Quote:
Originally Posted by atoll
i will be sailing whilst you are sitting in port waiting for DHL,spare parts,new batteries or the sun to shine............
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Because no sailor has had to wait in port for a parts for the
rigging and the wind is always blowing?
Yes, there will be sailboats if just for the nostalgia.
No, they won't by hybrid.
- The advantage of a hybrid car is that you can set the IC Engine at it's ideal output then the battery either absorbs the excess output during
low power situations (ie: coasting up to a stop light) and sends it back out during high
power situations (ie: taking off from a stop light). Converting that
power to battery and back wastes some but far less than running the ICE way outside it's ideal operating parameters.
- The problem with a hybrid
displacement cruising
boat is the vast majority of operating time, the
motor is set at a speed and it stays there until you get to your
destination. There are no peaks and valleys to take advantage of. The motor is sized to run pretty close to it's ideal output at cruising speed. As a result, since you don't have losses converting power to battery
storage and back, a direct drive diesel is more efficient.
No, improvements in technology show no signs of being able to compete. If you pull the
rigging off and cover the entire area with
solar panels. Example: Let's say you have a 40'
catamaran with 20' beam (mono would be far worse).
- At a typical 10w per sqft, that's about 8kw or about 10hp. Your typical cat in that size range has 40-60hp total, so even if solar panel output doubled, you would still only have 20hp in generation. Even worse, that's only for a few hours on sunny days. At night, early/late day, cloudy days...you get drastically less power.
- Batteries face similar issues. A gallon of diesel holds dozens of times more energy than the best batteries. To get a few hundred miles of range (easy with a modest diesel powered boat), would take a massive battery bank even if
storage doubled. Of course the biggest reason
electric cars cost 1/3 more is because the battery banks are expensive. Tack on an extra $50k for a battery bank and you can burn a lot of diesel before you come close to breaking even.
- Windmills and other crazy ideas: The drag off a windmill exceeds the power it can generate. You don't magically go dead to windward by cranking up the windmills.