty hours to go from the Channel islands back to the UK on one occasion.

I can't see how we could every turn the clock back, there is no realistic way to sail onto a finger berth. If we got rid of engines I think the majority of people would give up sailing. Realistically you will not be able to motor across the channel under battery power unless you have huge lithium battery bank and I don't think that most people are prepared to simply drift and be prepared for the wind to fill in.

I can see racing boats going electric/lithium because the weight saving is huge and they do just motor in and out of the marina. It will mean that if you have a racing boat a mid-river mooring or a buoy is not a realistic preposition.

Des Sleightholme once wrote disparagingly about sailors he had seen motoring back to harbour, but he ignored the fact that most working people have to be there on Monday morning or else. I have no love of diesel engines, in fact I hate the beasts, but sailing short-handed as we usually did, my cruising grounds would have been more or less restricted to home waters, even after retirement if I hadn’t had the option to motor. I am quite capable of sailing slowly for long periods when conditions allow, and made many slow passages in the past, but I think you will find that most family sailors doing the sort of sailing we did, in European waters, spend a significant proportion of the time under power. I have no wish to squat inside a trimaran or bounce around in a lightweight flyer just so that I can go a bit faster in light winds, even though I’d love to have a go in one one day just to see what I’m missing.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I’d take you, John. I do sympathise with your position, don’t take it the wrong way. You may well be of sn age to be mostly unaffected, but this issue is incoming. It will bring changes in the nature of our soirt/hobby.

 

[geem]

Actually the practical solution for cruising yachts is already available today. A serial hybrid
- one or ideally two electric drives
- decent sized battery pack ( kWh of circa 2-3 times motor kW
- diesel DC generator outputting at drive voltage for when need longer range
Much more efficient than traditional diesel engine, and hence very long range

Hmm, where do you get the more efficient bit from? Everything I can find online suggests it's not that simple.
If I use my boat as an example. To push my boat along at 5kts on the engine I need to be doing 1000rpm in flat water. That uses 2.5litres per hr and according to the power graph for the engine uses about 30hp.
My 5kva genset running fully loaded uses 2litres per hr. 5kva is circa 5kw so 7hp. Where do I get the other hp needed to drive my boat at 5 kts? Both the electric drive and the diesel drive need a prop so we can discount prop loses. There will be some inefficiency in the gearbox, 25%?.
I deliberately chose a very low boat speed. Achieving high boats speeds using a small generator and electric drive just isn't going to happen.
Looking at data for cruise ships etc, the reason for diesel electric is complex. Its not as simple as better fuel consumption. The energy savings on these ships seems to come from the ability to run 5 or 6 genesets on to a busbar system. They can choose how many gensets to run depending on boat speed needed. This wouldn't be an option with a single small genset powered yacht. Diesel electric on small boats just seems to add a level of complexity most boaters shy away from

 

[johnalison]

I’d take you, John. I do sympathise with your position, don’t take it the wrong way. You may well be of sn age to be mostly unaffected, but this issue is incoming. It will bring changes in the nature of our soirt/hobby.

You are right in that I am unlikely to survive until the matter becomes critical. However, I do care about the nature of a pastime that the next generation will inherit. Actually, it is not so much a pastime or hobby as a way of life for many of us as we lived on board for three months at a time for many years, something that was probably not untypical of many retired sailors. I don’t see that restricting motoring to a few hours is going to be feasible or democratic. I fully accept the importance of taking measures to combat climate change, but there are many far more important targets to tilt at than sailing boats I would think. I don’t doubt that an effective alternative to diesel will be developed eventually but I don’t see it in the near future.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Easy targets are what politicians and campaign groups tilt at. And ‘a bunch of rich bastards swanning about in their yachts’ is low hanging fruit. I expect almost all of us know how untrue and unfair that is.

 

[Laser310]

Spirit Yachts are basically toys for the very rich..; not that there's anything wrong with building toys for the very rich...

They are for the most part not used as cruising yachts in the way most of us think of cruising.

It's a little bit hypocritical. Most Spirit owners probably live lives with enormous carbon footprints; large houses, multiple houses, multiple cars, lot's of travel, all the latest gadgets, etc...

But hey.., at the club they can tell everyone how green they are, with their low carbon yacht!

Actually, I'm sure most of them are probably nice people.., and electric drive probably does make sense for their type of sailing

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I rather think Lithium batteries like to be frequently used. Not sure how that will be with Spirit owners. The only time I’ve ever seen one sail was at the British Classics regatta.

 

[Whaup367]

Might be wrong, cos I don't pay much attention to them, but the balance was only really sorted with electronics?
Looked at a 911S in the early 70s, needed a bit of body work on a corner. That was not a problem, but the exhaust system was rubbish and the new one was more than the car cost! Just as well, as with the rear bias and no 'help' back then, Likely I would have trashed it (and myself..)

Depends what you mean by "really sorted": In the early 70s, they moved the rear axle back, started fitting fatter tyres to the rears than the fronts and generally tweaked the suspension so that you had to try quite hard to unstick the back. Fundamentally, though, if you panic going into a bend too fast and lift off the throttle, the back will go light and the car will start to rotate... if you don't know how to drive it then yes, it will spin... if you do, however, it'll hunker down and power out of the bend in a very satisfying and controllable manner.
I believe the electronics make it all easier, just as traction control etc do on later FE-RWD cars, but haven't drive one so-equipped, so can't speak from experience.