Electrified Mooring Field? Mooring Power

[stevensc]

how 'bout a storm with 10-15 boats dragging anchor pulling along a tangled mess of live wires.
A couple of years ago I read a gag thread on a forum, one of those April 1st day posts, about a new system to transmit AC power wirelessly it would be beamed out to boats in a harbor from a tower.
Steve W

[waterworldly]

Been to Peru many time, it exists there.

[sailvayu]

I'm wondering how you deal with the boat turning in circles around the mooring. Most have swivels so the chain does not kink up seems tricky to do this with a wire. I know you could do it with slip rings but I have never seen anything like that, that would work underwater. Does not mean it can't be done but does not sound easy.

Fair winds

[btrayfors]

Personally, I wouldn't want a plain old electrified mooring. To do it right, I'd want to see one with an Ethernet connection, cable TV with all the Premium Channels, 30A and 50A power, a water-hose connection, a pump-out hose, and a full bar setup with running Mt. Gay, Heinekin draft, and assorted mixers. Also, a big red button I could push for the scantily clad supermodel stewardess to bring me anything else I might need at the moment.

Best of all, the mooring charge would be under $500 per day :-)

Bill

[Fishman_Tx]

Originally Posted by Mule

I kindda thought I would get things going with this subject. Now we have addressed the lack of feasibility of delivering electric power with submarine cables to the moorings, how about we go we go aerial serviced by bucket boats??

BUCKETBOATS!?!? ROFLMAO
You can take the man outta the phone company but not the phone company out of the man.

[hummingway]

Think microwave! Towers strategically located beaming high energy waves to a dish at the masthead. It would keep the birds off too, at least the ones that didn't keep off would be cooked which is even better!

[Mule]

I gave this some more thought, I wonder if down in Peru they have had any aluminum boats dissappear over night? Sleeping away then you are swimming.

[Highlander40]

Wireless power transmission was invented by Nickola Tesla.
The only problem was that at a certain power density it was fatal.

Charge the flux capacitors!

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Highlander40

Wireless power transmission was invented by Nickola Tesla.
The only problem was that at a certain power density it was fatal. Charge the flux capacitors!

There is an interesting presentation on this on ted.com

Eric Giler demos wireless electricity | Video on TED.com

One day

Pete

[Highlander40]

Very cool video on TED. For home use and short range apps, Witricity is way cool.
Keep in mind that while much better than batterys, it's still not close to a wire for efficiency.

You could wire a slip so that when you dock the boat, its on shore power instantly. The mooring field... not so much.

[amarinesurveyor]

Originally Posted by sailvayu

I'm wondering how you deal with the boat turning in circles around the mooring. Most have swivels so the chain does not kink up seems tricky to do this with a wire. I know you could do it with slip rings but I have never seen anything like that, that would work underwater. Does not mean it can't be done but does not sound easy.

Fair winds

" from MULE - gave this some more thought, I wonder if down in Peru they have had any aluminum boats dissappear over night? Sleeping away then you are swimming."
Wayne, I have no idea how they did this, I had never seen it before! I looked back on my report, it was a couple of years ago, and saw that there was no power available, so it looks like they had problems with it. The boat was plugged in when I got there.
Mule, the Catana 47 has aluminum sail drives that were in good condition, I don't know if there were any aluminum boats though.
Brian

[Pete7]

Would be interesting to see what would happen to those old long keeled yachts that have painted lumps of iron floating in a liquid to navigate by when parked over the top of a mooring grid for a few months

Yes there is some really good stuff on Ted.com. My favourite one is by Clay Shirky, when he says if you want to know were technology is going in the future, don't ask 15 yr old boys, look at mums.net, they haven't the slightest interest in anything that doesn't do something useful and achieve a result.

Clay Shirky on institutions vs. collaboration | Video on TED.com

Pete

[Fishman_Tx]

Originally Posted by Highlander40

Wireless power transmission was invented by Nickola Tesla.
The only problem was that at a certain power density it was fatal.

Charge the flux capacitors!

Just a matter of frequency conversion......voila...microwaves!

[mintyspilot]

You could just build a bi-metallic boat, copper on one side, zinc on the other and an insulator based full keel to separate them. Pour some acid into the bilges thus allowing you to dispense with batteries completely. Just wire your stuff to the hull.

[btrayfors]

Originally Posted by mintyspilot

You could just build a bi-metallic boat, copper on one side, zinc on the other and an insulator based full keel to separate them. Pour some acid into the bilges thus allowing you to dispense with batteries completely. Just wire your stuff to the hull.

Yeah, good idea, but what are you going to do with 2 volts? Running every thing from a 2-volt, 10,000AH battery would be quite a challenge :-)

Bill