Volvo 120 S Saildrive 'Going Electric'

[lagunaman26]

I just bought a 1994 Manta Catamaran, as a fixer upper. Both diesel engines are shot, but the saildrives are healthy. I've asked an american company to work to set me up with electric drives. So far, the whole design looks great for range and power. I've spent a solid 9 days from sun up to sun down working my butt off, but I've been fixing up the boat while flying back and forth from my land locked location. I really need to speed up the project, so I'm drivng down with an electrician family member with all the parts and tools needed. But here's the catch, I don't have the measurements of my saildrive output connection to provide the guy at Electric Yacht, so he's having trouble designing parts.

I need a diagram with measurements of the shaft and mating surface between the Volvo MD2030 engine and the Volvo 120S saildrive, 1994 vintage.

Any help could save me hundreds of dollars and lot's of time,,, not mention it would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!

[capngeo]

lagunaman26, First, welcome to CF... secondly most of the electric conversions I've ever seen have been converted BACK TO traditional internal combustion.... just sayin'

[lagunaman26]

More and more electric marine propulsion systems are coming to the market. Soon they will be the norm. Even West Marine offers an Inboard propulsion system now.

[cyclepro]

Try this PDF document - it is available at Marineparts Express. No dimensions though.

Volvo Penta Schematic Part Diagrams

Good luck
Jan

[never monday]

Originally Posted by lagunaman26

Soon they will be the norm.

I doubt they will be the norm, but the do fill a niche in the market.

[blgklr]

The electric saildrives will be a lot more viable if he adds a diesel generator. Fuel storage is allready there, replace 2 diesel engines with one diesel generator and should get by with smaller battery bank.

[JRM]

Originally Posted by capngeo

lagunaman26, First, welcome to CF... secondly most of the electric conversions I've ever seen have been converted BACK TO traditional internal combustion.... just sayin'

That's because lot's of people have a power boat with auxiliary sails, not a sailboat with an auxiliary engine.

My conversion is well underway. Although I do plan to use a small generator as a hybrid for extended trips, those trips are maybe once a year. A friend has the exact same boat as I, with the same motor, and he's able to motor out to the islands and back on a single charge (without sailing). I'll have half the battery capacity, so I'll have a complete one way trip under power alone (and that's to 60% discharge at 4 knots, but I could go both ways at 3 knots or to full discharge).

I don't understand why people constantly motor sail with the diesel running. We can't wait to shut the thing off and sail so we can talk without yelling. Won't be a problem any longer. One of the main reasons my wife and I enjoy the sailing is we get to spend time together and hang out. And this year we'll be adding the boy to the island trips (some of them, anyway :-). If it takes longer, so be it. It's our time to relax.

If you want to motor around everywhere, you're going to be *really* disappointed in electric. If you like to sail, electric is going to make your sailing much more pleasant.

Check out this page on electric motorsailing and then poke about the rest of the site. It's a pretty honest appraisal of electric boats and systems. It is definitely not for everyone, or probably even most people, but what a plus when it is.

JRM

-- if you want to see (albiet with some delay because I lag at updating) my conversion, check it out here. I probably should go update it with todays work...

[lagunaman26]

With our last cruising sailboat we used the motor as little as possible. For me, one of the main reasons I like sailing is the peace and quite. We had solar panels to keep the batteries charged, so no noise there. Now I'll be able to "fill up" by sitting still in the sun, and if I really need to get moving quick I'll fire up the 5500Watt generator.

[Rumble]

Hi, its been over a decade since your post. I am interested as to how your conversion went. I have heard they can connect electric motors to yanmar sail drives, but not much info about the SD 120S, as I have 2003 models with ageing MD2030s.