Eric , again , I know you and others on this forum are very careful , but there are so many scenarios where is is extremely difficult to do too much at all , to help yourself.
We have had them , even with a perfectly running open water boat , that the owner/driver was violently sea sick , and in the finish , we had to go out and get him.
Or they have been injured , done their back , been badly concussed , broke a leg (Spirit of Mystery), all of that sort of thing , when the best way out is to turn the key , and drive out.
Setting up a generator to power the boat would be extremely difficult.
I'd want it set up , ready to go.
I suffer from arthritis , which is controlled pretty well with drugs.
I haven't been caught out on the water , but I have on land , with my 4x4 extreme camper. I had missed a dose of tablets up in the mountains , didn't recognise the symptoms , and went to sleep.
When I woke up , I was in agony , and almost completely immobolised . I got out of that ok , although it took more than half a day . If I was on the water , who knows ?.
If you had the misfortune to come to grief in your boat in some way , and if that accident could be shown to at least be partly due to your inability to get real service out of your generator , where do you stand with your insuror ? , where do you stand in a court of law ?.
Regards Rob J.
From: Eric <ewdysar@yahoo.com>
To: electricboats@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, 19 March, 2011 10:44:25 AM
Subject: [Electric Boats] Re: Portable generators
Rob,
I can see where you're coming from, but if my deck is getting swept by waves while I'm at anchor, I won't be running my generator. I'm only planning on running my generator while under way when there is asolutely no wind which should minimize the amount of green water over the deck. If there's wind, I plan on sailing...
I'm lucky in that my boat is an H-28 knock-off. The boat was designed to cross oceans without any auxiliary power at all. Dealing with heavy weather consists of reefing on bad days and heaving-to in truly awful conditions.
When stored aboard my boatand not in use, the generator lives in a lazarette. One reason that I bought the Yamaha is that it has both a fuel cutoff at the carb and a vent closure on the tank. To date, I've seen no sign of fuel leakage from my generator.
Perhaps you're thinking more about power boats like finshing baots, ski boats and cabin cruisers. As we've discussed many time on this group, power boats rarely make good candidates for electric conversion beyond harbor launches and smaller river and lake boats. And if a larger paer boat was converted, it would not get much value from running a small generator on deck.
I know that the USCG has to handle this type of query in the broadest terms. I posted back in February (post #17029) that according to 2009 USCG statistics, auxiliary sailboats in the 26' to 40' range areless that 1/2 of one percent of the powered boats in the US. And we know that electric conversions are a very small percentage of that smaller population. So we're discussing a very specific use case that may not fit well into the general USCG response. And my response back would be to ask whether the CG would prefer that we not carry this type of emergency back-up but rather have to resort to external assitance (towing) in the event that we run out of charge. The impression that I got in my USCG classes was that we should try to be as self sufficient as possible and to not count on the CG to bail us out of tough spots.
There's probably no right answer, but I believe that it is a good conversation to have.
Fair winds,
Eric
Marina del Rey, CA
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, Rob Johnson <dopeydriver@...> wrote:
>
> The CG here are very much against them too .
> I am a member of the CG , and when I mentioned the idea to the higher up , they just laughed. Most of the rescues we have are marine petrol engines , ie outboard motors . The others are related to batteries. Most of the engine problems aren't breakdowns , but fires. The idea of using a non marine petrol powered portable generator on board a boat , well , that is the response , they just laughed at the idea. Even the biggest commercial boats here has their deck regularly swept by waves, having a working portable generator on deck , I'm sorry ,they just laughed. I know , I know , a lot of you have used portable non marine petrol powered generators for years , without a problem , but if the industry wants to be taken seriously then it has to be able to stand up to the toughest scrutiny , and I fear the use , the advocating of the use of portable generators is a big stumbling block.
> Please , no personal abuse , I'm just the messenger.
> Regards Rob J.
>
>
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