Trying to take the discussion down a notch which I think has a lot of interest for those who have converted and those who are lurking and are interested in electric propulsion. From what I hear it is not that electric propulsion does not work in sailboats it does. Just like it powers that ferry that got me interested in looking at an EP system in 2007. I think the concern is the storage and the limitations of the battery bank. I had some of those concerns as I thought about converting. I have addressed it to my satisfaction with the addition of the Honda 2000 generator along with solar and wind charging. Some do not like the Honda option. But, that's the beauty of an electric propulsion system i.e. options. John B. wants to be able to pull into a dock and refill the battery bank in minutes. As new battery technologies evolve they can easily be intergrated in a boat with an EP system installed. That will probably happen at some point. But, some people like me it is about being as independent now as much as possible and not relying on fuel docks. That's why I have built my system to take advantage of the various charging options and by pass the docks as much as possible. Getting back to the economics of ICE vs EP. I'm a watch the pennies and let the dollars take care of themselves kind of guy. Every time you fire up a diesel it is money flowing out of your wallet. Just warming it up costs money because the fuel used will have to be replaced even though it is not propelling the boat which is the primary purpose of the motor. When some big sport fishing boat is at the fuel dock loading up with several hundred gallons of fuel and you are doing doughnuts motoring around waiting money is flowing out of your wallet. it's a little different with an EP system. When you are using an EP system it's energy you are using and you are only using it when you are actually propelling the boat for the most part. Unlike the diesel that energy can be replaced by a number of ways. Again it's the options when using EP. These include solar, wind. Yes they take a lot longer to replace the energy you used but, they replace the energy without you opening up your wallet. As those technologies advance they can be incorporated on board too. Plus they can be put to other uses when you don't need them to charge the EP bank. I'll give you an example. I just launched my boat a few days ago. I don't have my generator on board and my wind generator is currently off the boat too. So I only have my solar panels working. I probably motored around for about 20 minutes or so moving to various docks to get the mast stepped and then moved out to an outer dock to put the sail on and finally out to the mooring. But, my battery bank has been fully charged just using solar. In fact as I write this my laptop is being powered by the my EP battery bank via 48 volt to 12 volt converter. Since I'm still prepping the boat I'm using the energy from those solar panels to power the laptop since I don't really need it to charge the battery bank anymore. Again an EP system provides more options if one wants to take advantage of them. Another thing you can do it gradually. I started off with the windgenerator and Honda and added solar a year later. You don't have to do it all at once. Capt. Mike --- On Fri, 6/10/11, John B. <jkbjr@verizon.net> wrote:
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