Well. I am a real fan of eletric motors for boats. And while the distance I
travel on the lake the to and from my cabin is not that great (about 2.5
kilometers per trip) I got sick and tried of the old two stroke and the work
needed to get it going. On very cold days, it could be murder to start - and
let's not mention the mess-ups in oil ratios when my brother tried to use it
a few times.

The four stroke honda works great as long as I don't do something stupid and
end up flooding the engine, then it takes up to 15 minutes before it will
start. Atleast I finally learnt how to flush the water filter.

The electric motors - perfect first, perfect always. Generally I get about 4
trips out of the main battery (I have a smaller backup incase) and if I
remember to plug in the main batteries from the cabin to recharge boat's
battery before I go to sleep, it is always ready in the morning.

To me however the biggest advantage is the quiet. Set at lower speeds the
motors as so quiet that even beavers which are in the water and would notice
an loud sound do not hear me coming. I can visit the loon's nest without
driving the parent birds away, I get far closer to animals on shore with the
electric than even with paddles.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When talking about long distance travel well designed electric systems have
an advantage I did not see mentioned here. The ability to instantly switch
between motor vs generator lets you do a special type of cruising called
‘regenerative motor sailing'.

Basicy, you set the controller for a fixed speed and start sailing. If the
speed is even a small faction below the average speed your boat would in the
wind conditions then the batteries are almost always in a charging state -
more importantly. If the wind increase/gusts the energy is shuttled to the
batteries instead of trying to speed up the boat to a speed it can not keep -
so you sail on at a steady rate. The wind dies a bit and the motor mode
instantly keeps your speed up - so you sail on at a steady rate. Your boat
starts to surf down a wave - again the generator mode kicks in and the extra
energy goes into the battries - so you sail on at a steady rate. You hit the
face of the wave and you start to climb up and once again the motor mode
kicks in - so you sail on at a steady rate.

Get the idea Infact Multihull magazine reports on once setting the right
speed for ‘regenerative motor sailing' all day, enjoying it because it was
so smooth and quiet and still ending the day with more of a charge in the
batteries than when they started out.

Earl Colby Pottinger

http://www.multihull-maven.com/article.php?id=40
http://www.multihull.com/elec_wheel.html
http://www.solomontechnologies.com/news.htm

--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp