Re: [Electric Boats] Intro

 

Hi Mike,

The pod idea was fine, its just that the product that I used, an Epod, was not well engineered and kept failing right from the start.  I rebuilt many parts of this motor until eventually I found water in it and gave up the chase.  You can see a bit about it starting from May 2008 in the blog archives.

It was a new product and it still needed more development before it really should have been on the market. My experience of it when it was working was good. I'm sure the Mastervolt is well developed.

The unexpected benefit from using the Torqeedo was being able to set it up to be steerable.

I'm travelling just now and will be back on board soon.  And I don't have with me any photos with me of the plugs.

The plug that fills the hole while the motor is down is fixed to the frame and goes up and down with the motor. It has a circular hole in the centre for the shaft, and the shaft has a circular plug attached.  It was a bit fiddly to built but straightforward enough.

The other plug that blocks the whole when the motor is up was kind of complicated to figure out.  It runs on another set of tracks and slides down and under the motor when its up.  It does need some pictures to get a sense of how it works.  It runs in curved tracks made of pipe section cut to be a C-section.  It parks in a vertical fashion and slides around in arc to end up blocking the hole, more or less horizontally.

But a picture is worth a thousand words hey.  I'll send some when I'm back.

Cheers

Chris

On 13/07/2011, at 9:04 AM, Sarah Shepherd wrote:

 

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the info. I really liked the discussion of battery types on your site too. Can you tell me what it was about the pod drives that didn't work for you? Also, do you have any more pictures of your Torqeedo installation, in particular the plugs that fill the hull aperture when the prop is up or down?

Cheers,

Mike

On 12 Jul 2011, at 18:24, chris Baker wrote:

 

Hi Mike,

I've used a similar setup on my trimaran.  I started out with the pod idea and even went down that path for a while.  But what I've settled on is a Torqeedo Cruise 4 outboard mounted on a frame that runs on sail tracks.  It includes a hull shaped plug that makes a smooth bottom when the motor is down, and another plug that fills the hole when the motor is up.

The size of the head of the Cruise 4 is quite compact, and small enough that I was able to steer it within the well. So I've set up another set of spectra lines that connect to the main steering so that when the motor is down, it steers with the rudder.  For a trimaran this makes a huge difference in manoeuvrability and has turned out of be one of my smarter ideas.  (They don't always turn out to be so :)

You can see some details at http://currentsunshine.com

And by the way, since fitting this motor and being happy with its performance, I am now a Torqeedo dealer... just so you know.  I don't have any experience with the Mastervolt/Bellman pods.

Cheers

Chris

On 12/07/2011, at 9:34 AM, Sarah Shepherd wrote:

 

Hello Everyone,
I'm new to this forum so here's a quick hello to tell you all what I'm up to (or hope to be!) I'm planning the build of a 29 foot light displacement performance gaffer which I will be starting to build in wood-epoxy early next year. I'm an experienced sailor but very new to boatbuilding and just as new to electric drives. Since it will be used primarily as a day sailer and plugged into shore power at night, with the occasional weekend at anchor, I intend going the electric route. This also fits with the boat's environmentally friendly approach - sustainable cork will feature in the floors, spars will be bamboo/carbon composite and I hope to use environmentally friendly epoxy. Not to mention wanting to keep a smelly, oily diesel out of my clean new boat! I have been doing a lot of research on the web and am really excited about all the electric drive possibilities out there. I had no idea there were already so many manufacturers! One option I'm looking into is the pod type drive unit rather than a saildrive, such as the Podmaster from Mastervolt. I want to avoid shaft drive for reasons of simplicity and drag. I am thinking about mounting the pod on a retractable frame with a hull-shaped plate fixed underneath that will close off the aperture when the pod is retracted, similar to a retractable bow thruster in concept. The reason for this is to further reduce drag (my boat is based on another design that used a conventional outboard motor) and to keep the pod out of the water when not in use. I'd be interested to hear from anyone with any experience with these pods, or have any comments on their performance/efficiency etc versus an electric saildrive, or indeed any links or info at all that I may find useful? I'm
Thanks in advance for the help.
Kind regards,
Mike

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