Mark,
Can you elaborate a little bit on your thoughts for the conversion?
Were you thinking about removing the rig entirely? Were you thinking about radically changing the cabin? Were you thinking about an outboard, or somehow installing an inboard? For outboards, were you thinking a commercial electric outboard, or would you do an electric conversion of a gas outboard?
An interesting experiment for your 19' might even be to try a 24V trolling motor. I'd really like to try adapting a Torqeedo prop to a 24V trolling motor and see how THAT combination would perform!
I have a Catalina 22 that I have mounted a 48V Torqeedo on. I'm not sure if that counts as an "electric conversion" or not - but I've had a lot of fun playing with it.
This past weekend, I did some motor-sailing. I had only a genoa up, in moderate wind. With no electric power, I was sailing at about 2.5mph. With very little extra electric power, I was able to increase the speed by 1 mph. At about 500-600W, I was doing about 4+mph. This same speed could be achieved by power alone with about 1000+W on the Torqeedo, or if I raised both main and genoa, and had a bit more wind.
Bottom line - adding an electric outboard to your existing sailboat gives you lots of options. You can sail, you can motor, or you can use both to increase your sailing speed at low enough power to extend your battery life TREMENDOUSLY. The other nice thing about motorsailing is that it eliminates "iffy" tacks, and can help push you though lulls. The lake I'm on is really just a wide spot on a river (Lake Travis, in Austin, Texas. Due to the "ground effects" of wind going through the canyons, around hills, etc - sailing on Lake Travis can get really flaky in spots. Being able to reach back and add a touch more electric to push through a lull is a WONDERFUL thing to be able to do!! And you wouldn't do that with a GAS motor - you wouldn't drop and start an outboard just for a little extra boost. And you wouldn't want to listen to it the whole way for motor sailing.
John
From: "Mark F mark.internet@yahoo.ca [electricboats]" <electricboats@yahoogroups.com>
To: "electricboats@yahoogroups.com" <electricboats@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, June 8, 2015 3:12 PM
Subject: [Electric Boats] 19 ft MacGregor electric?
Has anyone converted a 19ft MacGregor to electric.
Would it be a good choice?
Any info appreciated
__._,_.___
Posted by: oak <oak_box@yahoo.com>
| Reply via web post | • | Reply to sender | • | Reply to group | • | Start a New Topic | • | Messages in this topic (2) |
.
__,_._,___
No comments:
Post a Comment