Oceanvolt Hybrid Motor

[dlymn]

Originally Posted by SDChristian

Excellent reason for opposing any and all innovation. We get it: you are an old and highly experienced sailer, and like most elderly, highly resistant to change, even if said change doesn't directly effect you in any way. Many have and will fail to refine cruising propulsion systems, but if history has taught us anything about technology, it's that eventually enough money, genius, and creativity will make it's way into this issue to come together to form an improved system despite the resistent drunken old sailors, who yell and throw empty bottles of rum at the innovators while wrenching away on their rusty old diesels that have lasted for 30 years.

Let's look at propulsion where money is no object. Say F! racing. It's been around for decades. People have thron millions at motors and drive trains, but essentiall it's the same old gearbox and same of 4 stroke engine. Yes we have seen electrical storage, semi automatic gear change, computer managed drive and engine systems but essentially it's the same old same old. It has stood the test of time as a propulsion system and nothing much is coming along to replace it. We are not see the 1000km race with electric, gas, turbine, steam, or even diesel taking over as the most viable propulsion system. Yes F! has rules, but these cars have prevailed and not been made redundant. Maybe it's all those drunken old race car lovers who just like it that way.
I reckon that years of sailing and cruising experience do matter and so does the theoretical physics. Let's wait until you can get a battery mass down to 150 kg that will drive a 7 tonne sailboat at 7 knots for 40 hours. That's just breaking even with diesel. and don't forget to keep the recharge once every 40 hours and fully charged in 15 minutes at any port you pull into. Oh and keep the cost down to $10,000.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by SDChristian

Excellent reason for opposing any and all innovation. We get it: you are an old and highly experienced sailer, and like most elderly, highly resistant to change, even if said change doesn't directly effect you in any way. Many have and will fail to refine cruising propulsion systems, but if history has taught us anything about technology, it's that eventually enough money, genius, and creativity will make it's way into this issue to come together to form an improved system despite the resistent drunken old sailors, who yell and throw empty bottles of rum at the innovators while wrenching away on their rusty old diesels that have lasted for 30 years.

Who is opposing any and all innovation? No innovation has been proposed.

Diesel-electric & hybrid drivetrains are well established technologies that are well understood. Unfortunately we have people (including some of the folks marketing these for cruising boats) who don't understand them or try to overstate their capabilities. Diesel-electric works great for train engines. Hybrid works great for a prius. Neither use case is comparable to a cruising sailboat chugging along at 6kts.

Feel free to "innovate" and prove me wrong but don't expect me to hold my breath while you break the laws of physics.

[Cap Erict3]

Originally Posted by SDChristian

Excellent reason for opposing any and all innovation. We get it: you are an old and highly experienced sailer, and like most elderly, highly resistant to change, even if said change doesn't directly effect you in any way. Many have and will fail to refine cruising propulsion systems, but if history has taught us anything about technology, it's that eventually enough money, genius, and creativity will make it's way into this issue to come together to form an improved system despite the resistent drunken old sailors, who yell and throw empty bottles of rum at the innovators while wrenching away on their rusty old diesels that have lasted for 30 years.

The opposition is to believing unproven hype. A philanthropist funding the search for true innovation with his pocket change is one thing. A sucker of limited means throwing his cash at a snake oil salesman quite another.

Likely all of the hardware claims made could be demonstrated via a scale model. If you build it we will come.

[SDChristian]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Who is opposing any and all innovation? No innovation has been proposed.

Diesel-electric & hybrid drivetrains are well established technologies that are well understood. Unfortunately we have people (including some of the folks marketing these for cruising boats) who don't understand them or try to overstate their capabilities. Diesel-electric works great for train engines. Hybrid works great for a prius. Neither use case is comparable to a cruising sailboat chugging along at 6kts.

Feel free to "innovate" and prove me wrong but don't expect me to hold my breath while you break the laws of physics.

No one is expecting you to hold your breath, or do anything. In fact, no one is doing this for you.

[SDChristian]

Unproven hype is obviously a bad thing. But all this talk of breaking the laws of physics is, I think, a bit misleading. Breaking the laws of physics would be if there was no deisel involved. But I think it's foolish and stubborn to claim that the current common catamaran setup (two propulsion diesels, one deisel generator, and one battery bank) can't be made far more efficient in terms of weight and needs accommodation (creature comforts that use electricity). To put this more simply, if Elon Musk applied his resources to building a catamaran, would he have three diesels on board? I doubt it.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by SDChristian

No one is expecting you to hold your breath, or do anything. In fact, no one is doing this for you.

Then why are you so opposed to my adding to the factual discourse. If it's really viable, the physics will win out and we will all be cruising in hybrid boats in the near future.

Dreams of potential breakthroughs are fun but so far the physics but so far we are waiting for a system documented to be even equivalent, let alone better than a traditional diesel drivetrain. When that happens, I'll eat my words but until then...

[SDChristian]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Then why are you so opposed to my adding to the factual discourse. If it's really viable, the physics will win out and we will all be cruising in hybrid boats in the near future.

Dreams of potential breakthroughs are fun but so far the physics but so far we are waiting for a system documented to be even equivalent, let alone better than a traditional diesel drivetrain. When that happens, I'll eat my words but until then...

Didn't read my last post, did ya?

[SV DestinyAscen]

Originally Posted by SDChristian

Unproven hype is obviously a bad thing. But all this talk of breaking the laws of physics is, I think, a bit misleading. Breaking the laws of physics would be if there was no deisel involved. But I think it's foolish and stubborn to claim that the current common catamaran setup (two propulsion diesels, one deisel generator, and one battery bank) can't be made far more efficient in terms of weight and needs accommodation (creature comforts that use electricity). To put this more simply, if Elon Musk applied his resources to building a catamaran, would he have three diesels on board? I doubt it.

If Elon Musk was involved - he would probably apply the lessons learned from rocketry that focuses on balance between specific impulse and power/range, mission parameters and operational requirements. Something that the marine electric drive evangelicals seem to ignore constantly.

If money were no object and I was in given a design brief to put together the most efficient/reliable and economical sailboat that is also safe and reliable in a catamaran, I'll focus on getting 800-1200 watts of panels on the traveler/rear davits well clear of the mast, a pretty conservative house bank of ~600ah lithium have two diesel outboards that can be raised and serviced out of the water onboard, and a single genset as redundancy if somehow the sun refuses to shine for three days or the panels fail, if I want to run the AC.

Will be able to out motorsail, out sail, out-motor any pure electric drive boat/hybrid system using the same hull/sailplan - because the diesels outboards aren't in the water, use less fuel when I am motoring because I'm not trying to charge massive banks for propulsion, and I'm lighter.

Oh and it'll be safer to cross the Atlantic, Pacific or Indian ocean because I have actual redundancy of motoring range and can receive fuel transfer at sea.

[cwjohm]

One wonders whether Scarlett's original question has been addressed after 323 posts.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by SDChristian

Didn't read my last post, did ya?

It showed up after I posted.

Reality is musk isn't doing anything ground breaking. It's essentially an electric golf cart where he added a huge number of batteries and massive cost to get range less than your average $14k econobox. All while running a company that has lost money every year for over a decade. If that's your idea of innovation, we have very different ideas of innovation.

If you go back into the earlier parts of the thread, the idea of using the propulsion generator to handle house loads has been discussed. It winds up either being massively oversized for house loads in order to be large enough to supply propulsion or it's too small to provide propulsion if sized to handle house loads, so it doesn't work well. A pair of diesels for propulsion and a good size solar array for house loads, works pretty nicely. If cost is no object and you are willing to give up sailing, you can even do a solar array that will run the air/con unit.

[SDChristian]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

It showed up after I posted.

Reality is musk isn't doing anything ground breaking. It's essentially an electric golf cart where he added a huge number of batteries and massive cost to get range less than your average $14k econobox. All while running a company that has lost money every year for over a decade. If that's your idea of innovation, we have very different ideas of innovation.

If you go back into the earlier parts of the thread, the idea of using the propulsion generator to handle house loads has been discussed. It winds up either being massively oversized for house loads in order to be large enough to supply propulsion or it's too small to provide propulsion if sized to handle house loads, so it doesn't work well. A pair of diesels for propulsion and a good size solar array for house loads, works pretty nicely. If cost is no object and you are willing to give up sailing, you can even do a solar array that will run the air/con unit.

Elon Musk is not innovative? I mean going to Mars, privatizing NASA, and beating the top car manufacturers at their own game all at once is pretty unimpressive. You probably have done all that last week.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Just Another Sa

Most cruising boats don't have electric drives, therefore no driveleg rotation.
Any electric drive intended to be used as a turbine are worth nothing if they don't rotate.

So does the driveleg on a standard Oceanvolt SD15 rotate, or will it be worth nothing in its planned primary purpose on that Vende Globe Open 60?

[StuM]

Originally Posted by SDChristian

... Many have and will fail to refine cruising propulsion systems, but if history has taught us anything about technology, it's that eventually enough money, genius, and creativity will make it's way into this issue to come together to form an improved system ...

I don't disagree with this part of your post in the least!

The trouble is that we have a number of zealots who mistakenly think that your "...eventually....will make..." is actually "...now....have made...".

They continue to believe all the marketing hype regardless of the fact that real world numbers put the lie to it and refuse to accept that their pipedreams are years, if not decades away.

[BigBeakie]

SDChristian nailed it. The EP naysayers have a religious belief in their worldview and will defend it to the death ( as history has repeatedly shown unfortunately), and a serious lack of critical thinking on this topic. They repeatedly ignore what has been said that addresses their "concerns" much like the climate deniers do. It's a tactic of denialism and negativity, that is used to support their confirmation bias, which we ALL must be on guard against. Read "Merchants of Doubt" by Naomi Oreskes for a clinical exposure of this way of thinking. It reminds me of the beginnings of the cruising multihull "movement" when all the die-hard mono sailors took so much delight pointing out cases of capsized multi's while completely ignoring the sheer number of mono's at the bottom of the ocean and the resultant "lost at sea" statistics. Classic confirmation bias.

Believe it, or not, the following is meant to be helpful and clarify the issues re EP. I hope it does help, but we'll see. Full disclosure: I have been examining EP for about 3 years with intention to put it on our intended cat build, IF IT SEEMED TO BE VIABLE for cruising. I like researching things and I'm fairly analytical, and yes, skeptical. I always ask for evidence, and try to weigh the evidence. Sometimes it's not easy.

OK so here goes.

Here is what you naysayer are WRONG about. And what you are RIGHT about.

1. You are WRONG that it doesn't work/won't work/cant work. There are happy EP owners who are cruising, crossing oceans, motoring through squalls, motoring up coral passes against the current, etc etc etc. It's a shame they are not forthcoming with their experiences, but so be it, for now. And there are EP users who are unhappy with their experience, and the reasons are many and varied. The reasons are being fixed by constant improvement in design, systems QA, and proper analysis of use conditions and realistic motor sizing. This tells us that this is still a new field, much like when some home built plywood multi's would break up at sea. But some didn't. Was it a rational conclusion back in the sixties that catamarans will never be good cruising vessels??

2. You are wrong about range anxiety. No one says that batteries can store enough energy for a single session extended motoring, as in half a day or more. Yeah, Ok we get it, diesel stores more energy than batteries. Got it. So, use a bloody DC generator and carry enough fuel. Which part of this don't you get? And YES, you are right that on EP you may be going slower than if you burn diesel. I'm yet to be convinced of that completely, but I'll agree for now. Particularly if you have a fat, heavy cat.

3. You are WRONG to harp on about conversion losses and diesel efficiencies and gear ratios and all that blather. The reason why, is that by far the majority of motoring can be done on a sufficient LFP bank, and NO not a MASSIVE bank, and then the bank is re-fuelled by sufficient solar for free, for the next motoring session. This assumes that you can sail and regenerate. It assumes your boat can sail in adverse conditions, so it sort of assumes you are not the type of cruiser who discards seamanship in favour of burning diesel. But that's a whole other discussion. So yes, EP may not be for you.

4. You are WRONG to say that EP is much more than diesel propulsion unless you are only considering initial capital expense. Were you also one of those who said LFP was too expensive without considering the amount of energy you get vs the initial investment? But most cruisers are smart enough to consider the longer term, so why aren't you? EP motors are about the same price as performance equivalent diesels, and the LFP bank cost can be roughly what the diesel will cost you amortised over say 5 years, depending on how much motoring you do, of course. If it does not amortise for you, then maybe the secondary benefits of EP are worth it for you , maybe not. Your analysis, your choice. How much is silent, fume free, instant no warm up torque for better dockside maneuvering, virtually maintenance free motors, all worth to you?

Ok, rant over. So why don't you guys start your own thread and rant on about EP over there to your hearts content? Call it Why EP is CRAP. Just as it isn't appreciated that mono sailors come on multihull forums and bag multi's about all they're supposed deficiencies and how we're all gunna die if we sail cats, it's getting a bit tiring trying to deal with you. We get it, you don't want to get it. Fair enough. Can we discuss EP issues here please, and don't get me wrong, there are things to learn and discuss because it is such a new field. Constructive ideas are always more than welcome.

[transmitterdan]

BigBeakie,

If you want to convince the people who are too limited in their thinking then put some numbers with the arguments for EP. There aren't many numbers involved. If it is easy to make the case on an engineering basis then it turns to cost. So why not just lay out the engineering argument for why EP is equally as good as diesel/mechanical transmission for propulsion instead of claiming there is some kind of conspiracy against it. I can assure you there isn't such a conspiracy. Just as I believe there are probably not dozens of happy EP customers too shy to brag about it. Have you ever met anybody too shy to brag about their boat?