Sailcat to powerboat

[womensetsail]

After 10 years sailing our 36’ cat around Florida and the Bahamas we’re interested in moving into something a little smaller and a little faster. We want diesel. And cabin space for overnighting for 2 people with head and small galley. We need AC and would love generator too for overnighting on the hook.
We’ve been looking at Mainship30’s but wondering if anyone has any other suggestions.

Signed,
Already Missing Our Cat

[rsn48]

I find many will not respond until you declare a budget. Do you want new or used?

For my local waters, I have an older 28 foot semi-planing hull. I think I prefer this design over a more rounded hull bottom often found on trawler designs. I find trawler designs not to be the most fun to be on when the wind comes up and the water gets a little angry; beautiful boats otherwise.

I also live in a rainier area on the planet so having an open cabin is not to my liking, I want shelter is less than optimal weather. But that's me here in coastal BC, you are in an area with lots of sun, so open might work better, or not...lol!

[CSY Man]

Got a 28’ foot pocket trawler.
It has everything you asked for but no generator.
Don’t need it on the hook as there is always a breeze blowing down the hatch, but if it rains we use a 12 volt Caprano fan.
Sailed 20+ years in the Bahamas and the Caribbean, never needed a generator on the hook. (Wife is a city girl and she never complained, always been comfy as we only spend time below when the sun is down and it cools off)

Picture of boat: Albin 28TE, inboard diesel, pretty efficient at 7-8 knots trawler speeds, or if you need to scoot home before dinner it will cruise at 17 knots all day and all night.
OdinCharters| WireFrame Home

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by womensetsail

After 10 years sailing our 36’ cat around Florida and the Bahamas we’re interested in moving into something a little smaller and a little faster. We want diesel. And cabin space for overnighting for 2 people with head and small galley. We need AC and would love generator too for overnighting on the hook.
We’ve been looking at Mainship30’s but wondering if anyone has any other suggestions.

Signed,
Already Missing Our Cat

I recently ran into a Greenline 33 hybrid.
Looked comfortable for two and the owner liked it. He said the boat could do about 15-20nm at 4-5kn on a full battery, and the solar panels provided a free run about every other day during summer in the Med.

Generator is part of the hybrid drive train, and AC is standard I think.

Cheapest ones I have seen are starting at 110k Euro though.

[rsn48]

Rather than a generator look at Efoy fuel cells, certainly more expensive, but quieter, takes up less room and for a boat in the size you are looking for, will do just about anything. Its fuel cell technology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTIZkrOJHDI

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by rsn48

Rather than a generator look at Efoy fuel cells, certainly more expensive, but quieter, takes up less room and for a boat in the size you are looking for, will do just about anything. Its fuel cell technology.

Are you sure??

The largest efoy I know is the Comfort 210 which costs around 5000 Euro and has a continous rating of 105W. Running this one 24/7 costs around 3500 euro per month for 70 (!) bulky M10 fuel cartridges.

These 3500 Euro give you a charge capacity of 210Ah per day or barely enough enough energy for half an hour aircondition.


To achieve the same 210Ah you need some 500Wp solar for around 700Euro (in summer in the Med)

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by womensetsail

After 10 years sailing our 36’ cat around Florida and the Bahamas we’re interested in moving into something a little smaller and a little faster. We want diesel. And cabin space for overnighting for 2 people with head and small galley. We need AC and would love generator too for overnighting on the hook.
We’ve been looking at Mainship30’s but wondering if anyone has any other suggestions.

Signed,
Already Missing Our Cat

Have you looked at the Endeavor power cats? You get a lot of the same features as your old boat but with more speed.

PDQ used to make a 34' power cat.

If you want to go monohull power boat, there are a ton of options...how many miles/year are you planning? If it's not a lot look at planing hull boats a nice aft cabin has a lot of space and if you are only doing 500miles per year, fuel isn't a big deal. If you are doing 5,000miles per year, look at singl engine trawlers.

[rsn48]

People who use the Efoy heavily in the summer months find they go through roughly two cannisters or whatever they are called. You would be running off of house batteries and through an inverter, but if you can use 12 volt. So for example, my fridge runs only off of 12 volt.

Most items, if not all, need a large amount of juice but for short time only, eg microwave or a toaster. The only thing I can think of that would take a lot of power (most everything else using gas or diesel) would be air conditioning.

Just do a rough calculation of power usage. Lets say you use a hair blower (why you'd want to is another question) that is 1200 watts, that's roughly 10 amp/hour. But you'd only use the hair blower for 10 minutes (seems long to me) which would consume 1/6 of 10 amps/hour so 1.66 amp/hour. Same calculation for a microwave, ten minutes a day of microwaving with a 1200 amp oven would yield the same results, but.... you can purchase a 1000 watt microwave and save some power. Now lets throw in a toaster and the same calculation of 1200 watts for ten minutes and the same results 1.66 amp hour. So now you have run a hair blower, toaster and microwave with a total amp hour of 4.98 (5) watt hour (1.66 times 3).

Hot water, refrigerator and air conditioning are the three big power hogs, all run from shore power. I can run my refrigerator for a week on just the house batteries I have now.

So lets say you used the microwave, toaster and hair blower, your house batteries would be down 5 amps and the Efoy would kick in to restore those 5 amps to the house batteries.

Your estimates of costing for Efoy is bizarre and totally unheard of, I'm to lazy to do it, but search out the Efoy thread which is quite long but it will bring you up to snuff so to speak. Generators are loud fuel consuming beasts and life is better when they are off than when they are on.

Fuel Cell Basics – Blue Water Sailing

[Dsanduril]

You slipped a decimal place. 1200W ~100A, not 10A. Which then leads to 16.6Ah, and eventually to 50Ah/day. The eFoy, at 105W would have to run almost 8 hours to replace that. Not a deal breaker, but a huge difference. You've used 30 minutes of high power AC devices and you have to run the fuel cell 8 hours to make it up. -> you can get a maximum of one-and-a-half hours per day of high power devices out of an eFoy running full time.

[rabbi]

Cost for the efoy system is based on the first german shop I found in google. And its supported by the article you linked:
"The EFOY Comfort currently retails at Fisheries Supply (www.fisheriessupply.com) from $3,500 to $7,000 and a 2.64-gallon fuel cartridge is $80."
I checked fisheriessuply and the efoy comfort is for sale for $5898.99 as of today.

But you are right, I made a mistake with the fuel consumption. The manufacturers website says 0.9 liter per kWh, and I read this as 0.9liter per hour. So the fuel cost is about 300 Euro per month to run the large efoy 24/7.


If someone uses only two 10liter cartridges per season, he can only recharge 22,2kWh (20 liters / 0,9 liter/Kwh) . Each of my 280Wp solar panels produces around 1kWh on a sunny day and cost a tiny fraction of an efoy fuel cell.

I have nothing against efoy fuel cells. They are just ridiculously expensive for the tiny amount of energy they provide. Good for rich racers, not for cruisers.



BTW:
You may want to look into your calculation again. Its is off by an order of magnitude. Actually even 8-10% more due to inverter losses for running the household appliances.

A 1200w hairdryer sucks 100A from the batteries @12v. Including 10% losses in the inverter its 110A.
Running it 10 minutes means about 18Ah gone from the battery. Add your microwave and toaster for 10 minutes each and you lost 3x18Ah=54Ah.
A 12v fridge at 4A and 50% duty cycle in the tropics means another 48Ah gone.

The efoy Comfort 210 would need to recharge 102Ah, which means its running about 12h at its rated charging current of 8,8A.

It will use about 1.1 liter per day. 10 liters cost $80, so its about $8,80 per day or 260 per month just for the toaster, hairdryer, microwave and fridge.



And saving power by downsizing a microwave also doesn't work. You may buy a 1000w instead of a 1200w but then it needs to run proportionally longer to achieve the same result. Otherwise everyone would buy a 1w microwave.


I am not in the generator camp. But efoy is for rich racers.

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

You slipped a decimal place. 1200W ~100A, not 10A. Which then leads to 16.6Ah, and eventually to 50Ah/day. The eFoy, at 105W would have to run almost 8 hours to replace that. Not a deal breaker, but a huge difference. You've used 30 minutes of high power AC devices and you have to run the fuel cell 8 hours to make it up. -> you can get a maximum of one-and-a-half hours per day of high power devices out of an eFoy running full time.

you beat me !

[rsn48]

I also realized the error of my ways after I posted it and walked my dog and thought about it. But even at 50 amps and Efoy taking 8 hours to replace it, so what... there are 24 hours in a day...lol.

To use up the remaining 50 amps using the middle Efoy, lets throw in television usage and whatever else will use up that energy, we still haven't factored in what was initially in the house batteries as well.

You are going to use your hairblower in the morning, microwave at 3 minutes for breakfast (not sure why just throwing it out there), 3 minutes for lunch and 3 minutes for supper, spreading out the energy replacement. And the toaster would be used at breakfast so good to go the next morning.

Its kind of a tortoise and the hare kind of thing, the Efoy is the tortoise and the generator is the hare, but as this video clearly demonstrates, the tortoise won over the hare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7NuVjpi72c

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by rsn48

I also realized the error of my ways after I posted it and walked my dog and thought about it. But even at 50 amps and Efoy taking 8 hours to replace it, so what... there are 24 hours in a day...lol.

To use up the remaining 50 amps using the middle Efoy, lets throw in television usage and whatever else will use up that energy, we still haven't factored in what was initially in the house batteries as well.

Yes, but then you spend hundreds each month in fuel, and you need a spare cabin for all the bulky fuel cartridges.

Just to put that into perspective. The 6000 usd efoy comfort 210 delivers as much energy over 24h as my two solar panels deliver on a typical summer day. These cost about 700 and don't need any fuel at all.


Efoys is for wealthy racers.

[rsn48]

I'm not sure where you are coming up with hundreds a month, do your homework and here I'll help. There is an Efoy thread on the CF forums here, its long, you'll be an old man by the time you've read it, but you'll have a better idea of fuel usage. You need to show me where you are coming up with this "hundreds" figure.

Read the thread, solar panels are discussed, not as great an idea in the Pacific Northwest and Coastal BC. Below is the Efoy thread, discussed by people here on CF who are using them:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tor-76749.html

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by rsn48

I'm not sure where you are coming up with hundreds a month, do your homework and here I'll help. There is an Efoy thread on the CF forums here, its long, you'll be an old man by the time you've read it, but you'll have a better idea of fuel usage. You need to show me where you are coming up with this "hundreds" figure.

No need to read the thread, I just go to the manufacturers website. It states an average consumption of 0.9 liter / kWh, see attached.

So how do I come up with "hundreds":

You said in your previous post its possible to use not only 54Ah for hairdryer, micro, toaster and the 48Ah for the fridge but also the remaining 50Ah that the mid-sized efoy can provide for TV and whatever.

150 Ah per day is not excessive, we use maybe 100 or 120 Ah when at anchor and more on passage and others use way more.
This is cruisers forum, so I assume you want to be self sufficient and don't visit marinas every other day to recharge so all the charging needs have to be met by efoy.


I agree this works with the mid sized efoy, but will be very expensive. Lets do the math:

We recharge the daily consumption of 150Ah @12v by efoy. Lets ignore complicating factors like charge voltage or charge efficiency.

We recharge 150Ah at 12v so we need 150Ah*12V => 1800Wh or 1.8kWh per day.

According to the manufacturer efoy uses 0.9 liter / kWh charged. The efoy fuel consumption is 1.8 kWh * 0.9 liter / kWh => 1.62 liters per day.

The M10 fuel cartridge holds 10 liter. It will last
10 liter / 1.62 liter/day=> 6.17 days

So per month efoy will use just under 5 of these M10 containers. Total cost per month at anchor: 5 x 80 USD => 400 USD fuel cost per month


Plus replacement cost as a fuel cell has a finite lifespan. Could be anything between 100 and 1000 per month depending on the expected life:

I haven't found average life expectancy figures for the efoy. I read that mobile fuel cells should do 4-5000 hrs, which I think is pretty low. Large stationary fuel cell are said to last 40000 hrs. So running 24/7 the $5000 efoy would last between 7 month and 5 years.

Efoy is a rich man's toy or for very special needs like cruising the arctic without generator.


Just two month of efoy's fuel cost pay for a solar installation that can do the same for years and decades. You just need suitable place for the panels, battery capacity and enough sun.


@OP: sorry for