And that's the rub. Try an informal poll with your boating friends. Ask them if they would spend significant money to repower their boat if it meant that they would rarely hit hull speed and planing was not possible.
Your sailor friends might consider it (many won't accept the limited range), but I know that most of my power boating friends (fishers, cruisers, divers, etc.) with boats big and small, would laugh at the question. My sampling is probably skewed because all of our boating is coastal and open ocean. For those in protected waters or on lakes, the answers might be different, but maybe not.
Fair winds,
Eric
Marina del Rey, CA
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, James Sizemore <james@...> wrote:
>
> You used the magic word there "expected" lots of boats of all types are good candidates for conversion to electric, as long as the owner expect to travel at displacement speeds.
>
>
> On Apr 20, 2011, at 1:11 AM, Eric wrote:
>
> > James,
> >
> > I knew that someone would bring that up, but I have to say that a canal boat is not quite the same type of boat as "a 1980 288 Cruisers Yacht VillaVee w/ Twin 454's". I don't think that many owners would spend much money to swap out their 28kt top speed for a top speed of less than 10kts. While I could build a conversion that would get a lot closer to the "normal" cruise speed of 20kts, operating at those speeds would be difficult to sustain for as much as an hour.
> >
> > That said, I do believe that Dragonfly is a good example of a well executed hybrid, not all electric, conversion. Because a canal boat is only expected to operate in full displacement mode, it makes a much better candidate for electric drive.
> >
> > Fair winds,
> > Eric
> > Marina del Rey, CA
> >
> > --- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, James Sizemore <james@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Eric, what made Dragonfly (http://www.slowboatcruise.com/) a failure?
> > >
No comments:
Post a Comment