Hydraulic Motor In Water

Patience isn't even the word.

I feel like I've been handed a jail sentence - 3 years if I get out on good behavior and I work every single day. More like a jail sentence at a labor camp. I live at the boat shed and I don't meant that figuratively. I walk outside and start work every day before it's light out.

Basically, building a boat sucks. However, I could never afford a boat like this if I didn't give up 3 yeas of my life (even if I worked those 3 years doing something else).

So, it's the only thing that fit our lives. We decided to make the sacrifice. Not sure if you went to college, but it's about as big of a commitment as that, except you work every day, don't get summers off or breaks and you don't get to go out drinking.

The thing that's attractive about the hydraulic system for me is:

1) Possibility of running off single engine (that is in drawbacks later, too)
2) There is such as thing as a hydraulically powered heat pump/reverse cycle air conditioner
3) I can easily hook up a hydraulic powered generator head
4) I could run the main set of winches off hydraulic
5) Windlass could be hydraulic
6) Watermaker could be hydraulic (high pressure pump, anyway)
7) Would be more reliable than outboards, in general... for example in an extreme bridgedeck slam (not so likely in this boat), the outboards could dunk under. That wouldn't matter to a hydraulic outboard system.

Drawbacks seem to be:

1) Single engine is sized wrong to run a generator load. 60-100HP is great when underway, but when you run that huge engine to spin a 5KW generator head, you're not doing it any favors and you're using a lot of fuel.
2) I am thinking the hoses, fluid and reservoir weigh too much
3) Cost is quite a bit more than a pair of outboards and gasoline generator

 

Support for the water hydraulic motor

I am always interested on information, but even more on your support that this time this new technology will not get lost.
Please go to:
http://www.indiegogo.com/Most-advanced-clean-water-hydraulic-motor?a=447088
The water hydraulic is the future. (Penalties for polluting the water ways with oil are getting higher.)

 

Yea-- i hear you there --and my boat is not a fraciton of the size of build you got going..cheers to your committment and dedication!-you will be rewarded in the end -its cliche but--if it were fast(cheap)and easy we'd all have nice cats or tugboats to play with...!

its because of the cold hard fact of the necessary, to me, almost mindboggling amount of work involved that i have procrastinated for some time...as with you--to the annoyance of everyone here -i have looked at different designs-different methods-materials etc..to try to find some magic way to circumvent the amount of back breaking labour that goes into a steel boat. i have not found it...
i think there needs to be a whole thread dedicated to what is involved in building a boat(there probably is anyway but i haven't looked)
anyway-i appreciated your candor regarding the process, even though my boat is (after much searching to find the easiest build possible) about the smallest easiest steel tug there is to build ---it still gives me anxiety thinking about the welding up of the hull...
ok really sorry this isnt about hydraulics..im going to go start another thread on patience and boatbuilding because i feel this really should get discussed...if not already somewhere else...pls join me there catbuilder if possible...?

hydraulics should work effectively both with cost and efficiency in your case in mho.- but you probably will have to comprimise somewhere..i.e. prop drag etc.
Id like to know more about this water hydraulic system...is it capable of high torque applications? whats next on the agenda for this system? testing? manufacturing?? im interested.