Good morning Jeff,
I have a Compac 23 in which I removed the original 1K of concrete ballast and replaced with lead pigs (350 to 400 lbs at lowest point) and 6 AGM batteries (600 lbs) in the bilge cavity. The 23 has a large-section keel which makes this possible. In order carry the loads I increased the shell thickness of the keel 3X and tapered this out into the turn of the bilge, added 2 transverse floors, replaced all interior structure, etc.
Unfortunately the batteries are in poor condition and I never finished the elect drive portion of the project. I've been sailing the boat for 2 years with a gas OB which works just fine, but I sure would like to see it through to completion someday. If you stay in this size range you might look at a similar design.
Regards,
Chris
--- In electricboats@
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> Hi I have been lurking this site for a while thought I would finally post something. Has anyone actually built a monohull sailboat and incorporated the batteries as part or all of the ballast? My old 29 foot Colombia had a 4000lb lead keel. If even half of that had been batteries it would have provided a pretty good range wouldn't it? Of course it would require designing & building a boat with a keel that could accomidate the batteries. I was intrested if anyone has attempted to do this. Seems like it would aleviate some of the issues involved with modifiying an existing boat.
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> Geff
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