Hi v40beth,
That may be a reasonable alternative. One problem is the lack of prior conversions for 10+ ton sailing auxiliaries. Therefore, much of the configuration and resulting performance is conjecture. It still appears that the sweet spot for electric conversions is the 27'-32' (3-6 ton) range. A hybrid system will almost invariably be more expensive than a diesel or elelctric only installation, but may offer advantages that are not avialable otherwise. As you can tell, there are not a great number of electric conversions of any size to reference, there are even fewer operating hybrid boats. Steve in Solomon is one member with an excellent hybrid, his electric Lagoon 410. He is probably one of the few people here with personal experience in the sizing of a generator to the total drive power for a large cruising sailboat.
If you do go with a Beta repower, you should install at least a 30-35hp diesel to maintain safe and reliable capabilities and to match the performance that you would have gotten with your proposed electric drive. You may not need 40hp, but 20hp is questionable.
I still think that a 8.5-10kW drive with a 20kWh battery bank, a 3.5-4kW generator and 400W of solar would be an effective drive solution that would give you quiet, reliable power in an instant with good energy redundancy. I believe that your generator duty cycle would be below 5% for traction purposes. Running the generator for house demands depends on your personal preferences/energy consumption. This would be a high-tech, somewhat expensive solution and I think that your boat would be better for it. The straight diesel repower will be cheaper, but comes with its own compromises.
Few people admit it, but many people first consider an electric conversion as a way to save money when their boat needs a repower. Many of those keep that as their primary motivation. I'm pretty sure that I could outperform almost every electric coversion here for less money with an ICE drive. For even the people that cobble something together out of salvaged electric parts, I could cobble something together out of salvaged ICE parts cheaper. So I don't think that going electric to save money is a valid justification, and I'm sure that there are people here that would dispute that statement. That's kind of funny, because every example that I can think of in the retail market for electric powered vehicles/vessels is more expensive that its ICE counterpart. Scooters, lawn mowers, cars, launches and now bigger sailboats from the manufacturers, battery powered electric is more expensive than ICE.
Personally, I didn't save any money on my electric conversion compared to a DIY repower with a diesel Beta 16. But for the way that I use my boat, I believe that I came out way ahead. When I went to repower my racing trimaran, I considered electric and chose a new 4-stroke outboard instead. Electric drive is just another option and will not be justified in many use cases. There is no single best answer, no "one size fits all".
Anyway, I try to present my opinions and how I came to those conclusions so that each of you can figure out whether you think that I'm crazy or not. I'm not trying to sell anybody anything, but I believe that the more qualified information that one can collect, the better decision that they can make.
In any case, I hope that your boat turns out doing everything that you want it to do.
Fair winds,
Eric
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "v40beth" <mrkgillis@...> wrote:
>
> All this discussion has been carefully digested by me, and I can put in a baby beta with a generator off a freewheeling propeller shaft for half the price. Still get my regeneration. Its not your fault gentlemen. I am just getting too much variation from every person i talk to. Without some consensus I do not see 7-10k worth of advantage .
No comments:
Post a Comment