Re: [electricboats] One engine down...looking for solutions/suggestions

Now this a problem I wish I had lol. Will be following this thread with interest. By the way, do you have a website or blog for your sailing adventures?. Or will you have one for your future electric/sailing adventures?. Or document the conversion of your Catamaran?. I'm sure there's lots of others here who would like to follow the conversion. I have childhood friend who is retiring and wanting to do something very similar. And perhaps I'll graduate from converting a old farm tractor to electric to a electric boat conversion myself someday. 

 Good luck 


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On Tuesday, April 27, 2021, 10:14 PM, fvontrampe via groups.io <fvontrampe=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:

I have a 42' twin daggerboard sailing cat that displaces 16,500 lbs loaded.  Two Volvo md 2030 diesels with approx 4000 hrs.  Have been keeping both of these dirty beasts alive with requirement of lots of time, petroleum products, spare parts, and, skinned knuckles.  Have been preparing for the day when one or both would go down and require major maintenance requiring either replacing or major rebuild.

The day arrived yesterday.  Looks like compression down in three cylinders.  Probably need to pull engine.  Head gasket, valves, piston rings?  Who knows?  Maybe all of the above…I am very tired of sweaty engine room yoga, loosing gallons of water in sweat at a time, and surely years off of my life.

My family have been liveaboards since 2014 and came back from 1.5 yrs in South Pacific recently. Planning to take boat soon into Micronesia and Asia, but need a good solution first.  The boat sails well and so we mostly sail, would like to have regen, and need short bursts of full power getting in and out of tricky atoll passes at times.

Really wanting to repower with electric, but don't have a specific system in my mind yet.  Not sure I have the know-how to pull it off elegantly and well either, but willing to try.

Looking for suggestions on a mostly plug and play (with installation modifications of course) system or if anyone has done a similar repower and have list of system components I could peruse as I gather info.  Looked at the 48 v liquid cooled Motenergy thunder alley kit.  Anyone have any experience with these?  Cost is a factor, can't afford the Oceanvolt ServoProp systems.

Was thinking of leaving the sail drive with the three blade folding prop in place and building a system that incorporates the vertical shaft that goes into the sail drive leg.  Don't know the rpm's it would have to spin yet, but has anyone done this?

Likely looking at a ~ 10 kw 48 v batt system, like the looks of the battle born product but too pricey.  Not sure I have the skills to assemble my own with a decent bms.  Need reliability and safety.  Will be in lots of isolated places and not interested in incinerating the boat and family.

All thoughts appreciated as I start my search/process.

Thank you for any time, input, and your collective wisdom as my family struggles through this next project.

Flip

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Flip

42' Catamaran