Is it a bad idea to be ENTIRELY dependant on renewable energy on my 45' trimaran?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

A sail boat that can sail with no wind, yeah, now THAT make sense.
Have a big diesel powered fan blow on the sails, right?
And one thought the OP was crazy.

And btw, it is not crazy or impossible at all to use 100% renewal energy,
almost all boats can do this, as I pointed out, biodiesel fuel is renewable energy, Earthrace went around the world using biodiesel.

Actually his post said virtually no wind, not no wind, point is of course to develop as good a sailboat as possible, so that the need for aux propulsion is minimized as much as possible.

BioDiesel while I prefer it when I can get it, isn't the pure green fuel everyone wants it to be anymore than electric cars are, but that has nothing to do with this.

I think the gist of his question is "can I make electric propulsion work?"
And I think a very good way to make it work is to reduce your requirement for using it as much as possible, do you not? You seem to know a lot more about the subject than I do.

If renewable fuel was the issue, just buy a stock boat and run Bio in it, good luck finding the stuff though.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

A sail boat that can sail with no wind, yeah, now THAT make sense.
Have a big diesel powered fan blow on the sails, right?
And one thought the OP was crazy.

And btw, it is not crazy or impossible at all to use 100% renewal energy,
almost all boats can do this, as I pointed out, biodiesel fuel is renewable energy, Earthrace went around the world using biodiesel.

Didn't it break a speed record for around the world? I think it got sunk by a Japanese whaler work as part of the outfit harassing the whalers. Not Greenpeace. The outfit with the guy calling himself a Capt. and placing a bunch of kid volunteers in harms way. " Sea Shepard " I'm all for protecting whales but this guy should be prosecuted.
danger

[barnakiel]

Yep. Same boat that ran down and (I believe) killed the fishermen. Pretty poor advertisement for bio- eco- whatever.

Seen her in Auckland, I think.

It smells odd when an ex hunter becomes a great lover of animals out of a sudden. Smells of opportunism. But, I am sure, even this can happen at times.

Cheers,
b.

[maj75]

Please tell me more about the battery powered dive compressor. I have never seen a compressor with 3000 psi capability that could run on battery.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by maj75

Please tell me more about the battery powered dive compressor. I have never seen a compressor with 3000 psi capability that could run on battery.

Sure you have, it just takes a two ton truck to carry the batteries is all

[sanibel sailor]

a lot of mental masturbation going on... my second favorite kind

[FloatingDutchMn]

Any reliance on a fuel on a boat means the range on engine is limited by the amount of fuel you can carry, whether that is diesel, biodiesel, or methanol for fuel cells

An electric engine with a large enough battery bank is very viable for day/weekend/short trip cruising, where the engine is primarily used for running in/out of marinas and in case of emergencies. The amount of boats that are retrofitting electric engines to replace diesels is increasing, demonstrating that the technology has reached a price level where there is an interest.

For long distance cruising, it becomes a trickier proposition, and for the NWP even more so, and thus generator is Required to provide power for the electric engine to extend the range beyond the storage capacity of the battery bank.

For those that commented on needing to have reliable instant power in case of emergency, this is an area where electric engines outperform combustion engines of equal power.

[Greggegner]

I would design the boat with the space and wiring to install a diesel generator, fuel tank and have the through hull etc. Then I would get a Honda gas generator to have around for those long nights, etc. I believe it is risky to be in a state where you can use your electric motors at all.


Greg S/V Sweet Dreams
Pearson P385 out of Racine Wisconsin

[estarzinger]

By the way, there was a boat in Patagonia that had rigged up a honda 1000 to provide cabin heat in addition to battery charging. I was a bit skeptical when I heard about it but it looked pretty solid when I looked it over. They had an auto muffler shop make up a flexible high temp pipe/hose that took the exhaust gas outside plus a flexible heater conduit hose that took the (hot) cooling air into the cabin. It was a pretty efficient set-up, recovering a lot of the heat that is normally wasted.

[raybobsky]

I would at least carry a small honda2kw as emergency backup


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[Cadence]

The original OP. Might be a good idea in a moderate or tropical climate.

[Boatguy30]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

By the way, there was a boat in Patagonia that had rigged up a honda 1000 to provide cabin heat in addition to battery charging. I was a bit skeptical when I heard about it but it looked pretty solid when I looked it over. They had an auto muffler shop make up a flexible high temp pipe/hose that took the exhaust gas outside plus a flexible heater conduit hose that took the (hot) cooling air into the cabin. It was a pretty efficient set-up, recovering a lot of the heat that is normally wasted.

Old thread, but there is current thread on "installing" a Honda. How did this work? How did the "hot air" duct work? Was this a separate DC fan? To clarify, the generator was inside the cabin?

[MurrayAtkinson]

You would have to consider your boat 'engineless' as you couldn't rely on having power at any given time (except for emergency reserve). That then depends on your experience and knowledge of sailing. It can be done, by a better sailor than I am. I don't have lots of experience with Lithium batteries, but I understand they need to be above 3C or so to accept charge? (at least those I have in an RV do).