I repowered a few years ago and did some serious calculations about going
to electric power. I was going to use currently available AGM batteries,
well I did think seriously about Trojan 6-volt. Anyway, weight of the
batteries wasn't a problem. Since I was removing almost 400 pounds of
diesel engine and transmission, plus the fuel tank (I carry 13 gallons),
the carrying capacity of the Vega as designed would allow quite a few
batteries -- probably about as much space as was available in the existing
engine room. The electric motors aren't all that heavy, but it would take
some design work to mount it properly. Then one has to have the controller
and charger and all the other stuff.
Finally, I figured that my cruising distance would be about 40, maybe 50
miles. OK if one only day sails or goes from marina to marina, but when
cruising that isn't practical. When sailed Mexico and crossed the Pacific
in my big boat I did have wind generator and solar panels. Neither gave me
enough juice to keep up with my electronics (OK, I admit I did have
refrigeration -- but no AC!!!).
Finally, the best way I found to generate power was a towing generator.
They are easy to build and I was able to generate 7 Amp/Hours 24/7. 160
Amps was a lot of power everyday and I lost only a fraction of a knot. I am
starting to build another towing generator, but it is now difficult to find
the appropriate DC motor to use as the generator for some reason. I've been
thinking of a really small alternator of some sort, maybe off a motor
cycle, but haven't researched it enough to really know if it would work.
Finally there is a group on Yahoo for Electricboats that is similar to our
Vega group. Most of these are small power boats, but it is interesting and
technology is technology:
groups.yahoo.com
(You probably have to go to Yahoo and join as I doubt you can just take
the link over to it).Chris
