Years ago (1969) I bought a 21 foot long Bahamian sailing bum-boat off the beach in Nassau. It had a long keel and native wood frames. The tradition then was to ballast the hull with pig iron and whatever other dense heavy objects you could find (think cobble stones aka ballast stones that pave some of the streets in New York City). Of course, you don't want the ballast to rest on the planking, and you want to keep the limber holes accessible and cleanable for pumping your inevitable leaks, and you don't want the ballast shifting. As was the tradition I loaded in ballast of all shapes and densities by eye. And I made the ballast readily accessible for removal should I run aground or desire to winterize the boat in the mud behind one of the keys.
Another ballast story: A few years ago a friend of mine took delivery of a new ~28 car ferry boat near Long Island Sound--the exact details I shall not reveal. When the ferry was put into service they discovered it was too light and the wheels would cavitate when backing down into the landing slip. So he and his crew took a large measured load of concrete cinder blocks and distributed them evenly through out the hull. The cavitation issue was resolved and the ferry now has an improved waterline and propulsion efficiency.
With considered planning, I see no reason why batteries could not be used as ballast. An important theme running through my two examples above is easy accessibility to the batteries at all time.
Steve
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.
Geff
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