Need to Repower on Florida East coast.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by pbiJim

Why would that not work? If you have the skill set, perhaps you could locate an old golf cart that could be purchased on the cheap & robbed of it's drive line.

OP mentioned that he may be motoring up and down the ICW. Electric does not have the range to motor all day unless you add a genset to make more amps and that puts you right back in the diesel engine business.

[The Garbone]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Gary, even a used engine--with any kind of guarantee and labor to install it--may cost you more than a whole other C30 complete with a working healthy engine, sails, and anything else it needs.

You might want to really explore those options before considering dropping a whole "new" even used diesel into a boat. A fast and careless look at Yachtworld shows several mid-80's ones at $14-15K supposedly in working order.

Thinking Yanmar or Beta. Depends on how much the better half wants me to spend. I am going into this as a complete refit done over the next few years. A new motor is better but if I can find a decent rebuild that would be nice.

As I am looking at almost 40 year old boat spending an extra 10k on one with an unknown mill actually makes less sense when I could spend that money on a new motor with a warranty.

[Cheechako]

Good Idea. DId it have the universal before?

[The Garbone]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Good Idea. DId it have the universal before?

My guess is it did, I will be looking at the boat again this weekend before making an offer. As there is no motor only a shaft and bed I have to research the differences in each stock mill so I can figure out what it had.

[Tide Roller]

I was also thinking about re-powering recently and for a very brief period of time. I have a 1983 Catalina 36 with the Universal M25X in it. I can't say that I have been on a trip longer than a daysail that the engine hasn't given me problems. I do not attribute this to the engine itself, but the previous owners maintenance practices. They had only used the engine to get in and out of the slip and used sails the rest of the time. Consequently, the engine had very low hours and not much routine maintenance done. I have been working slowly on each and every problem, but need to do some work to prevent problems in the future.

The cost of a new engine, installing it, and all the work that goes into it isn't worth it. Also the engine did really well getting us across the pacific this past January. I don't have a baseline for any information on the beta or yanmars other than they are more expensive.

I found a guy that has the same engine and similar issues that he has documented with step by step pictures and parts list. There is also links for the engine manuals to download. Here is the website for the boat.

http://realitycheck.me/universal-m25-diesel.htm

Hope this helps.

[Celestialsailor]

I doubt you're going to find a used Beta...yet. they're too new. The Universal is a marinized Kubota engine and not a very good job at that. A used Yanmar 18hp or 27hp engine could be had for $1500 to $3000. Sometimes is best to buy from an engine shop with a limited warranty. You could always try ebay. I bought a Yanmar 4JH (44hp) for $3500 one time with 400 hours on it.

[nimblemotors]

Electric will never work, everyone without electric power says so, they must be right.
Did someone mention sails don't work either in the ICW, why are you buying a sailboat???

[The Garbone]

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

Electric will never work, everyone without electric power says so, they must be right. Did someone mention sails don't work either in the ICW, why are you buying a sailboat???

Oh come now. Electric would "work" just fine for me 90% of the time. However, I plan on taking trips before I retire and that means a schedule. Sailing and a schedule don't mix well. That leads to motoring. Maybe in 9 years when I retire electric will make sense as I can wait for weather windows,but now that means going 200 miles against the wind if need be.

My last 2 week vacation the first week the wind was out of the NNE and it shifted to the S 3 of the last 4 days. I had 3 days of good sailing in the 2 weeks as we were into the wind almost the entire trip. And yes, sailing generally sucks in the ditch, I do it all the time.

If I have an electric drive that means a genset. I really do not want 30 gallons of gasoline stored aboard, I prefer a diesel mill. That means more cost. After it is all said and done I have 2x the batteries and still have the hassle of maintaining a engine in addition to my topside looking like a solar farm. All for the same or more cost than that of a brand new conventional motor.

With a conventional setup I can still sail, still have enough solar to power my gadgets and still have the ability to motor and recharge my banks if things don't work out.

[skipmac]

[QUOTE=nimblemotors;1359900]Electric will never work, everyone without electric power says so, they must be right.
[QUOTE]

I don't have electric. I really, sincerely want to go electric. Please let me know how I can go electric and be able to motor a minimum of 100 miles or so in a 42' boat. FYI I am an electrical engineer so do have a basic understanding of the requirements.

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

Did someone mention sails don't work either in the ICW, why are you buying a sailboat???

Quite so with very limited exceptions. My last trip down the ICW I don't think I sailed but a couple of days and then only when crossing a couple of open bays or when I went outside.

I'm assuming the OP would buy a sailboat with a motor sufficient to get him down the ICW.

[nimblemotors]

Originally Posted by skipmac

I don't have electric. I really, sincerely want to go electric. Please let me know how I can go electric and be able to motor a minimum of 100 miles or so in a 42' boat. FYI I am an electrical engineer so do have a basic understanding of the requirements.

mac if you really wanted to, you would have already.
How many times has our friend bianka here posted on how he does it?
THE BIANKA LOG BLOG: Going electric: Part 1: The why and how

For a monohull, you can do the math on how many batteries you can install to replace 3,000 pounds of dead weight ballast.

A new diesel is how much again?

Here is an old junk golf cart with motor for $250...
Cushman Three wheeler golf cart, maintenance cart

Balqon still has 18pcs left of their 700ah cells for $565..
Balqon Electric Vehicle Manufacturer

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

mac if you really wanted to, you would have already.
How many times has our friend bianka here posted on how he does it?
THE BIANKA LOG BLOG: Going electric: Part 1: The why and how

For a monohull, you can do the math on how many batteries you can install to replace 3,000 pounds of dead weight ballast.

A new diesel is how much again?

Here is an old junk golf cart with motor for $250...
Cushman Three wheeler golf cart, maintenance cart

Balqon still has 18pcs left of their 700ah cells for $565..
Balqon Electric Vehicle Manufacturer

I am very familiar with Mike and Bianka and have read all of his posts with great interest. But two things, first Bianca is a 30' boat vs my 42' and probably displaces about half mine. Second, I don't remember off the top of my head but as I recall Bianka has enough range to motor in and out of a harbor but nothing close enough to cruise all day.

Here is the math I have done.

Current engine 58 HP = 43 kW
Let's be really generous and say I only use 1/8 of that to motor in calm conditions and even round down a bit to 5 kW. Say I had a 48V system like the one on Bianka, that would draw over 100 amps at 48V.

Now if I wanted to motor for 6 hours that would be 600 amp hours from a 48V system. The LiFePo batteries on the link you provided are $560 each for 700 amp hour battery. It would take 16 to make a 48V X 700 amp hour system or $8,960.00 at 752 lbs. That's pretty close to the cost and weight of a new diesel engine.

So, now I have enough battery to motor for 6 hours but how do I get that power back into the batteries to move on the next day? 5000 Watts of solar cells? My boat isn't big enough. 5000 Watt wind generator? My boat isn't big enough for that either. So unless you know of another option I would have to run a 5000 Watt generator for 6 hours to recharge. That will add another $10,000 more or less plus I'm back to having a diesel engine on the boat.

I would be thrilled if you can show me how I am wrong. If I could find a way to go electric in a way that would give me a range under power of just half or even less of my current 350-400 nm and without having to buy a genset I'm all ears.

[pbiJim]

Originally Posted by skipmac

I don't have electric. I really, sincerely want to go electric. Please let me know how I can go electric and be able to motor a minimum of 100 miles or so in a 42' boat. FYI I am an electrical engineer so do have a basic understanding of the requirements.

I'm planning to lean in this direction in the near future. If you would honestly like to look into doing this sort of thing, I would not mind having a collaborator. I plan to build a small 12vdc gen set sometime next month. From the limited research that I have done, a 5hp genset will cost only a little more than a 1hp. I'm looking into small diesel gensets too. The small 12vdc genset is the first step that I plan to take. I'll dig into low voltage VFDs next. I have extensive experience with high voltage VFDs, but not low voltage. After that, the rest should be easy. Scalling the whole thing up to around 50hp, for a boat the size of yours, can't be all that tough.

Without having really thought it through, as a loose concept I was thinking of designing the system with a gen set that would be able to supply about 1/4-1/2 the desired power & sizing the battery bank to take up the rest of the slack, then charge when the electric motor is not running.

[nimblemotors]

How much lead ballast does a 42ft monohull have?

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

How much lead ballast does a 42ft monohull have?

In my Pearson 42 ballast is listed in the specs at 7,634 lbs, total displacement 21,000 lbs. Unfortunately not feasible to swap ballast for batteries since the ballast is solid lead encapsulated in the keel. Theoretically I could remove the main water tank that is in the bilge as the bottom of the tank sits it a very deep sump into the keel but that also is a major structural job.