New engines could be a problem

[Ric]

Since most small boat engines these days are derived from industrial engines I suspect the all electric boat will be some way behind. First you have to make excavators, dumpers, refrigerated truck cooling, standby generators all electric to remove the need to produce these engines in the first place. These are all larger markets than auxiliary yacht engines so will drive the production requirement for this type of engine. How viable would it be to remove a 20 hp yacht engine and install an electric alternative. I cant see that happening for a very long time on safety grounds alone

Already done!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba47kSSXBGw

I don't think his system is fully viable as it looks very heavy and expensive - but shows that it is feasible to re-engine a small yacht. My boat is about the same size - if my crappy old Volvo Penta keeps on misbehaving i wouldn't replace with another diesel - I would go down Oceanvolt route. But am not going to chuck out a working (for the moment) diesel.

Obviously it is easier to design from scratch an electric boat -several are already on the market.

 

[fisherman]

I seem to remember the Germans had a lot of boats with electric propulsion in the war. All we need is a viable charging system.

 

[Cactus Sailing]

Already done!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba47kSSXBGw

I don't think his system is fully viable as it looks very heavy and expensive - but shows that it is feasible to re-engine a small yacht. My boat is about the same size - if my crappy old Volvo Penta keeps on misbehaving i wouldn't replace with another diesel - I would go down Oceanvolt route. But am not going to chuck out a working (for the moment) diesel.

Obviously it is easier to design from scratch an electric boat -several are already on the market.

Solar charging such a large KW motor is probably impractical (charging time wise) without covering the boat bow to stern in panels.

Nice idea but OceanVolt states 6-35nm for a 30' boat which could be somewhat limiting depending on how you use the boat, also for the price, most diesel engines come with a boat attached for that price

the environmental piece.. well the sailboat is already a hybrid, if not better than a hybrid most folk would use the wind where possible & diesel lump is just for mooring and hot water.

 

[Tranona]

Already done!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba47kSSXBGw

I don't think his system is fully viable as it looks very heavy and expensive - but shows that it is feasible to re-engine a small yacht. My boat is about the same size - if my crappy old Volvo Penta keeps on misbehaving i wouldn't replace with another diesel - I would go down Oceanvolt route. But am not going to chuck out a working (for the moment) diesel.

Obviously it is easier to design from scratch an electric boat -several are already on the market.

This is pipedream stuff.

Electric boats actually predate IC engined boats. There is nothing clever about using an electric motor for powering a small yacht - or even a large one. The big problem is storage capacity of energy - space required and cost. Where electric works is in a boat that has regular access to shoreside facilities to take on energy, or is big enough to generate electricity on board particularly if the demand for non propulsive power exceeds that for propulsion. Think cruise liners, short distance ferries (in a large commercial scale) or lake and river day boats at the small end.

All this talk about electric cars only by 2040 has hidden within it an acceptance of hybrids, so IC engines for road transport will be around for far longer, never mind for goods transport and all the other uses geem mentions where electric power is not feasible.

Getting back to our small yachts. Suggest you read Nigel Calder's articles in PBO on his EU funded project on electric power for yachts (in his case using a Malo 45 as the smallest yacht that could practically take the propulsion systems). The only feasible use he could find for such systems were large motor boats where electric power for domestic use exceeded propulsion requirements. Then a diesel electric system (similar to cruise ships) would be viable. Any other duty cycle that was relevant to normal yachting was impractical or less efficient. So a blind alley.

There have been more false dawns in this area than any other development in yachting. Everything is against it. an all electric solution requires shorepower so short range and loss of independence. Hybrid using current technology means a power unit (diesel electric) twice the bulk and twice the price, plus any expectation of electric only use requires a large battery bank taking up yet more scarce space. Do not expect anything relevant to yachts to come out of road transport developments. The requirements are totally different - different power requirements and duty cycles.

When you consider all that it is not surprising that small diesels are the near perfect solution - and they do not need to be smelly and unreliable.

 

[PCUK]

Forget the electric car nonsense. UK power stations are working at maximum during the winter. Haven't seen any plans for new nuclear power stations other than Hinckley. So a minimum 50 percent increase in demand for electricity will not be viable and even if it was the pollution from coal and oil fired stations would exceed car emissions. Basically, nothing truly green. Batteries are highly polluting to make and recycle and the materials to make them are finite.

 

[lw395]

This is pipedream stuff.

Electric boats actually predate IC engined boats. There is nothing clever about using an electric motor for powering a small yacht - or even a large one. The big problem is storage capacity of energy - space required and cost. Where electric works is in a boat that has regular access to shoreside facilities to take on energy, or is big enough to generate electricity on board particularly if the demand for non propulsive power exceeds that for propulsion. Think cruise liners, short distance ferries (in a large commercial scale) or lake and river day boats at the small end.

All this talk about electric cars only by 2040 has hidden within it an acceptance of hybrids, so IC engines for road transport will be around for far longer, never mind for goods transport and all the other uses geem mentions where electric power is not feasible.

Getting back to our small yachts. Suggest you read Nigel Calder's articles in PBO on his EU funded project on electric power for yachts (in his case using a Malo 45 as the smallest yacht that could practically take the propulsion systems). The only feasible use he could find for such systems were large motor boats where electric power for domestic use exceeded propulsion requirements. Then a diesel electric system (similar to cruise ships) would be viable. Any other duty cycle that was relevant to normal yachting was impractical or less efficient. So a blind alley.

There have been more false dawns in this area than any other development in yachting. Everything is against it. an all electric solution requires shorepower so short range and loss of independence. Hybrid using current technology means a power unit (diesel electric) twice the bulk and twice the price, plus any expectation of electric only use requires a large battery bank taking up yet more scarce space. Do not expect anything relevant to yachts to come out of road transport developments. The requirements are totally different - different power requirements and duty cycles.

When you consider all that it is not surprising that small diesels are the near perfect solution - and they do not need to be smelly and unreliable.

I think you may be looking at it from the wrong perspective.

What is the imperative for legislators to allow polluting engines in yachts for leisure?

 

[lydiamight]

UK power stations may be working at capacity during the winter---but not at night which is when most people will be charging their electric cars.

 

[Cactus Sailing]

Forget the electric car nonsense. UK power stations are working at maximum during the winter. Haven't seen any plans for new nuclear power stations other than Hinckley. So a minimum 50 percent increase in demand for electricity will not be viable and even if it was the pollution from coal and oil fired stations would exceed car emissions. Basically, nothing truly green. Batteries are highly polluting to make and recycle and the materials to make them are finite.

Totally agree; if everyone switched to electric vehicles the national grid would need to nearly double in size & capacity over night, Hinckley point is about keeping up with demand and will only provide 7% of uk energy.... and that's in 2025. which is a date which will inevitably slip just like its original 2017 completion date at £8.8bn (now estimated at nearly £30bn)

as with all crap journalism it doesn't mention hybrids are exempt from the ban, so "ban on all diesels and petrol cars by 2040" should have read "hybrids only cars by 2040" which obviously excludes trucks, buses, and trains, but that don't provoke a reaction nor get you to click the article - be careful what you read 90% of it is nonsense.

but the topic of "no new engines for boats" there will always be an "engine" for a boat, it may have to get with the times and modernise with fuel injection and ECU units to comply with EU emission regulations (new boats only) but then if they used the figures like cars for emissions per Km well technically a sailboat is already 0 because the engine is not mandatory to be on so maybe they're exempt - like hybrids?

 

[pandroid]

This is pipedream stuff.



Getting back to our small yachts. Suggest you read Nigel Calder's articles in PBO on his EU funded project on electric power for yachts (in his case using a Malo 45 as the smallest yacht that could practically take the propulsion systems). The only feasible use he could find for such systems were large motor boats where electric power for domestic use exceeded propulsion requirements. Then a diesel electric system (similar to cruise ships) would be viable. Any other duty cycle that was relevant to normal yachting was impractical or less efficient. So a blind alley.

.

My mate has an electrically driven 12m Catamaran, using the same technology that Nigel used - Azipods. It works fine, but of course the batteries only last for a short while and his main source of power is a diesel generator. Being a catamaran he has the space for it, although the Azipods fit under the hull so they don't take up any space, and the batteries are not that much larger than my normal service batteries - just more expensive.

 

[RAI]

I suppose the desire not to pollute the planet is growing. We have the ban on two stroke outboard sales already. I guess wet exhausts ensure that the water is polluted more than the air but I suspect the desire to clean up mankind's foot print will eventually extend to all IC engines, including big Mobo and small sailing boat auxiliaries. So diesel manufacturers are already using ECU/CR, AdBlue is available along with exhaust particle filters. Will we be seeing them come aboard too?

 

[RAI]

Some people just go hybrid anyway.
http://www.annapolishybridmarine.com/resources/Hylas 44 Conversion to Electric Propulsion.pdf

 

[JumbleDuck]

We can get the "old fashioned" Beta engines for the foreseeable future as these are essentially Kubota engines that have been marinised for marine use.
I guess the others, Volvo, Vetus, Yanmar etc will have to come up with something.

The smaller Vetus are marinised industrial engines too, I think. Mitsubishi?

 

[BabaYaga]

Forget the electric car nonsense. UK power stations are working at maximum during the winter. Haven't seen any plans for new nuclear power stations other than Hinckley. So a minimum 50 percent increase in demand for electricity will not be viable

Totally agree; if everyone switched to electric vehicles the national grid would need to nearly double in size & capacity over night

I don't know very much about the UK power system, but these estimates appear to be way out, in my view.
A fairly recent study here estimated the additional energy requirement for an over night switch to 100 percent electric cars to 11 TWh per year (this was based on circa 4.6 million cars driving an average 12 000 km a year at 0.2 KWh/km).
UK of course has a much larger population and many more cars, but if this was factored in I still doubt that the power demand would double – or would it?
And then it will not happen over night any way...

 

[Tranona]

I think you may be looking at it from the wrong perspective.

What is the imperative for legislators to allow polluting engines in yachts for leisure?

Doubt there is any imperative, or even interest. No headlines in the subject. If they tackle the source of the engines we use, ie the industrial market then manufacturers will consider making derivatives for marine use.

Small boats have always used spin offs from mainly industrial engines and I can't see it being any different this time around.

Mr Gove will also find (if he is still around) that his scope for action is very much constrained by what (mainly) non UK firms are prepared to do. He is only interested now in filling the vacuum in politics with headlines that please certain sections of society, irrespective of the practicality.

 

[Tranona]

The smaller Vetus are marinised industrial engines too, I think. Mitsubishi?

Yes. See post#13

 

[Tranona]

My mate has an electrically driven 12m Catamaran, using the same technology that Nigel used - Azipods. It works fine, but of course the batteries only last for a short while and his main source of power is a diesel generator. Being a catamaran he has the space for it, although the Azipods fit under the hull so they don't take up any space, and the batteries are not that much larger than my normal service batteries - just more expensive.

How very inefficient. The power losses of converting diesel into electricity and then using a separate motor to drive the boat are huge. Read the Calder report I referred to above. Does not make sense to use two engines when you can take the power to propel the boat directly off one. There is some argument that a cat needs two engines anyway, so this is perhaps more sensible than in a monohull. However it does not help with the pollution issue as you still have a diesel engine.

Interestingly one of the French cat builders built a number of boats with hybrid propulsion for the charter market, but not successful and not repeated.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Getting back to our small yachts. Suggest you read Nigel Calder's articles in PBO on his EU funded project on electric power for yachts (in his case using a Malo 45 as the smallest yacht that could practically take the propulsion systems). .

Or not. The articles were truly terrible and the only conclusion I could reach was that he really didn't understand what he was talking about. An amateur bodger, frankly. The graphs alone would have bounced it straight out of peer review.

 

[Cheesey69]

I think the point here is the additional cost and complication of more sensors and ecu. some modern injectors cost over 400 each and the eu has made it so that any one can read faults on car and van engines. Not so plant and motorcycles. Separate engine makers can have their own codes and fitters. As an aside, modern engines need a good source of 12v and store engine settings in sleep mode even when engine off. The ecu has to relearn engine parameters if ever switched off. Car runs like a bag of nails for a hundred miles. Just saying its the small things that trip you up.

 

[Sneaky Pete]

Engineers know the parameters required to design a new generation of marine diesel engines. Competition and brand success will ensure that these engines will be better than the current ones.
One thing about the new common rail engine is that it will be more powerful and fuel efficient a current Yanmar 30 of 1.26L will produce similar power output for possibly less than 1 litre capacity. Smaller engine requiring less space, lighter engine more miles per litre same power, it’s a no brainer.

 

[Cactus Sailing]

I don't know very much about the UK power system, but these estimates appear to be way out, in my view.
A fairly recent study here estimated the additional energy requirement for an over night switch to 100 percent electric cars to 11 TWh per year (this was based on circa 4.6 million cars driving an average 12 000 km a year at 0.2 KWh/km).
UK of course has a much larger population and many more cars, but if this was factored in I still doubt that the power demand would double – or would it?
And then it will not happen over night any way...

Well even using your figures and using a moderately fast (not rapid charger at 20kw) Nissan Leaf charger at 6.6kw x by 4.6m cars = 27,600,000,000 watts per night with them all plugged in - of course diversity factors but a hell of a lot more than 11twh per year