The end of the world is near....... what Yacht will you build?

Discussion in 'All Things Boats & Boating' started by Wellydeckhand, Jun 16, 2006.

?

What u will choose if seawater rise 50M and u need to find other land but............

  1. Monohull Sail Yacht

    29.3%
  2. Monohull Motoryacht

    4.8%
  3. Monohull Motorsailer

    12.3%
  4. Catamaran Sail yacht

    17.1%
  5. Catamaran Motoryacht

    1.1%
  6. Catamaran Motorsailer

    10.8%
  7. Trimaran Sail Yacht

    12.0%
  8. Trimaran Motoryacht

    1.1%
  9. Trimaran Motorsailer

    4.6%
  10. Dont Know?

    1.4%
  11. Stay at land and hang on something

    0.9%
  12. Find a submarine........ hopefully

    4.6%
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  1. White Knight
    Joined: Oct 2008
    Posts: 20
    Likes: 1, Points: 0, Legacy Rep: 36
    Location: Chattanooga, Tn.

    White Knight Chief

    Masalai, You're correct on the cost. Right now, I'd build myself one if I had a spare 2.5 Million bucks. You know prototypes - they cost. I'd rather see you buy one so the cost will begin coming down for the rest of us. Maybe future models will be smaller and more affordable. For the true cost, remember to factor in FREE FUEL FOR LIFE! As for range and power, the factors are fairly well known. All of the components of the power drive are presently being utilized in other technologies. These are off the shelf components. We have good data on what they will do. They have just not been assembled for this marine application before. Draft is just four feet. Personally, I'd like to see a motorsailer produced with this drive system except using hybrid drive motors like Solomon Technology's. You'd have to add a blackwater mascerator as well. This thing is so green you can't dump except at dumping stations. Good Idea but of course that won't work when all the marinas close. Later, Mark
     
  2. marshmat
    Joined: Apr 2005
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    Location: Ontario

    marshmat Senior Member

    Just finished looking through the Independence Green Yachts site. There are a few engineering aspects of the Independence 60 that I think need to be clarified.

    - It appears to have 2x75 kW main engines and 6.6 kW of solar array. Even if the energy storage were perfectly efficient (which it is not), that suggests 23 hours of sitting idle in bright sun for every hour spent at full speed. The 50A 240V shorepower connection can supply at most 12 kW. Even charging on shorepower you are looking at over 12 hours of charging for every hour at full speed. Once inefficiencies in the various conversions are accounted for, I don't see how the craft is obtaining the energy it is capable of drawing for propulsion.

    - If there are two independent fuel cell stacks, why are eighty 6V cells needed in the house bank?

    - I like that they appear to have a closed water/H2&O2 loop between fuel cell and electrolyzer. But to put so much faith in metal hydride storage systems at this point in the development of that technology, seems rather premature.

    It's an interesting concept, and one that will surely provoke plenty of thought. But I remain to be convinced that the engineering is all there.
     
  3. White Knight
    Joined: Oct 2008
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    Location: Chattanooga, Tn.

    White Knight Chief

    Marshmat, You are astute to see the apparent lack of battery power available. However, the battery banks are not intended to run the vessel at full power. They are good for limited distances at 5 knots or less. Beyond that they are automatically assisted or supplanted by the stored hydrogen in the fuel tanks through the fuel cells. I think the 6V house batteries isolate the house loads from the drive system. It seems I recall a mention of using high voltage to allow higher gauge (skinnier) wiring. I'll have to go back and check. I don't have complete specs. on hand but have spoken to the principals of the company and they do seem to have it all worked out. These guys have extensive US Naval Submarine/Electric Boat experience and plan to use a boatyard and marine architect with experience in launching aluminum vessels for the Navy and Coast Guard. Most of those are continuous welded construction, where this vessel is not. I guess it could be if you specified ICE CLASS and were willing to pay the difference in scantlings/welding cost. Perhaps the greatest limiting factor I see is the time required to fill the tanks from empty. That's why I might prefer to have this system on a motorsailer with hybrid motors to generate while under way. You could fill up on the go. The designers of the Independence Green Yacht differ with me though. They seem to feel that sails are superfluous. They are confident that they will have plenty of power available. They may be right as most people don't really cruise all the time but take a cruise to a destination and then visit there awhile. While you're vacationing, solar power fills you up! Let me see if I can enjoin the engineer in this discussion to fill in all the blanks. Perhaps, I should reconsider the blackwater macerator though. "Green" is in the description of the boat after all. Maybe a class A MSD would be better suited and, for the money; should be included. A vessel that exhausts only pure water should flush only purified, chlorinated sewage after all. Mark
     
  4. White Knight
    Joined: Oct 2008
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    Location: Chattanooga, Tn.

    White Knight Chief

    Let's go to the source!

    Marshmat, I dropped a line to Fred Berry, one of the owners of Independence Green Yachts and invited them to visit this discussion and join in, if they, or their Mairne Architect; would like. We'll see what, if anything; they have to say.
     
  5. marshmat
    Joined: Apr 2005
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    Location: Ontario

    marshmat Senior Member

    Hi WhiteKnight,

    I don't see a lack of battery power there. The reason I pointed out the batteries is because a vessel with two fuel cell stacks should not need such a large house bank. If the hydrogen system were more efficient than batteries, you would want most of your power- both house and propulsion- to come from the fuel cell, and have only enough battery to damp out fluctuations in house load. If the batteries were more efficient than the fuel cell, the fuel cell wouldn't be there at all.

    A 6.6 kW array will output somewhere around fifty kilowatt hours per day in nice, tropical weather. (Give or take 30%- the variability due to weather is enormous.) You have a conversion from electric to hydrogen, then some energy used to get the hydrogen into the storage tanks (this can be verysignificant if you have high pressure or low temperature), then you have a conversion from hydrogen back to electric, then you have a conversion from electric to mechanical. Even using best-case values for each of those efficiencies (90% for H2 production, a 10% parasitic loss to store it, 80% fuel cell efficiency and a 90% efficient motor) I can't find a way to get the total over 60%. So only 30 of those 50 kWh you might generate on an ideal day will actually be available for propulsion- in the best possible case. So after a day of charging in the sun- and no drawing power for house loads- you'd be able to run your main drives at 40 hp for one hour.

    The thing is, such an array would be more than sufficient to handle all the house loads indefinitely, even if you're pretty liberal with your power usage. But when I do a few basic calculations with the numbers given on the Independence site, I cannot see how one could generate enough power from an array that size to move a boat that size for any significant length of time. Charging off shorepower gives you twice the power of the array.... so forty horses for two hours a day, once the conversion efficiencies are all considered.

    I like the idea, and I am convinced that solar power can be feasible on a boat. But everything I know about these systems says that the array and hydrogen storage system on that boat is not enough to power a boat of that size at any reasonable speed for any reasonable distance.

    If anyone has some more detailed numbers that show how they can do it, I would love to see them.
     
  6. masalai
    Joined: Oct 2007
    Posts: 6,818
    Likes: 121, Points: 0, Legacy Rep: 1882
    Location: cruising, Australia

    masalai masalai

    I looked at renewable energy for my boat build and reverted to twin saildrives of about 10 hp each when motoring or motor-sailing and an identical engine for house/domestic needs as well as ship/nav charging and minimal batteries as being the most reliable option and not even solar panels can compete except to trickle charge when I am absent from boat for bilge pumps and other necessaries.... otherwise, though desirable - not viable.... Hydrogen is BLOODY DANGEROUS, and may ignite at close to ambient temperature.....

    Engines will run on CNO (coconut oil) using only "pre-heat" to 70 deg celsius and no other modification needed (dangerous if diesel fuel is present as that is too near the "flash point" of diesel/kerosine).... CNO solidifies at about 24 deg celsius...
     
  7. White Knight
    Joined: Oct 2008
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    Location: Chattanooga, Tn.

    White Knight Chief

    Hey Marshmat, I believe the thinking is to not use your stored hydrogen for just short trips because it takes so long to make it. It is free but dear because it is slow to produce. Solar and batteries will move you even if limited in range and speed. Solar can crack your hydrogen from the water you're floating in too. Then again you have a 1200 mile range with the hydrogen when you need it or use it to come to hull speed if required. Why use your dear hydrogen just to make coffee, light or music when you have batteries for that? I'd wager your boat sits more than cruises. That's the time for hydrogen manufacture and storage in the safe, low pressure tanks. The tanks are not cooled either. The Hydrogen is absorbed into the foam-like metal hydride matrix as it cools to ambient temperature. A bit of heat releases it when needed. See ya', Mark
     
  8. marshmat
    Joined: Apr 2005
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    Location: Ontario

    marshmat Senior Member

    The battery power has to come from somewhere too- the same solar array from which your hydrogen is generated. My thinking is that you should store almost all of your energy using the most efficient means possible.

    Now, if the issue is that the fuel cells being used are only efficient at or near full capacity (as some varieties are), then it makes sense to draw from batteries (which are most efficient at low currents) for house loads and only fire up the FC stacks when you need more output than the batteries can give....

    Still, generating enough hydrogen for 1200 miles under power is going to take a lot of sitting in the sun. And even more sitting in the sun if you're drawing from the batteries- and thus having to recharge them from the array- while you wait.
     
  9. masalai
    Joined: Oct 2007
    Posts: 6,818
    Likes: 121, Points: 0, Legacy Rep: 1882
    Location: cruising, Australia

    masalai masalai

    Lets just look at this option from another direction? - - If all energy is derived from the electricity generated by solar panels, some is stored in batteries, and some converted into hydrogen and stored in containers and both may be converted into propulsive energy....

    So - the limit is that which is available from the photovoltaic panels... assume 80% of time at anchor and a minimum of 5kw per 8 hour solar charging day (40kwh) for house needs, what does that leave to generate and store hydrogen and at that rate how long to fully resupply hydrogen storage?
     
  10. lazerus
    Joined: Oct 2008
    Posts: 21
    Likes: 1, Points: 0, Legacy Rep: 28
    Location: Vancouver

    lazerus Junior Member

    Ok Ive changed my mind

    The end of the world is near and ill have the plans in two weeks:D :D
     

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  11. masalai
    Joined: Oct 2007
    Posts: 6,818
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    Location: cruising, Australia

    masalai masalai

    Now that is very close to a smaller version of an Australian Pearling Lugger - nice choice for a mono-hull guy... :D:D:D to see my choice click on my link below....
     
  12. Manie B
    Joined: Sep 2006
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    Location: Cape Town South Africa

    Manie B Senior Member

    Lazerus please tell us more about the design

    what material for build - ply - steel - glass ??

    speed ?

    i like the basic concept - basically a 4 panel boat - big flat pieces that can easily be done in ply and epoxy

    i have had great success with epoxy - i honestly dont understand what the other guys are talking about when they call epoxy nasty stuff. i work CLEAN - its dead easy and fast - this boat should be great in ply and epoxy. My present build should be finished in Feb 09 and then i will start my 40ft cat

    epoxy build is great
     
  13. lazerus
    Joined: Oct 2008
    Posts: 21
    Likes: 1, Points: 0, Legacy Rep: 28
    Location: Vancouver

    lazerus Junior Member

    hi mannyAt first I was going to build it in steel but there is too much new stuff to learn and alot of equipment to buy that I wont need once it is done.So plywood it is.The bottom is cross planked in douglas fir 1 1/2" thick.Sides are 3/4"x2" fir over the ribs followed by two layers 3/8"mdo or better plywood with cloth over top.1 1/2"x5 1/2" fir ribs,plywood deck with about a 1 in 10 rise in its arch.
    I dont know how much detail is ok with the designer to give but if you want to know more just ask.
     
  14. Guillermo
    Joined: Mar 2005
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    Location: Pontevedra, Spain

    Guillermo Ingeniero Naval

    Following my post #58, I'd build an Ark and fill it with dozens....of beatiful valkyries, to make the journey to the Valhalla. :D

    'What kind of a dream is it,' said Óðinn,
    in which just before daybreak,
    I thought I cleared Valhǫll,
    for coming of slain men?
    I waked the Einherjar,
    bade valkyries rise up,
    to strew the bench,
    and scour the beakers,
    wine to carry,
    as for Guillo's coming,
    here to me I expect,
    heroes coming from the world,
    certain great ones,
    so glad is my heart.

    :D :D
     

  15. masalai
    Joined: Oct 2007
    Posts: 6,818
    Likes: 121, Points: 0, Legacy Rep: 1882
    Location: cruising, Australia

    masalai masalai

    as for Guillo's coming ? My mythology is fairly scrappy - was that journey to the "after-life" - if so I am reluctant to volunteer as crew, just yet, but if it is my time, it is my time :D:D:D
     
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