My sailboat has 3600 lbs of dead weight ballast. Seems like a real
waste to me.


So....Useless idea #3740

Make a boat with 60 lead acid batteries as ballast powering a high
efficiency 48 V motor. No diesel or gas, connect to shore power
overnight and you could have enough juice to go...........I dunno

Another story:

I have a friend who collects weird techno-surplus and sells it. He
bought several tons of lead bricks from a radioactive source
manufacturer that went out of business. Loaded it into the back of
his pickup and drove it to Tallahassee and parked on a hill. Of
course his parcking brake failed and the truck rolled about 10 feet
till it was stopped by a wall. There would have been no damage except
the entire load of lead bricks decided to slide through the cab. Not
sure what he told the insurance company.

http://www.catamaranco.com/electricLagoon/



"Parallax" wrote in message
om...
My sailboat has 3600 lbs of dead weight ballast. Seems like a real
waste to me.


So....Useless idea #3740

Make a boat with 60 lead acid batteries as ballast powering a high
efficiency 48 V motor. No diesel or gas, connect to shore power
overnight and you could have enough juice to go...........I dunno

Another story:

I have a friend who collects weird techno-surplus and sells it. He
bought several tons of lead bricks from a radioactive source
manufacturer that went out of business. Loaded it into the back of
his pickup and drove it to Tallahassee and parked on a hill. Of
course his parcking brake failed and the truck rolled about 10 feet
till it was stopped by a wall. There would have been no damage except
the entire load of lead bricks decided to slide through the cab. Not
sure what he told the insurance company.

I have about 500 lb of batteries in my keel on top of 8000 of lead.

Worked out fine but since the batteries box top is so low (just under the
cabin sole) I have make it water tight with external ventilation, higher up.


--
My opinion and experience. FWIW

Steve
s/v Good Intentions

We sometimes go a week or two without shore power. How would you propose
keeping the batteries charged. The current technology for wind
generators and solar cells won't do it unless you covered the boat with
cells and put in a "farm" of generators.
Kelton s/v Isle Escape

Parallax wrote:
My sailboat has 3600 lbs of dead weight ballast. Seems like a real
waste to me.


So....Useless idea #3740

Make a boat with 60 lead acid batteries as ballast powering a high
efficiency 48 V motor. No diesel or gas, connect to shore power
overnight and you could have enough juice to go...........I dunno

Another story:

I have a friend who collects weird techno-surplus and sells it. He
bought several tons of lead bricks from a radioactive source
manufacturer that went out of business. Loaded it into the back of
his pickup and drove it to Tallahassee and parked on a hill. Of
course his parcking brake failed and the truck rolled about 10 feet
till it was stopped by a wall. There would have been no damage except
the entire load of lead bricks decided to slide through the cab. Not
sure what he told the insurance company.

Parallax wrote:

My sailboat has 3600 lbs of dead weight ballast. Seems like a real
waste to me.

So....Useless idea #3740

Make a boat with 60 lead acid batteries as ballast powering a high
efficiency 48 V motor. No diesel or gas, connect to shore power
overnight and you could have enough juice to go...........I dunno


Add a genset to juice it up at max tuned efficiency, hot water,
fresh water, all hooked up to my roto tiller techumse, and
centrifugal bilge pump (who needs a switch?), propellor drive for
the motor / generator, home made hydrogen, and tow a hydrogen gas
fuel tank spinnaker with surgical rubber tubing lines, too? Why
not build a hydrogen zeppelin sail with lawn chairs, steel
ladder, with a towed submarine keel with control foils and
cables, like a 'water kite?'

Sky surfing!

Terry K

Another story:

I have a friend who collects weird techno-surplus and sells it. He
bought several tons of lead bricks from a radioactive source
manufacturer that went out of business. Loaded it into the back of
his pickup and drove it to Tallahassee and parked on a hill. Of
course his parcking brake failed and the truck rolled about 10 feet
till it was stopped by a wall. There would have been no damage except
the entire load of lead bricks decided to slide through the cab. Not
sure what he told the insurance company.

--
Terry K - My email address is MY PROPERTY, and is protected by
copyright legislation. Permission to reproduce it is
specifically denied for mass mailing and unrequested
solicitations. Reproduction or conveyance for any unauthorised
purpose is THEFT and PLAGIARISM. Abuse is Invasion of privacy
and harassment. Abusers may be prosecuted. -This notice footer
released to public domain. Spamspoof salad by spamchock -
SofDevCo

A pound of diesel stores the same energy (on a practical basis -- not
the 20 hour rating capacity) as 200 pounds of lead acid battery.
That's why there aren't more electric boats and cars.

And, putting batteries in the bilge is one of those boating gotchas --
it's a great place for the weight until you get some bilgewater on top
of them.

So, keep thinking, Parallax.....

Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com



(Parallax) wrote in message . com...
My sailboat has 3600 lbs of dead weight ballast. Seems like a real
waste to me.


So....Useless idea #3740

Make a boat with 60 lead acid batteries as ballast powering a high
efficiency 48 V motor. No diesel or gas, connect to shore power
overnight and you could have enough juice to go...........I dunno

Another story:

I have a friend who collects weird techno-surplus and sells it. He
bought several tons of lead bricks from a radioactive source
manufacturer that went out of business. Loaded it into the back of
his pickup and drove it to Tallahassee and parked on a hill. Of
course his parcking brake failed and the truck rolled about 10 feet
till it was stopped by a wall. There would have been no damage except
the entire load of lead bricks decided to slide through the cab. Not
sure what he told the insurance company.

"Jim Woodward" wrote in message
m...
A pound of diesel stores the same energy (on a practical basis -- not
the 20 hour rating capacity) as 200 pounds of lead acid battery.
That's why there aren't more electric boats and cars.

There are lots of electric boats. But they are a bit specialized. It wouldn't surprise
me if there were more electric trolling boats than cruising sailboats!

Also, there are a growing number of electric auxiliaries installed on club trainers and
other small boats. And companies are now offer small diesel electric setups - handy for
catamarans to drive two motors from one genset.

One of these days there will be a major breakthrough that makes battery power much more
feasible. If only Moore's Law applied to battery technology!

-jeff

Of course you're right -- I had the "30 foot sailboat" blinders on
when I wrote the post -- Parallax started the thread discussing a
3,600 pound keel.

To put this in perspective, though, 1,000 pounds of lead acid
batteries will store less than 8 kilowatt hours -- call it 10
horsepower hours -- on a regular basis with reasonable battery life.
This will take our 30 foot sailboat about 5 miles.

There are a wide variety of battery technologies under development,
primarily for automotive applications, that will probably help this
along in the next five or ten years, But don't look for too much --
we might see the weight difference fall to 20 to 1 from 200, but I
don't expect to see parity in my lifetime.

Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com

"Jeff Morris" jeffmo@NoSpam-sv-lokiDOTcom wrote in message ...
"Jim Woodward" wrote in message
m...
A pound of diesel stores the same energy (on a practical basis -- not
the 20 hour rating capacity) as 200 pounds of lead acid battery.
That's why there aren't more electric boats and cars.

There are lots of electric boats. But they are a bit specialized. It wouldn't surprise
me if there were more electric trolling boats than cruising sailboats!

Also, there are a growing number of electric auxiliaries installed on club trainers and
other small boats. And companies are now offer small diesel electric setups - handy for
catamarans to drive two motors from one genset.

One of these days there will be a major breakthrough that makes battery power much more
feasible. If only Moore's Law applied to battery technology!

-jeff

x-no-archive:yes


"Jeff Morris" jeffmo@NoSpam-sv-lokiDOTcom wrote:

"Jim Woodward" wrote in message
om...
A pound of diesel stores the same energy (on a practical basis -- not
the 20 hour rating capacity) as 200 pounds of lead acid battery.
That's why there aren't more electric boats and cars.

There are lots of electric boats. But they are a bit specialized. It wouldn't surprise
me if there were more electric trolling boats than cruising sailboats!

And don't forget submarines, which before nuclear power were diesel
electric.

Also, there are a growing number of electric auxiliaries installed on club trainers and
other small boats. And companies are now offer small diesel electric setups - handy for
catamarans to drive two motors from one genset.

One of these days there will be a major breakthrough that makes battery power much more
feasible. If only Moore's Law applied to battery technology!

-jeff


grandma Rosalie

x-no-archive:yes


"Jeff Morris" jeffmo@NoSpam-sv-lokiDOTcom wrote:

"Jim Woodward" wrote in message
om...
A pound of diesel stores the same energy (on a practical basis -- not
the 20 hour rating capacity) as 200 pounds of lead acid battery.
That's why there aren't more electric boats and cars.

There are lots of electric boats. But they are a bit specialized. It wouldn't surprise
me if there were more electric trolling boats than cruising sailboats!

And don't forget submarines, which before nuclear power were diesel
electric.

Also, there are a growing number of electric auxiliaries installed on club trainers and
other small boats. And companies are now offer small diesel electric setups - handy for
catamarans to drive two motors from one genset.

One of these days there will be a major breakthrough that makes battery power much more
feasible. If only Moore's Law applied to battery technology!

-jeff


grandma Rosalie