ELECTRIC PROPULSION: SOME THOUGHTS ON ELECTRO-SAILING. PART ONE

I was awakened from my mid winter doldrums by an email from a fellow who had some questions about electro-sailing if he were to convert to electric propulsion:

"My wife and I are looking at converting our Vancouver 27 to electric. I think electric with approximately 200 amp hour 48v bank would meet all of our needs under normal conditions, but because there may be rare occasions

but because there may be rare occasions, like if we have to transit a canal the like Erie Canal, where we would need to motor for an extended period I am I am trying to determine if a small generator like the 2000i would be suitable to propel the boat at a slow speed for extended periods.

You stated that you could motor at about 3 knots with your 2000i generator. What charger do you use? Have you done this for several hours at a time? I am curious if you have experienced issues with heat build up, or other problems that might be an issue with extended use of the charger to power the electric engine."

These are great questions and ones I wondered about back in 2007 where I began to get serious about converting to electric propulsion. So I thought I'd make a blog post about my experience over the past nine seasons with electric propulsion and electro-sailing.

1) I am trying to determine if a small generator like the 2000i would be suitable to propel the boat at a slow speed for extended periods.

The answer is yes. I have found I don't really need to do it often but I have had to at times  motor up to 40 nautical miles just using a Honda 2000i generator and battery charger to move my 30 foot boat along. An example of such a day is shown in this video:

Again I have not had to do this often since at some point during most sailing days a breeze does kick up at some point. But, even if it does not I find electro-sailing with Electric Propulsion to be much quieter and much less vibration than when I had a diesel which makes for a much more pleasant day on the water.

I'll get into more specifics as to the components used on BIANKA for extended electro-sailing  and the things you need to know to make it possible in the next post.