Most Inspiring Proven Hybrid ?

Read my posts in this topic.

At best,personal electric boats will be:
-small runabouts on a lake
-recharged by sail.

End of story.

The only redeeming thing about the Vetus system is that when (not if,but when) there is a problem with the electric part-the diesel is still directly hooked up to the prop.



Nordhavn looked into D/E...and abandoned the idea.Gee...I wonder why????
ps: read my posts

 

So far my estimate of added weight of solar-wind charging plus batteries plus electric motor is 1000 pounds. If you add that to a 6000 pound boat that should add about 15% to fuel consumption while under main drive.That 1000 pounds will give you a maximum of 1 hour per day of electric only drive at 3 knots and take 2 days to replenish via cooperative solar and wind charging. Whether that is viable or not depends on how far you travel on one in relationship to the other. For my use that is viable but not very inspiring.

 

Recharging via a generator in water while sailing sounds promising. It causes me to think more about owning a sailboat rather than powerboat. I've heard lots of people talking about it but I haven't seen numbers for the generators. In order to prevent sulfating of the batteries you need at least 400 watts of charging power. All of the people I have known that have attempted solar charging of batteries are constantly killing their batteries because they can't get high enough wattage out of their solar systems to properly charge their batteries.

 

So you figure going for 2 or 3 miles is worth the hassle??
Or would you rather spend a couple bucks in fuel idling along?

And if the maximum payload of the boat is 1000 pounds,which is typical,are you going to operate it via remote control???

But you are talking about sailing about in a relatively small area with high currents,high tides,and fickle if non-existent winds going in the wrong direction.

 

I heard of this....found it in 3 seconds..



The builder / owners of a Wharram Tiki 46 catamaran recently removed their 2 x 25 HP electric motors, genset and electric drive batteries. Here's their analysis of electric auxilary propulsion on KittyWake:

As some of you may know, we have 2 electric motors in addition to the outboard.
There is one hanging between the skeg and keel on each hull.
We are way underpowered by these and their only usefulness is with docking maneuvers.
They also make a ton of noise as the props spin so that even when we’re just sailing we hear motor noises which is quite irritating.
There’s also the little worry about having holes under the waterline.
Jeff and I have been discussing for some time the option of removing these motors but it would require a haul out and we haven’t found many places that can do that considering our beam. To reduce the noise we’ve considered removing the props, but then the motors are really just added weight and drag. We also tried turning them just slightly on to the recharging setting to stop the prop spin, but then noticed that even with only one motor on our speed decreased by almost a knot. Unacceptable. Here in Pensacola at the shipyard the travel lift looked quite wide. After checking the web site I verified that they could handle a 24′11″ beam which means they could lift us. The cost was $10/foot. The man who is repairing the outboard said if we could get the boat on the hard it would reduce the time he had to work on the engine by about 3 hours and at $95/hour that would almost pay for the haulout. So we did it. Now we have our work cut out for us removing these motors and repairing the hull.


After removing the electric motors KittyWake notes the following:

The motors are gone. The hulls look so sleek right now without those blobs hanging underneath. Now we are debating what to do about the 48 volt generator. It’s been up on Ebay for a few days but like all the other generators listed, there are no bids. We did post 6 of the batteries on Craigs list tonight and within a few hours already had them sold. Hopefully the rain will stop so we can patch the holes tomorrow.


They liked the results of removing the electric drive system:

It felt good to leave Pensacola’s tentacles behind. And we actually got to sail for a while. The sound of water rushing past the hulls was, well, the only sound. Exactly as it should be. I’m really glad the motors are gone.


KittyWake's blog: http://kittywake.us/

 

That is why I started the thread.I had hoped that I had missed something in my search and that there was something more encouraging than what I have found so far. A year ago some reviews were published on the Sea Ray 240 Sundancer Hybrid prototype. Some people may find the reviews interesting but they are not very encouraging.

 

No, I don´t think they will sell none.

There is one idiot every day arriving at the main station! They will find him.

Yes I have hands on experience with such systems.

As a boat builder I like to know what the market provides in terms of being ahead of the crowd.

As a officer, and finally master, of Icebrakers with a substantial hotel load and D/E driven, I can tell you every single aspect of the topic.

For recreational boating it is a nonsense (and a oxymoron too) to talk about "hybrid" propulsion. It simply does not exist!

The examples given here so often, are cheating. Therefore not worth a single comment.
When I read, that a El motor of 10kw easily replaces a Diesel of 20kw, I can not even laugh. That was said or written by a complete idiot.
How does a prop know whats providing the 10 or 20 hp?
Yes, exactly..........telepathy

And there belongs your premature dreaming, in the esoteric corner.

Engineering is different: precise, merciless and reliable.

Regards
Richard

 

You could look at this high efficiency motor. It won the 2009 TT on the Isle of Man for electric powered motorbikes. It only weighs 11kg.

http://www.agnimotors.com/home/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=47

 

It should do a bit better than that: from data I found on the Internet for a 2.7Tonne sailboat suggests a range of 15 nm at 3k can be expected using 200 aH, 48V batteries with an estimated battery weight 540 lb. Range is much less at higher speeds of course.

Considering all the lead and acid in the batteries, and the limited life of batteries used in deep cycle applications, I suspect the impact on the ecological system would be less with a small 4-stroke gas outboard.

 

I think that wattage for 1 hour should be 540 kg instead of lbs. I wish that nickel iron batteries were more readily available. There are electric locomotives in mines with 70 year old batteries. In BC there is an electric car that had nickel iron batteries that were functional after almost 100 years. The museum changed the batteries because the cases were deteriorating. The wattage per kilogram of nickel iron is allegedly 2 times higher than lead acid. They are very tolerant of poor charging practices as well as deep discharges. I live in a city with a local trade area of over 1 million. I tried to buy a couple of nickel iron batteries after reading about their alleged capabilities but none were available locally. I'd like to believe the claims made about efficiency and capability vs weight.

 

Way, way back when I worked with military communications equipment they had a neat NiFe battery for the portable radios. About the same size and capacity as the one in my motorbike but lighter, invertible, non-spill and non-gassing. The military used NiFe for their long life, invulnerability to variations in charging conditions and freedom from sulfation. I believe the Lithium ion battery is a better choice these days.

 

Today the LiFePO4 will fit better, I would say.

 

Cathode materials of Lithium ion batteries are compared at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_batteries#Cathodes

 

The Nickel Iron batteries should be cheaper than lead acid from what I hear, but have been unable to verify via opportunity to purchase. In China they are widely and easily accessable based on the number of advertisers online.

 

Having had a laptop catch fire....I'd pass on having (if any hybrid crap actually worked one day) 1000kg of Li Ion batteries in my boat



Q:

They are called Edison cells/batteries

If you go on youtube there are guys building small experimental cells,and seeing the that patent is expired...and as you seem to be a hands on guy why not find a copy of it online and build your own?

Or buy a dozen "samples" out of China

Rememeber in the other threads i said you'd need to double up the battery packs so as not to damage lead acids???Thats in here.

http://www.green-trust.org/wordpress/2010/07/14/american-made-nickel-iron-nife-forever-batteries/