Building a New Sternwheeler

[ecodevoman]

Just curious if this was ever built. I have a 28 ft fiberglass barge hull for a sternwheeler, but I can't decide on electric vs. diesel and how to set up the drive, etc.

[wagarrison]

The decision of electric vs diesel depends on what you plan on doing with your boat. Do you mostly take short trips on a lake or river? Or do you intend to take her on long excursions? I am a big proponent of electric. I plan on having a 40' houseboat that I want to install a sternwheel drive system and cruise the American Great Loop. I want to use electric as the primary power source. I will have a gas generator as a backup for propulsion and recharging the battery bank. I also intend to have a solar and wind generation system installed. I am leaning toward a two 48 volt banks. While cruising I would use bank A, and charging bank B. When bank A runs out I can change to bank B and start charging bank A. The wind turbine can also charge both banks during the night. Since I don't plan on cruising every day it will be easy to keep the banks topped off until we are ready to continue on to our next stop along the loop. If we can travel between 30 and 50 miles a day between point X and point Y, then that would be perfect for us. I am aiming for a cruising speed of 5-7 mph for about 6-9 hours a day. I will probably get an EV conversion kit for a car to install on my boat, or maybe a golfcart or forklift setup with the appropriate size electric motor to achieve the above rates. I don't know if this will help you or not but it felt good to write these goals down. Toodles for now.

[Boston]

I worked out the numbers a hundred ways from sunday over on a thread that started off about the wind blue alternator conversions for wind turbines. Turns out the weight of the batteries you need to run all day at even say 20 or 30 hp is prohibitive pretty much regardless of charging plans. Up front costs are huge.