I agree Eric.
My first electric boat conversion was an old Venture cat (made by McGregor I think) which is similar to the old Hobies. I think it was a 14 footer, but may have been 16.
I built a light cedar deck, about 6 feet square, and lashed it to the cross-tubes. The whole rig is pretty flexible, so you don't want a rigid attachment. Rope lashings worked great, besides being cheap and simple. Used an old trolling motor clamped on back of the deck for power, and a lawn chair for seating. Batteries were mounted in a cedar box way forward on the deck. It worked fine and was a lot of fun, but had all the shortcomings you mentioned. The deck, motor, and batteries probably added up to around 150 pounds, not including the beer cooler. With one 200 lb rider or a couple kids it sat pretty well. With two big adults the floats were just about submerged. Steering was a little squirrely, you had to make constant small adjustments to keep going straight. Not sure why, but maybe something to do with the asymmetrical hull shape and/or the extreme rocker.
Also it did have a rather snappy hobby-horse action in waves as you suggested.
An any rate it was cheap and a lot of fun. Made a great stand-up fishing platform or moveable swim raft for the kids. I did a lot of relaxed lake cruising with it, and got many comments from other boaters. Another cool use was as a "water taxi" to ferry people and supplies out to moored boats. You could straddle the end of a dock with the hulls, leave some power on to pin the front of the deck against the dock, and step right on and off.
If I were do do another one I would look for more suitable hulls. I'm not familiar with the Nacras, but as you pointed out, something with less rocker and more buoyancy would be an improvement.
Jim
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "Eric" <ewdysar@...> wrote:
>
> For conversion to a power cat, I think that boats like Nacras make better candidates. The Hobie has a sharp "v" hull with lots of rocker, this helps reduce leeward slip without dagger boards, but that's really not important for a power cat. This "v" shape reduces the hulls weight carrying capabilities, add batteries and such and the hulls will settle deep (I think that someone posted pictures of an electric Hobie conversion in the Pacific NW, that boat looks close to maxing out the hulls). The deep rocker will increase hobby-horsing in choppy water as well.
>
> The Nacra hulls are "U" shaped and carry extra weight much better. With more hull at the ends, the boat runs a bit smoother through chop. And another big plus is that they come in sizes up to 20'. The longer ones are more easily driven and carry more weight, etc. ect.
>
> I have a friend that has used Nacra hulls (for exactly these reasons) as the basis for a number of power cat conversions, most of the time, he adds more freeboard to increase the operational displacement of the hull.
>
> Fair winds,
> Eric
> Marina del Rey, CA
>
> --- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, James Sizemore <james@> wrote:
> >
> > Or you could just buy a Hobie Cat.
> >
> >
> >
> > On May 28, 2012, at 12:25 PM, Edward Bachmann <edbz@> wrote:
> >
> > > Dan asked: “What's the ideal boat for a Torqueedo?â€
> > >
> > > How about two long thin kayak hulls tied together to make a very slippery catamaran?
> > >
> > >
>
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