The Future of our Hobby

[ontheplane]

So car manufacturers are working flat out to bring electric cars to us - because that's what the government are incentivising.

The public demand for them is increasing, and the infrastructure is improving (although if there is mass take-up I think it will never be able to get there).

But electric boats? I can see some solar powered craft might work in the Med if you are happy to potter at 4knts everywhere. But the big 70 foot type planing boats - will these be able to exist in the future?

What will happen? Hydrogen is an option but a massive investment to install, and I am not sure there is the will in the industry to take on that investment especially after this year and the troubles, and we still have the huge chicken and egg - no-one would buy a hydrogen boat without a hydrogen infrastructure and no-one will put in the infrastructure if no-one has a boat to use it......

2050 is a way off now..... but as these things take many years to sort - what do people think will happen - and I realise there is no right or wrong answers here - only opinions and views.

 

[CLB]

We already have small boats that can go fast for up to around an hour. Scale that up and there is no reason why big boas can't go fast for about an hour. Improving battery technology will see that hour increase to a point where a cross channel trip, say 3-4 hours, is a possibility at 20 knots. Recharge overnight and another 3-4 hour trip the next day is doable. Not much different to now really, apart from the time to refuel, which on a cruising boat you automatically get at your overnight stops. It will tie us to marinas more, but I am sure you will be able to plan your way around the odd night at anchor too.

Going slow, the solutions available now are probbaly already good enough.

 

[ontheplane]

BUT - the problem with scaling up is the re-charge. My Soul EV can be rapid charged - but if you were to use a 3 pin plug or a marina 13amp supply it would take 30 hours to recharge.

It has 200hp but rarely uses more than 10% - 20% of that power on the road - so at an average of 30mph and say 270 mile range that's 7 hrs use.

Scale that up to a yacht with say twin 1000hp engines - if you want 7 hrs range at 1/4 throttle you would need 6400 KWH battery (this is all a bit guess work so bear with me) -

So plug your large yacht with perhaps a 6400KWH battery in, at 13a it would take 2782 hrs to recharge (115 days)- .... That don't work......

The most powerful rapid chargers out there are currently 350KW - they are dear and need massive cables - but lets assume it can be done in a marina surrounded by water. With a 350KWH charger your yacht would take 18 hours so just about do-able - realistically someone needs to invent the 500kw charger for this to work!

So, imagine a weekend in a typical marina, say 100 boats been out for the day, take the current marina consumption and add 100 x 350KWh and you need 35 Gigawatts + whatever a marina uses now..... basically the marina would need a direct connection to a Nuclear Power station to get powered.......



......................and there is the problem.

 

[Alicatt]

In Holland when we were at Geithoorn and the majority of the boats there were electric, in fact all over Friesland there were a huge lot of electric boats, admittedly most of them were not capable of much over 6km/h which is the speed limit around most of the canals, the boats were charged up over night and then ran all day without recharging. There were powerboats plugged in, at first I thought it was just shore power but they were charging and when they pulled away in silence there was no infernal combustion engine
One large motor yacht/cruiser at Lemmer was all electric with a large array of solar panels on the roof, it was for sale but I can't remember all the details. In the case of small boats/tenders petrol outboards are in the minority, most are electric.

 

[Alicatt]

The cables for charging the larger boats were extremely heavy, it looked like the 32A connector but it was a bit larger, I was trying to see what the chargers were but they were a bit too far from where I was to see properly, the ones for the small 6 to 8 seat tenders were of the same size as 16A

 

[CLB]

BUT - the problem with scaling up is the re-charge. My Soul EV can be rapid charged - but if you were to use a 3 pin plug or a marina 13amp supply it would take 30 hours to recharge.

It has 200hp but rarely uses more than 10% - 20% of that power on the road - so at an average of 30mph and say 270 mile range that's 7 hrs use.

Scale that up to a yacht with say twin 1000hp engines - if you want 7 hrs range at 1/4 throttle you would need 6400 KWH battery (this is all a bit guess work so bear with me) -

So plug your large yacht with perhaps a 6400KWH battery in, at 13a it would take 2782 hrs to recharge (115 days)- .... That don't work......

The most powerful rapid chargers out there are currently 350KW - they are dear and need massive cables - but lets assume it can be done in a marina surrounded by water. With a 350KWH charger your yacht would take 18 hours so just about do-able - realistically someone needs to invent the 500kw charger for this to work!

So, imagine a weekend in a typical marina, say 100 boats been out for the day, take the current marina consumption and add 100 x 350KWh and you need 35 Gigawatts + whatever a marina uses now..... basically the marina would need a direct connection to a Nuclear Power station to get powered.......



......................and there is the problem.

I didn't say there wasn't an obstacle or two to overcome

I suppose that shows the difference between 'possible' and 'practical'.

 

[Hurricane]

Maybe the solution is to put a big pole up and use the wind.
Whoops - wrong forum!!

 

[dragoon]

With electric power, then there lies the issue that the use model of a road vehicle looks very different to a boat. Cars are used most days. Boats can sit idle for months or years. That's usually okay provided the diesel isn't contaminated with water, but on a boat with large banks of batteries, they will self discharge. That means in most cases, your boat will need charging before you use it. Depending on the size of those banks I can see a lot of wasted energy topping up boats, partially discharging them in use, and then the whole cycle will repeat itself. Not to mention the practicality of those banks in the first place - they are made up of literally thousands of close to AA size lithium polymer cells (18650s or similar). Personally I see mass take up of road transport using batteries as a non-starter, let alone boats. Of course politicians will try and convince us otherwise.

 

[ontheplane]

And Lithium doesn't really like getting wet!

 

[CLB]

And Lithium doesn't really like getting wet!

The electrics are often water-cooled on electric boats.

 

[hinch]

Boats will more than likely go to LNG.
A lot of major shipping companies have converted their big haulers over to LNG already it wouldn't be much of a stretch to imagine gas turbine generators driving electric drives.

 

[Bodach na mara]

I wonder when the practical aspects of electric motive power will be addressed. It is actually easier for boats than cars as (as has been said) boats are used less than cars. In a marina of 600 boats it's a rare day that more than 60 are used, so the nightmare of all trying to recharge at once is extremely unlikely.

Cars are a different story. It would be fine if all car owners lived in houses with each having its own drive, but what about rows of flats and multi story flats? Can you imagine the tangle of charging cables over the pavements and car parks?

 

[stranded]

With electric power, then there lies the issue that the use model of a road vehicle looks very different to a boat. Cars are used most days. Boats can sit idle for months or years. That's usually okay provided the diesel isn't contaminated with water, but on a boat with large banks of batteries, they will self discharge. That means in most cases, your boat will need charging before you use it. Depending on the size of those banks I can see a lot of wasted energy topping up boats, partially discharging them in use, and then the whole cycle will repeat itself. Not to mention the practicality of those banks in the first place - they are made up of literally thousands of close to AA size lithium polymer cells (18650s or similar). Personally I see mass take up of road transport using batteries as a non-starter, let alone boats. Of course politicians will try and convince us otherwise.

I doubt many non-boaters have a clue just how much energy it takes to drive big (or even not so big) mobos. When the row starts, that will be laid bare. We are entering an era when we will be told there are somethings we just cannot do anymore and I rather suspect that when the sea is lapping at their front door and they are faced with carbon budgets, taxes etc. themselves, the vast majority of the public will support an end to non-sustainable hobbies, so it’ll be a case of do the best you can sustainably - shorter range, slower - or find something else to do. There are massive changes ahead I suspect.

 

[bedouin]

Leisure boating must be a very minor contributor to CO2 compared to commercial shipping / fishing and aviation. So either there will continue to be some exceptions to ending the burning of fossil fuels or they will have to develop some carbon-neutral alternative (e.g liquid bio-fuel).

I tend to think that we will develop some form of liquid fuel that has equivalent energy-density to oil and that could replace fossil fuel for mobile applications.

 

[Momac]

HVO fuel is available now as a replacement for diesel
HVO Fuel Suppliers - Up To 90% CO2 Reduction - Renewable Diesel Fuel | Crown Oil

 

[stranded]

Leisure boating must be a very minor contributor to CO2 compared to commercial shipping / fishing and aviation.

In the scheme of things, I am sure it is. But the amount burnt by some leisure boats is pretty eye-watering and I don’t see Joe Public being particularly sympathetic to the big picture when they are told they’ve got to choose between their summer or winter holiday, type of car, how to heat and insulate their homes etc. Maybe you are right - I hope so - but I reckon the COVID experience will have emboldened governments - you CAN get away with the unthinkable if you can paint a sufficiently armageddonish picture. I don’t think raggies are safe either - at least not cheap grp boats.

 

[Momac]

River and canal boats will become electric and new boats with electric propulsion are becoming available. But really need some charging points accessible to all to be put into place . eg I have been refused a shore power hook up by the canal and river trust when visiting one location with plenty of shore power bollards available.
A shame really that Canal and River Trust don't seem to like boats .

However I don't think existing diesel or petrol boats should be forced into extinction.

 

[ontheplane]

So anyone know what this HVO costs - it looks a very good product if it works as advertised!

 

[Momac]

So anyone know what this HVO costs - it looks a very good product if it works as advertised!

I have asked Crown oil for a price . it wil not tell us the price a the marina pump but might give us an idea .

 

[bedouin]

So anyone know what this HVO costs - it looks a very good product if it works as advertised!

The problem of course is that the use of such a product is not massively scaleable without having its own impact. Imagine what would happen if we converted all the land currently used to grow food into growing crops for "biodiesel"

We really need something that can be created using an industrial process - perhaps even converting electricity into a liquid fuel. Such processes do exist but not clear if they are economically viable.