T-Pain Is On A Boat: [Electric Boats] Re: New Electric Cat

Monday, November 15, 2010

[Electric Boats] Re: New Electric Cat

Has anyone had experience with the Torqeedo motors getting dunked? It seems their position on the brackets could leave them under water if a fat wave breaks on the stern. I've seen the Honda outboard on a customer's Rawson go a foot under water when the going gets rough, despite the long shaft. Part of the reason was that his motor was mounted on the swim platform, holding it away from the buoyancy boat. By the time the wave lifted the boat, the motor had been completely covered. Remarkably, the Honda never missed a beat.
If the hulls could be forked, the motors could then be moved inboard. That would allow a incoming wave to lift the stern.
Just a thought...

Arby

From: Eric <ewdysar@yahoo.com>
To: electricboats@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, November 15, 2010 10:32:06 AM
Subject: [Electric Boats] Re: New Electric Cat

Thanks for the link, Don.

It does look interesting, though they are not giving much is the way of technical specs on that page.

We do know that they are using Torqeedo Cruise 2.0 motors running on 24V. I probably would have chosen Cruise 4.0s but its their boat, not mine. I would be concerned about having the power to manuever in crosswinds or ther adverse conditions. Their reference to Lithium manganese batteries leads me to believe that they are using Torqeedo batteries too, nice product but fairly expensive (says someone who bought an 8kWh LiFePO4 battery bank). I wonder how big their banks are?

I like that they claim virtually unlimited range due to solar, wind and "whisper quiet generators". Since this board has discussed the practicality of solar and wind for this type of boat, I would suggest that the generators would be responsible for most of "extended range" drive load while under way. Their drives are only 2kW units, and we know that a Honda generator can deliver up to about 1500W through off-the-shelf parts. Add 1000W of solar and the boat would be able to operate at full throttle powered by gasoline and sunlight.

I can hardly wait to hear about some of their solutions to the various issues that we're all working on here. Like you, I'm interested to see what their performance numbers (watts to knots) will be when the boat is normally loaded.

Fair winds,
Eric
Marina del Rey, CA

--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "Don Parsons" <tdparsons@...> wrote:
>
> Came across this on the Multihulls Magazine website.
> It appears to be a partnering between Steve Trkla, president of the North American division of Torqueedo and Gene Carletta of Blue Planet Catamarans.
> It looked pretty cool to me so I have e-mailed them asking for more info.
> I will post more when they respond.
>
> http://www.blueplanetcatamarans.com/
>
>
> Don Parsons
>