It could work. Remember that an old lifeboat is a very heavy hull for its length, though. Great hull shape, very slippery at displacement speeds, as any rowing boat must be, but a lot of inertia there. You will want some torque limiting built into your controller, for sure.
These are indunctance AC motors? Control could be an issue, I don't know, though it must work fairly well at a wide RPM range. Matching a controller to the motor could involve a lot of potentially destructive as well as expensive testing. Maybe someone has already done this? I have never heard of it.
I must sound like a broken record, but my top recommendation for you must be a 5kw brushless DC motor and controller on a 48v bank, either with a belt drive reduction, or with a thrust bearing to transfer the axial push of the shaft to the hull and protect the motor. It is simple, the heavy engineering is already done for you, and it just works. You might think about a salvaged forklift motor and controller, or golf cart motor and controller, but I would zero in on something like a Motenergy ME0907 or a ME0201014201 motor, or a similar from Golden Motor. Reasonably cheap, dependable, popular, and a lot of existing systems in place so there is a decent sized peer group of users to compare notes with. This will double your available horsepower and keep things nice and simple. You will be walking down a path well trodden. More likely to end up with a practical system first time around.
Nice thing about using an old open lifeboat is if your propulsion system fails, you can always row home. If you can find a decent set of oars, that is. Not easy to find new oars that long, now that ships have gone to enclosed lifeboats. Old ones will have issues.
Posted by: BRUCE NOBLE <brucenoble@bellsouth.net>
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