If you're in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, ask about Sunny Ray, a Manta 38, and Cap'n Dano. People say she's a magic boat!
Sunny Ray and her crew are doing great. We have had almost 6,000 miles on our GPS odometer and still perfect performance of the Electric Yacht motors! Top speed under power is 7.5 knots in our 38ft Manta Catamaran with two blade Flex O Fold 15x10 props on shaft drives. The previous fixed 3 blade props were great for regeneration power, but we prefer the folding props which give much better sailing performance. When the sky is clear and the sun is hitting our solar array we can power at 2 knots without using the battery bank! When the wind is light, true wind at 7 knots, we can motor sail with 6 knots of boat speed only using 10 amps on each motor. Our generator has only used 100 gallons of diesel fuel cruising for two years!
Right now we have a bunch of guests visiting us at St. John, USVI. Guests love the almost silent propulsion, no noticeable heat under the beds where the motors are, no diesel smell, etc. We don't run the generator to get underway and start sailing. By the time we need the motors back on to pick up a mooring ball, the batteries are charged up by the sun array.
Thank you for providing us with magic propulsion!
Update:
8,000 miles later...
Many cruisers have saildrive failures and wonder why they put up with the high maintenance crap. If it can be installed by a do-it-yourself type person, that's huge. How does it make a watertight seal in the saildrive well? Looking at your drawings it appears that you intend on eliminating the saildrive doughnut seal and gasketing your new drive directly to the fiberglass rectangular hole. There are some big benefits to this strategy. No longer will there be a large well under the doughnut seal filled with sea water and oysters. This removes considerable weight and other trouble. When pricing, consider what a cruiser would have to pay for a new saildrive from Volvo. If a new Electric Yacht motor/drive combo is comparable in price to a new Volvo saildrive you will find buyers. Even skeptical diesel lovers are impressed with the system on Sunny Ray, and are jealous that I get to play, while they work on their engines.
Any more info on the saildrive to shaft conversion?
ReplyDeleteIf you happen to have time why not check out boats from http://www.rayomarine.com/ perhaps their the upgrade you badly needed.
ReplyDeleteI would love to hear more about how you have this cat set up. Which motors are you using and what is the size of your battery bank. I am really interested in doing this on my next cat. And would love to know how you get 2 knots on solar alone.
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