ANOTHER LOOK AT REGEN

I installed electric propulsion in BIANKA for several reasons. One was because my diesel engine died. Two because I spent a good amount trying to get it running again. I began looking at alternatives to having a diesel. Diesel works well where it is worked hard. On a sailboat where most people use the engine to primarily get into or out of the harbor is not the best way to use it. Installed on a trawler is a much better match. So diesels tend to rust out before they wear out or fail at some point when you least expect it. Hopefully in some location  where you can get help and parts.  Another thing about electric propulsion is the ability of it to regen i.e. recharge the battery bank when the boat reaches a certain speed under sail. I thought for the first few years  that my system was not capable of regen but, then one day I discovered that it did. Hybrid Marine has a nice video of how regen works.  The boat in question is a hybrid design and still has a diesel engine. Which would mean the engine might be used even less than in a normal engine setup. But, you still have all the maintenance issues involved with having a diesel installed. But, for those not quite ready to make the leap to a pure electric propulsion system it is an option. Anyway this video is a good primer on the regen aspects of electric propulsion. Hat tip Elektra Yachts:

CHOICES: Batteries

I was looking around for some specs for battery terminal torque specs and came upon this chart at the MK Battery site:

I'm about to start my seventh season with the four 8A4D AGM batteries that make up my 48 volt electric propulsion bank. Somehow I instinctively used them in a way that should provide over a thousand life cycle charges.  I typically revert to Hybrid mode using the Honda 2000i generator once the battery bank has dropped to 70 to 80% from 100% full charge.  Turns out that looks like a good point to have a good charge life cycle for the bank.  So far so god. I still think I made the right decision in going with AGM batteries over the Lithium Ion batteries that were still fairly new back in 2008 when I did the conversion. The cost and availability were factors I considered. Today I think I would still go with the AGM's as they seem to be holding up well. I'll do some more in depth battery testing in a few weeks to see how well.    The following video is and example of my modus operandi using electric propulsion and when I operate in hybrid mode on an unusually windless day heading down the Hudson River:

ELECTRIC SAILBOAT CRUISE TO NEW YORK 2012

Before Hurricane Sandy distracted me and ended the sailing season I was going to chronicle a recent cruise I made with BIANKA.  Originally I had planned to do this cruise to New York back in September. But, a little repair snafu with the Honda Generator in September curtailed that plan. I just about gave up on doing the cruise this year but, a nice weather window opened up in late October and I thought why not head out for a fall cruise. So I did.

I headed early out to take advantage of the flooding current into Long Island Sound winds were light for much of the trip so I electro-sailed BIANKA for forty nautical miles. It was after sundown as I sailed into Port Washington and picked up a free town mooring. Before I did  I had a gam with a fellow sailor already on another mooring. He was a 38 year old fellow who quit his job in September bought a 24 foot boat and was heading south for the winter. He wanted to do it now since he was single and the flexibility to do it.  Certainly sounds like a plan. We had a nice discussion about life, getting through Hell Gate and other things sailors might talk about. I wished him fair winds and then  motored off in the dark to find a mooring. One nice thing about fall cruising the mooring fields are pretty empty so it was pretty easy to pick one up. The next day had some nasty weather coming through. It was windy and wet so it was a lay day for me.  Sometime during the following night the other fellow headed off to travel down the East River through Hell Gate in the middle of the night. He wanted to make it to the Sandy Hook area during the day and meet up with friends. I can only wonder if the fellow made it through Hurricane Sandy which would hit the area a little over a week later.

After the weather cleared I headed toward New York.  Upon crossing under the Throgs Neck Bridge BIANKA left Long Island Sound behind and entered the East River which is actually a tidal strait. I made a video of the trip from Port Washington to the Battery via the East River:

I rounded the Battery a little after sunset and headed over to an anchorage a little north of Ellis Island. I had never anchored there before. It was getting dark and the winds were blowing 10 to 20 knots out of the west. I got as close to western shore and dropped anchor for the night. There was a little roll from the harbor traffic at first but, it calmed down later except for a 4 am roll that woke me up for a bit. But, the holding was good plus I had a real nice view of the lights of lower Manhattan:

Though in a little over a week all these lights would be plunged into darkness after Hurricane Sandy hits the area and knocked out power to all of lower Manhattan. Though  this night it was a very pretty scene from on board.

REPORT FROM THE ANNAPOLIS BOAT SHOW:PART 4: ELECTRIFYING

I first went back to the Annapolis Boat Show back in 2007. At the time I was looking around for a replacement for the dead Westerbeke 27 diesel on board BIANKA. I was also debating between repowering with a new diesel or going electric. I was leaning toward a new BETA MARINE diesel. But, was hoping to  find out about the going with electric propulsion. Sadly, there was only one electric system at the 2007 show that I found and it was expensive and made for a much larger boat than my 30 foot Nonsuch. But, happily in 2010 I found several booths where they were selling electric propulsion systems:

I spent a good part of the afternoon at the Annapolis Hybrid Marine booth. Who are the new U.S. distributors for the system I have on board which is an ASMO MARINE Thoosa 9000.

They had a very nice display that showed an actual entire system working:

There was a lot of interest from the crowd. I chimed in from time to time extolling the virtues of electric propulsion from my experience of having it on board BIANKA for the past three years. I also got to meet some readers of this blog which was fun too.

And for those who just can't live without the smell of diesel in the morning. BETA MARINE had an interesting Hybrid system that consisted of a Beta Marine diesel engine which had a Lynch electric motor attached.

 You could motor with electric or diesel. It would also regen when under sail. Lastly, you could disconnect the output shaft from the prop and use the engine as a generator by having the engine drive the Lynch electric motor as a generator directly to charge the batteries.

I was glad to see BETA had chosen the same Lynch motor that is used on Thoosa 9000 on BIANKA.

 More expensive of course than a diesel alone. Plus you had the weight of both a diesel engine and batteries on board. Made for those who like the idea of electric propulsion but, don't want to make the leap to a pure electric system. But, for me I have gotten use to the smell of clean on board BIANKA to ever go back to having a diesel on board. My electric propulsion system provides everything I need in terms of propulsion without the mess of having a diesel on board. But, at least there are more choices out there.

A QUESTION OF BALANCE

I'm not talking about the Moody Blues album of the same name. Arguably one of the better Moody Blues albums after Days of Future Passed which is in BIANKA'S on board CD collection. 

No, I'm talking about battery balance.

 I noticed over the winter that one of the four batteries in the 48 volt battery bank was lagging a little behind in voltage compared to the other batteries when charging. Not by a lot but, enough that my Paktrakr battery monitor was issuing warnings about overcharging of the other batteries and undercharging of the lagging battery. This is a problem when you have multiple batteries in series  in a say  a 48 volt bank like I do for the electric propulsion system. The one undercharged battery can drag down the others. Because my ZIVAN NG-1 charges the bank as a whole it does not know that one of the batteries is lagging behind it just keeps charging until it's voltage and current parameters are met. How to correct this situation?  I've ordered a DUAL PRO PS-4 battery charger.

This charger unlike the ZIVAN NG-1 has four individual battery chargers built in to it. Each  is connected to the individual batteries in the string. So if one of the battery reaches full charge it stops charging that particular battery. Likewise if one battery takes longer to charge it keeps charging that battery and stops charging the others.  This should help to balance the battery bank or at least prevent overcharging of the batteries that are not lagging. Also having the DUAL PRO on board will provide a backup battery charger and backups are a good thing when cruising.