Jimmy Cornell goes Electric, with a Cat

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by harlem24

Especially for cats, that are able to get the speed it should work. Oceanvolt get's about 1kW per motor at around 8kn.

Terrific, but that doesn't help the vast majority of yachts that can't sustain 8 knots.

More interesting was an electric yacht with 1kw of solar mounted on the main sail I saw on YT last night. Might be a small start but that idea could be used by most yachts.

As for JC, why shouldn't be commission a new yacht and allow someone to benefit from the existing boat. Good luck to him.

Pete

[harlem24]

We are talking cats here, and the Outremer in question should easily be able to get to that speed.
And if you look at the Xquisits for example, there you can have 1,8kWp solar.
The Silent guys put about 10kWp on the boat.
Haven't seen one sailing yet, according to their website it's at least an option.

[boatman61]

The people who are working for his 'environmentally friendly' boat and your 'green' electric car..
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampp...balt-mines-drc

[harlem24]

Yeah, great back to that.
What about what goes wrong with getting the oily stuff out of the ground, look up niger delta, Exxon Valdez or Deep Water Horizon...
So, we all need to get better at that and no fossil fuel is not a susstainble solution.

[boatman61]

Why is it we are always led down the path of most profits for less costs with the pollution con..
Diesel cars are greener alternative to gasoline.. Bollox
Electric cars are the greener solution to diesel.. Bollox
Truth is LPG produces 33% less CO2 emissions than petrol and 45% less CO2 than diesel. LPG vehicles produce up to 82% less Nitrogen Oxide pollutants than petrol and 99% better than diesel.

But.. thats not conducive to the Big Agenda..

[Mark424]

As to the discussion of construction materials, a boat made of flax fibers and plant based resin just popped up in my youtube feed. Posted about it here:

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ax-230205.html

[SieveSailor]

Originally Posted by Barra

sorry but this is just yet more hypocritical virtue signalling

"virtue signalling"? Are you suggesting that getting an electric boat can help you get laid? (asking for a friend)

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Sir Rondo Normal

No, not well said at all. We all need to do what we can to reduce our carbon footprints, no? Yes! Unless of course you one of these people who thinks it's all a big hoax to create a better world for nothing.

Sorry, but everything we build and do has a carbon footprint. No one is stupid enough to think that we can eliminate our carbon footprint completely. Emissions from production of his boat STOP completely upon completion and that boat will never emit more. If you can't see the benefit of that, you're just not thinking.

Unless he one day needs new sails, batteries, cordage, rigging etc. etc...

[Franziska]

Not sure if been mentioned in the thread, but despite the cooker (to my knowledge) "Sailing Uma" claims in their latest YouTube video that they are cruising already 5 years fossil fuel free...

Interesting video by the way.
https://youtu.be/JHUQiRyVV3Y

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Not sure if been mentioned in the thread, but despite the cooker (to my knowledge) "Sailing Uma" claims in their latest YouTube video that they are cruising already 5 years fossil fuel free...

Interesting video by the way.
https://youtu.be/JHUQiRyVV3Y

They have a mini wood burner on board don't they?

However, point taken and nice to see, but if they did use diesel for propulsion and heating instead of shore power as they are in the UK at the moment, well it would be quite low numbers anyway wouldn't it?

An EU car doing 12k miles a year uses what 1300 litres of petrol or diesel and that is just one car. A family likely to have two, plus a house to heat so Uma are quite low carbon just being on the boat.

[RaymondR]

Based upon the fact of chopping down trees in North America and shipping them across the Atlantic to Europe to burn in power stations so that it can be claimed that the plants are then carbon neutral, I'd be more impressed had he installed a wood fired boiler and a couple of small steam turbines.

[MichaelPrichard]

Originally Posted by myocean

Zero fossil fuels means you need maximum efficiency. This is the reason for a cat. And a light carbon design is certainly much more efficient (better hull resistance curve) than an aluminum design.
I guess he will combine this with the ultimate hydrogeneration feature from Oceanvolt, featuring adjustable pitch and generating enormous amounts of energy while sailing. Maximum solar power is certainly a must have.
Accidentally I have the specific shaft power need of the extended Outremer 45 at hand - it is just 3 kW total shaft power (2x1.5) for a speed of 5 kts: Very good choice, Mr Cornell!

I was struck by this last item which has been ignored thus far in this very noisy thread. I'm in the middle of my own conversion from twin Yanmar 2GM20F with SD20 sail drives to fully retractible 7.1kW POD drives from E-Tech powered by a pair of Tesla battery modules out of a model S (10.6kWh). While 3kW would only last 3 hours in my installation, my batteries are tiny at only 110lbs total; i can easily quadruple them for ~42kWh and still weigh less than just the original fuel tank of my FP Athena 38. I think this is truly fascinating territory in the sailing world and I wonder at all of the vehement and mocking criticism hurled toward it.

I've been lurking on this forum for around a decade and note with some sadness and amusement that when someone starts a thread asking about upgrading their alternator on their Yanmar there are dozens if not hundreds of informed responses, well thought out and often borne from experience offering collaborative ideas that enrich the experiences of all. But god forbid someone broaches the topic of electric propulsion and the knives come out. I realize that there have been many poor implementations and outright failures, but that's how progress is made.

I'm excited to see how this improves my life; as someone posted earlier, most of us can only afford to get out on weekends and usually just for the day, and in that mode all-electric drive is near ideal. On the Athena 38 which has the diesels under the aft berths it was very inconvenient to do daily checks so it's likely that this (ex-charter) boat didn't get much of the maintenance it should've gotten. Sailing it required an hour ritual of tearing apart berths, priming recalcitrant (and leaky) raw water strainers, topping up the oil which seemed to leak out of every pore, etc.

Just to address the inevitable assertions that converting is far too costly, I had a yard quote to replace my destroyed sail drives for around $19k (US), $4.5k per drive, new + labor. New engines would likely be around $12k per engine (I'm guessing a bit here). Admittedly, I didn't need to replace the engines yet and could have improved their operation with plenty of TLC (they're damn good little diesels), but as I'd been chomping at the bit to go electric for some time, it was just too good an opportunity to pass up. The motors are crazy expensive at $6.5k each (until one compares them to the cost of new diesels), batteries are $1.1k per Tesla module (2 used currently) + around $850 in battery safety/monitoring electronics and a fancy new Victron Quattro 48V/5kW inverter/charger and $300 MPPT with $200 worth of used solar panels (600W). Total for just the propulsion specific elements would be roughly $33k for new diesels/sail drives vs. less than $20k for electric including the cost of the custom retraction system.

The above costs are mostly just useful as a comparison to a total refit; obviously most folks don't need new engines and thus it's moot, but I was faced with a huge expense just to maintain the status quo and figured it was better to put that money toward an (accidentally required) refit.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Based upon the fact of chopping down trees in North America and shipping them across the Atlantic to Europe to burn in power stations so that it can be claimed that the plants are then carbon neutral, I'd be more impressed had he installed a wood fired boiler and a couple of small steam turbines.

I wasn't aware that wood is shipped to the EU to be burnt. Most of the power for Europe comes from Russian / Qatar / North Sea gas, German/Polish coal along with nuclear power or wind and hydro power.

Pete

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by Pete7

I wasn't aware that wood is shipped to the EU to be burnt. Most of the power for Europe comes from Russian / Qatar / North Sea gas, German/Polish coal along with nuclear power or wind and hydro power.

Pete

Because the trees grow again they are considered "renewables" and consequently CO2 emission free. The hydrocarbons are not renewable and Germany shut down their nuclear plants and now import electricity from France which does still generate nuclear power. A large wood fired power station has just been commissioned in Britain to exploit the same CO2 emission free status.

[GordMay]

Wood-burning power plants would require cutting trees and burning them, which emits just as much CO2 per kWh as coal. This may have an immediate adverse global warming impact. Moreover, burning wood emits at least as much airborne health-damaging particulates as burning coal.

Wood-burning proponents and governments claim that burning wood is “CO2-neutral.”

They purposely forget to add, “over a period of about 100 years.”

Global warming is a problem now. Forests, from which wood is taken, would require about 100 years to recover from the damage, based on numerous studies.


Is wood a green source of energy? Scientists are divided
➥ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017...ts-are-divided

Some 200 scientists wrote to the EU, insisting that “bioenergy [from forest biomass] is not carbon-neutral”, and calling for tighter rules to protect forests and their carbon.
➥ https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9H...IzZE8zQWc/view