About ten years
ago I was corresponding with a sailor who lived in Austria. He sailed on a big inland lake along the border
with Hungary. Both national governments
declared the lake to be a petroleum free lake… no gasoline, diesel, propane, or
natural gas engines on any vessel. Oars,
paddles and electric motors were allowed.
My “pen pal” had installed a twenty-four volt DC motor on his twenty
five foot boat and could motor about thirty miles on a full charge from the
batteries. Thirty miles was the distance
from one end of the lake to the other end.
That correspondence started me thinking seriously about electric motors
and the possibility of having an electric motor on Snickerdoodle.
About a month ago,
I decided that now was the time to change from gasoline to electricity. I have been researching electric outboard
motors for a couple years. Most electric
outboards seem to be small motors that fishermen use to troll for bass and other
fish. Those are too small for a primary outboard motor on a 5,000 lb / 25 foot long sailboat. There are companies that make primary motors
too. Minnkota is making bigger electric
motors now. Torqeedo (a German company)
makes two models suitable for boats like Snickerdoodle. Inertia Labs, Magnetar, and even Yamaha are
in the electric outboard motor business.
I decided that the
Torqeedo motor was the one for Snickerdoodle. The motor arrived last Tuesday. It uses two twelve volt deep cycle batteries
connected together in series to produce 24 volts. So, the 8 hp Mercury outboard engine is now
in the garage and a brand new Torqeedo is on the boat as of last Saturday. The two Group 27 batteries fit nicely in the
fuel locker in the cockpit. I also
bought a ProSport 12/24 volt marine smart charger. The charger keeps the batteries at full
charge. So, when I arrive at the slip,
the boat is ready to go.
This weekend was pretty
much a drifter. It was nice to take Snickerdoodle out and see what the new
motor would do. I have to say that the
bottom, keel, and rudder are filthy with algae that has grown this winter. A diver will clean everything in the coming
week or so. But, even with a lot of
algae, the new motor did pretty well.
Top speed was almost five and a half knots. Half throttle seems to be about four
knots. The folks at Torqeedo say that
the motor should run for ten hours at half throttle. So, I should be able to motor anyplace on the
lake if there’s no wind to sail. AND,
this motor is so quiet. Just a barely
audible hum and the sound of water splashing on the motor’s shaft and on the
rudder.
The only "hiccough" this weekend happened when I first wanted to see if the motor would run. Everything was hooked up... batteries, on/off switch, charger, et al. I turned the on/off switch to "On" - the LED on the top of the motor showed 25.9 volts; lowered the motor bracket so that the propeller was fully in the water; and rotated the throttle handle. Nothing happened. I rotated the throttle handle the other way, and nothing happened. I ducked into the cabin and grabbed the owners manual. The page that I opened to showed a side view of the motor - - including the key. I grabbed one of the two keys and inserted it... turned the throttle handle and the propeller started spinning. BTW: I tested the key's floatation ability... and they both float nicely.
To say the least,
I’m very happy. The photo below shows the motor as we were traveling along at 4 knots.
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