Geff,
We are building a 42' 3.5" LOA, 14'1" beam, 19-ton displacement sailboat and are planning to use a lead ballast keel and battery ballast inside the bottom of the hull. If you put the batteries in a box in the keel you have challenges in dealing with any water that may get into the bilge as well as structural integrity and sealing of the keel to the hull.
Since the purpose of a sailboat is to use the sails as much as possible and the auxilliary propulsion for the occasional need (crowded marinas, etc.), we plan to use the prop drag turning the motor to provide regeneration for the batteries. This will slow us down slightly but you do not go fast in a sailboat anyway. And, as we plan to slow down and cruise through retirement--
Our goal in selecting a boat to build was quite, efficient, easy to handle and stable in the water.
Good luck on your electric sailboat endeavors.
Gene
To: electricboats@
From: ewdysar@yahoo.
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:50:18 +0000
Subject: [Electric Boats] Re:Batteries as ballast
On sailboats, the sails are often oblique towards parallel to the sun's rays while sailing, which does not collect much energy. Solar panels are more effective when positioned perpendicular to the sunlight. Flexible panels have a tendency to be much less efficient than hard panels, even when positioned optimally. I would think that PV sail fabric would be very expensive and not deliver much electricity in practical use.
You can probably get an idea of the efficacy of this concept by taping a small flexible panel to the base of your current sail and compare the output while sailing to the output when placed more effectively. This could give you an idea of the percenteage of collection loss due to the sail's orientation.
If you do this, please post your results.
Fair winds,
Eric
--- In electricboats@
>
> Hi every one thanks for the responses.   I get the impression that no has as yet has designed and built a 35-45 foot sailboat from the "keel up" as an electric boat. It would be a daunting and expensive project. You would have to design the keel around accepting a specific battery dimension (like computer "blade" servers in a rack) and hope like hell they don't change the dimensions 10-15 years down the road when you need to replace them.
> Â
> The other technology I find intresting are the flexable solar panels that are being developed. If they could be incorporated into the sails they would provide a huge area for solar collection, they could be put on both sides of the sail and give you double the surface area. Are any of the sail manufacturers working on this? A roller furling main that stows in the mast seems like the most logical way to do this. I imagine the sail would cost almost as much as the boat though..
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> Geff
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