Re: [electricboats] Pocket Trawler Electrification

lol, we have the opposite problem here. It gets too hot here to do any work around this time of the year. 

I also am playing with the idea of making my pods turn like an outboard for steering and doing away with having to have a rudder.

I am designing a slide lift so that I can list the motors out of the water to stop fouling whilst on my mooring.

I saw others respond to your query with notes about propellor sizes etc.

I am sticking with the Aluminium prop supplied by Epropulsion. From memory it is 12-1/4" x 8 I think.

Keep up the good work. Regards, Peter

On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 at 11:06 pm, maaseidvaag via groups.io <maaseidvaag=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:

Hi Peter,

 

That Chesapeake Marine trawler looks great.  For those of us not in a hurry it does look like the electric drives are finally where they need to be.  And the simplicity of the install is so nice.  If I go with the pods the amount of space that will open up in my engine compartment and cockpit will absolutely transform the boat.

 

With my existing 3.5kw diesel generator as the last resort backup, and a plan for 1500+ watts of solar on top, I think I should be able to stay out and away from marinas indefinitely.  Cruising on the Great Lakes gives me the added advantage of a very large source of rather clean fresh water.  My brother-in-law has the YouTube channel TechIngredients, and we're starting a collaborative project looking at reverse osmosis + UV sterilization to see if I can safely get clean water from the great lakes.  That, plus a composting head and I'll truly be off grid.  I'm planning to start with two 16 cell banks of EVE MB31 cells, so 48v nominal, 52v actual at 314 Amp hours for each battery of 16 cells.

 

The image below is a close-up of the drawing of the stern of my boat.  I've roughed in the pod location in blue.  You can see to the right the Walter v-drive, and that I'm fairly space constrained  (the v-drive sits under a step with about an inch of clearance above it) in terms of placing an inboard electric motor.  And then I still have the friction losses of the v-drive and it's pressurized oil system, the cutlass bearing, etc.  For reference the prop drawn in the original drawing is 17" diameter.

 

 

Here's a link to the same motors in outboard form on a converted cat.  https://diysolarforum.com/threads/100-solar-electric-catamaran.84980/   Very promising results if I end up being able to reach 5 knots at 3000 watts.

 

Thanks for your input and I'll be sure to come back and document progress here as I progress.  It's winter in Michigan now, so it will not be until March that I begin work on the boat again.

 

Lars