From December 2015 to March 18th, 2016 we completed outfitting our 1964 Bobcat with solar panels, batteries end electronics. She weighed 5600lbs on the travel lift. Finally will get back to here in the next month so very excited to see her and do more trials with her and improve on things that were hastily improvised.
There are a few more videos of the sea trials there on the ioio channel. The first four or five I believe. Our longest shakedown was 17nm downstream and back up on the Fraser river. She will pretty much sail forever at 4 knots sometimes only drawing 20amps and if we need to use the petrol generators during the night or cloudy that is available.
This year we will install a 36v Motorguide xi5 trolling motor to use as a backup autopilot or gps anchor. So that means a 36v charger and also a quick mount bracket for the trolling motor. Also on the list is proper radar mount and antenna mount but I can't order that until I get back to the boat. Anxious to get back and continue living aboard and testing her systems more.
She has induction cook tops, two boilers for hot water, an incinerating head and 6000w of inverter power. The interior needs work on the bunks. We mounted the 565lbs of batteries between the salon benches. Things like the washer, the boilers, fridge, batteries and chargers all need to lashed down much better and that is a focus so we can get out the bar at the bottom of the river at the entrance to the pacific.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5PNYUXa-eE
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Comments
I find it interesting that they did have dual outboards rigged up to one of the Bobcats and that the spacing was close to ours.
When we first launched in the pictures you can see we had surface piercing props, This may not have been a bad thing but we did not collect data on it. Later we devised the different system using the outboard mounts to place the motors behind the hulls. We tried first with them as far apart as possible and found the boat hard to maneuver. We tried again with the outboards in the position they are now and handling was improved considerably as the boat turns inside of it's length. I may try again with the spacing in the file Bobcat tales though perhaps I can get a little more speed that way.
The props on here are 12 1/2" x 10" weedless propellers each with 3 blades so I doubt they are made for speed as opposed to torque and she has lots of that. I doubt very much that any tilt or trim would help get more speed out of her. I will check the depth of the motors when running and give a little tilt and see if that helps her get beyond 7 knots easier.
We thought the test successful but now in retrospect we did the test at the end of March when the river is at the slowest current flow. Still we were able to come back against what must have been 2-3 knots of current. The Fraser river can get to 6 knots or more so admittedly I'm a little concerned that without tuning the boat more coming back upstream may be a problem.
52.5 52.6 52.8
21.2 21.3 11.2
So the bank is a 20 kWhr made from 16 400ah lithium battery cells wired in series.
If the boat is 6000lbs and we do 4 knots with 30amps of energy 20+20-10=30amps x 52.5 volts puts us in at around 1500 watts of energy to go 4 knots.
Conversely we can burn 140 amps with the engines at 52.5v is 7350watts of power gone. This is wasted energy though as these are not the ideal hull shapes to utilize for an electric boat. The result is 6.7 knots so I have been looking at ways to further lighten the weight and or focus more on placement as the brochures state a single 18hp pushes a Bobcat at 8knots.
Other things come into play there though with the props and the placement of the engines.