To all: Electric Vehicles of America, Inc. (EVA) has been doing electric boats for 20 years; we have worked with a number of boat manufacturers as well as hobbyists. We have provided DC drive systems for up to a 40 ft sailboat and a pure electric that was displayed at the Annapolis Boat Show in the summer of 1995 (?). The key is understanding how the electric power will be used and how much hp is required based on the boat (water line length, displacement), wind and current in the waters selected. Naturally, a wooden boat has much more displacement than a fiberglas boat; therefore, more hp is required. The equations for calculating hp are readily available from various sources. The hp will most likely determine the minimum voltage required. AC drives are also available, but to be honest I have never seen any actual data on regen capability from a slow turning sailboat propellor. Lots of claims but never any data. I would love to see the data to verify the claims. If the boat is for hire, then you need to meet U.S. Coast Guard regulations. We have also helped with pontoon boats. Our on-road specialty is light-weight trucks because of space; pontoon boats have similar space advantages. But most important, pontoon boats require about 1/2 the hp of the same length sailboat because of less wetted surface. Our most popular pontoon boat was an ice cream vendor http://shantyboatliving.com/2013/sale-35-foot-ice-cream-sternwheeler/ The 48V DC electric drive drove the sternwheeler. This was a 35 ft pontoon boat. Most popular because it served ice cream and more.
We have also helped with pure electrics. Silver Bay Marina on Lake George, NY converted a Hacker-Craft, similar to a vintage Chris Craft, to electric for use at a resort in the Southeast. The electric would give sunset cruises. The obvious advantages were lack of noise and pollution. I think it has been operating for about 10-15 years with our system. So reliability is another advantage; low maintenance compared to other options. Hope this helps others see the advanatges of electric boats and electric auxiliaries. Our website has a page dedicated to boats. I do not contribute often to the EV Digest, so I hope I did this properly. Bob Batson (603) 569-2100 www.EVAmerica.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20131228/29795ce3/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
