T-Pain Is On A Boat: Re: [Electric Boats] Cruising with EP

My feeling on the various charging sources is "it's all good". When I first did my conversion I started with the Honda 2000i generator and a 48 volt Marine Air X wind turbine. I then added solar a year later. If I were advising someone today I would do the solar first if you have to choose between wind and solar. But, I am glad I have all three availible to me for me solar, wind and the Honda/grid. If I stop someplace for a few days the solar and wind help charge and keep things topped up so I don't have to run the Honda as much if at all. When I run the Honda it is money flowing out of my wallet to pay for energy when I'm charging with solar and wind it is energy coming in for free. Then there are those special days when I'm not only moving along but, storing energy at the same time:
http://biankablog.blogspot.com/2010/09/happy-at-helm.html

Makes me smile just thinking about it.

Capt. Mike

http://biankablog.blogspot.com

--- On Fri, 2/11/11, luv2bsailin <luv2bsailin@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: luv2bsailin <luv2bsailin@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Electric Boats] Cruising with EP
To: electricboats@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, February 11, 2011, 3:48 AM

I'm not a big fan of wind power for boats. It may make sense for trickle charging your house batteries, but as a power source for propulsion it just doesn't make sense to me. In order to do any good you'd a serious amount of blade area, mounted up high, vulnerable to storms and all sorts of mechanical trouble. If you're going to have all that rigging why not just put up some sails?
Then again, a 40x14 houseboat has a lot of roof space.
At about 18 peak watts per square foot for the best solar panels these days, you could put 10KW of peak generating capacity on that roof. That's about 13.5 HP. After working out all the details - power conversion and motor losses, sun angle, hours of daylight, etc, you might be able to do 8 or 10HP for a few hours a day. With a real efficient hull, that could translate to say 20 or 25 miles per day. You could potentially complete the Great Loop in a year's time at that rate. A lot of folks with their 1/2 mile per gallon "trawlers" take that much time and they spend enough on diesel to buy your solar panels.
The real key is hull efficiency. Think long-low-skinny European style canal house-boat, not American style big-fat-RV-on-a-barge house-boat.
Anyhow, just throwing some wild guesstimates out there for the sake of discussion, and trying to put some perspective on what is theoretically feasible.
Cheers,
Jim McMillan

--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "Myles Twete" <matwete@...> wrote:
>
> Regarding motor requirements for your needs, I defer to the experts who know the Great Loop.
>
> As for recharging with wind or solar, it comes down to doing an energy analysis and knowing what your operational environment will be.