Tony All good questions that I went through when deciding on my system. 1) Did you buy an off the shelf product? I went a Thoosa 9000 system from NGC Marine. Even though I have an electronics background I liked the idea of a turnkey system. I did not want to spend a lot of time finding parts and installing them. I also wanted the ability to go someplace for help. It's not like you could ask around the boatyard for help on installing an electric propulsion system because so few people have done it. 2) How much did you know about Electric Propulsion and the issues of design and safety before you bought? Not much except that a big ferry boat at a nearby harbor used electric motors for propulsion. If they use it on a ferry it must work. 3) How had you learned when your project was done? Since I already had an electronics background there was not much new knowledge from the electrical stand point. The wiring diagam is actually much simpler than the diesel engine wiring. I did learn some techniques for fiber glassing from the fellow I hired to build the mounting stringers. 4) How long did it take you to build your system from first idea, to motoring away from the dock? I started thinking about going electric in November and left the dock in June the following year. The actually components arrived on my stoop in April. The batteries arrived later. In terms of the amount of days to install the system it I'd say it was about two weeks total after I had removed the diesel. 5) A 10 hp diesel engine delivers about 7500 watts of energy. What size electric engine would be appropriate as a replacement? I have a Thoosa 9000 which is equivalent to about 9hp. It replaced a 27 Hp Westerbeke on an 8 ton 30 foot sailboat. I'll let others give advice on motor size. But, this was another advantage of going with a turnkey system. NGC marine took my boats specs and sized the system for my boat. Which was one less thing I had to figure out. 6) If you were going to purchase an electric boat, would you be more or less likely to purchase based on home brew vs commercially purchased? I'm very happy buying my complete system. You do pay a premium but, I wanted to go sailing and not be experimenting with belt ratios, props etc... 7) What are the biggest gottchas when designing and installing a home brew electric propulsion system? The thing that gave me the most worry was how to mount the motor. I did not have a straight line engine shaft setup so I did not have a lot of room to work with it. Luckily I hired a local yacht re fitter who cut and glassed in new stringers to mount the motor. This saved me a lot of time and thought as to how to do it. 8) How much time have you spent using your new electric yacht? I pretty much live on board all summer. I find I do a lot more sailing with the electric system installed. 9) Have you ever found yourself out of power, or feeling you had too little power to get yourself out of a difficult situation? No. I feel more confident with each cruise that the system will not let me down and I really like it requires much less maintenance than the diesel. 10) Are you happy with the results? Would you do it again if you could start over again? If you answer yes, what would you change about the system you installed? I am completely happy with my system and feel it was money well spent and allows me to enjoy the boat more. You can see what I went through from start to finsh starting with this blog post: Capt. Mike |
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