Re: [Electric Boats] Notes from Miami boat show

 

Hi Dough,

I was at the boat show as well, and love the electrical motor, I think is EP propulsion system?, do you have any idea how good this system is?

I have a Cape Dory 27, and my engine is gone with the wind, so, I am thinking as an alternative source of propulsion to go electric.

Any thoughts? Thank you for your time.

Jofre

On Feb 19, 2012 7:19 PM, "Doug Hitchcock" <drhitch@comcast.net> wrote:

 

I returned from the Miami boat show this evening and found some interesting notes/threads in my e-mail re: a couple of topics that may be of interest to this group:

 

1)  Electric outboards.  Torquedo appeared to be the biggest and best in electric outboards.  I did not see any other brands being exhibited. 

 

2)  There were a few people showing off propane-powered outboards, and they have their niche applications, but most people appeared to prefer gasoline or electric, not some "other" fuel...I suspect some of the propane outboard companies will have comparative specs available.  There seemed to be a number of brands, so I didn't pay close attention.  So,me used small camping propane tanks, others used standard grill-type tanks.

 

3)  PowerFilm was again showing their thin solar panel film.  I have dealt with them on the military front.  Their technology is very different than rigid PV panels and is really efficient in power conversion and can be applied to flexible boat surfaces (e.g. Bimini tops) as they do military tents with rollable solar roofs.

 

3)  Many battery vendors are now touting gel batteries versus flooded cell.  The battery chemistry business keeps getting better and Lithium Iron (LiFePO4) chemistry seems to be getting the major nod.

 

4)  I did not see much in the way of new motor technology except one hybrid vendor touting brushless motors.  Not much in the high-current controller market.  I had expected to see some inrush (no pun intended) of vendors from the electric vehicle market to engage small vessel marine retrofit opportunities.

 

Alas, the megayacht named after my wife was sold sometime last year for about $10M, so I didn't bring that one home for her.

 

Sincerely,

Doug Hitchcock

Naperville, IL USA

Steam Launch Smaug

 

 

 

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