T-Pain Is On A Boat: Re: [Electric Boats] Seahawk 17 Project

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Re: [Electric Boats] Seahawk 17 Project

From my experiments on a Catalina 22, which is a little bigger than the Seahawk, I would draw these conclusions:

DEFINITELY use GOOD AGM batteries. Don't even waste your time on "deep cycle" or "Marine" flooded lead acid batteries. They don't handle high loads well (both Peukert, and more importantly - they boil off all their water), and the Reserve Capacity minutes seems to be highly overrated (as someone else observed - probably measured till the battery was flat dead and beyond recoverable). I have noticed variance in how well AGM batteries meaure up to their "rating" for RC minutes - so buyer beware. The Deka batteries I have now seem to be living up to the praise they have recieved elsewhere on this site.

The MinnKota will be ok as long as you are fine with going SLOW. HOWEVER - you may also need to be concerned about whether the Minn Kota can handle being run at full throttle for an extended period of time. I noticed on the 24V Traxxis 80 that I played with, that the control head got VERY HOT after 30-45 min of high speed running.

The Torqeedo motors seem to be very well suited as a small outboard - just very pricey.

All in all.... I agree with you about the noise. But you can easily pick up a small NEW outboard for what an electric system with batteries, chargers, etc. will cost, and you can run a small outboard pushing you at full hull speed all day long on a 6 gallon tank of gas.

As much as I hate to say it, a gas outboard overall seems to be a much more practical answer. If you're going electric - it just has to be because you WANT TO. (Kinda' like it takes a special kinda' crazy to BUILD your own boat... <grin>)

Good luck!

John

From: PISQUE1969 . <surv69@gmail.com>
To: electricboats@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2014 7:49 AM
Subject: Re: [Electric Boats] Seahawk 17 Project

in 1998 i had my veture25 on mosquito res(ne ohio).
sailing on a foresail only, i found myself having to beat a light wind for a 3 plus mile distance with nothing but a minnkota 27 lb thrust motor and a car battery that would no longer start my car.
it took about 4 hrs and needing to turn off my nav lights to get back.

3 batteries are nice, but unless you want to push a bow wave, i would think it's part of the OVERKILL that's always discussed here.

On Mar 22, 2014 10:41 PM, <billj474@yahoo.com> wrote:

[Attachment(s) from billj474@yahoo.com included below]

Hi,
I've been following the group while trying to come up with a plan for my 17' sailboat. I've already learned a lot just from following the discussions. My boat is used on smaller inland lakes in Ohio and I'm considering adding a trolling motor through the hull behind the keel for those times when the wind won't cooperate. I feel I could live with making 3 knots with a trolling motor (Minn Kota Endura Max 55 w/Kipawa prop is available for free) and still get reasonable range from 3 deep cycle batteries (10 miles is probably all I would ever NEED but I can see leaving the mast at home occasionally if we could count on 20 miles). I have a good running outboard (older Evinrude 4.5) that gets me up to hull speed with no problem at about 1/4 throttle and many folks with this boat use 2hp outboards while cruising. I would be willing to purchase an electric outboard if necessary to be able to enjoy a quiet ride when the wife and I are out instead of listening to the motor run. The boat would weigh about 2000lbs with 3 batteries, 2 people and all our gear. I'm attaching a link to sailboat data for the boat http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=6065 and a pic of the keel.

Please let me know what you think of my "plan" and what any better options might be.
Thanks,
Bill