Any monohull sail yacht brandswith electric motors other than Defour and Barvaria?
Posted by noreturn000@reddit | sailing | View on Reddit | 60 comments
Hi. we want a motor on it this time because last time, we ran out of fuel on our oceanis when we hit a storm 3 years ago and we almost died. It seems lkke Defpur and Barvaria are the only major brands that offer electric motors. but are there any other brands?
Sh0ckValu3@reddit
Not trying to talk you out of it, but it seems like it would be easier to run out of battery than fuel?
river-rat-mn@reddit
And the electric motors can charge the batteries while under sail.
EnderDragoon@reddit
And solar can charge the batteries, and a generator can charge the batteries, and a wind generator can charge the batteries, and shore power can charge the batteries.
Electric propulsion simply is the future of sailing but a huge portion of sailors will hug their clapped out diesels to their grave before accepting something that's just better.
Sh0ckValu3@reddit
I have nothing against electric - I have an electric car, and a solar powered chicken coop. But for long distances you need energy density. You'd sink your boat trying to stuff enough batteries in there to get the same range compared to a single reasonable sized fuel tank.
Low on battery and a storm is coming? What are you going to do, trickle charge with a solar panel or a turbine?
Not trying to sound like a dick here, but it sounds like the OP miscalculated and got beat up in a storm when they ran out of diesel. The solution here is not to change fuels - it's to plan better and sail smarter.
Icy_Concentrate9182@reddit
A while back I saw a fully electric cat, powered purely by solar, batteries, and a diesel generator.
It doesn't have to be one or the other, in fact, i would prefer as much redundancy as possible
EnderDragoon@reddit
If you look at a legacy system with just direct drive from diesel to thrust you have a pretty finite range to work with. If you put an electric motor in there and have some solar panels, you can think of solar/electric as more of a range extender/fuel saver. If you can get 20 miles per day of range with electric and you leave the dock with 1000 miles of fuel on a 30 day passage... you have 1600 miles of "range". I believe we can have our cake and eat it too which is why most mature electric designs are "diesel over electric" where you can get your electricy from any number of sources... including diesel like you could before. We can have a very robust conversation about the merrits of hybrid series vs hybrid parallel though.
Same as solar on the power grid. If you think of solar as a direct replacement for fossil fuels you run into a lot of problems. If you think of solar as a fuel saver though and prefer to generate electricy from solar when the sun is shining... you just burn less fossil fuels. Win.
You do get energy density with electric in the mix, because you dont have to carry sunlight with you when you leave the dock.
IndyBananaJones2@reddit
It takes a pretty absurd amount of solar to power an electric motor that can push a blue water sailboat. Catamarans are better suited for it, due to being lighter and having more real estate for solar, but the math really doesn't math very well. Especially considering that catamarans are more weight sensitive.
To have even a 6 hour range on my heavy displacement monohull I'd need like 30+kw of battery storage. That would mean more than tripling my battery bank to have a motoring range that is less than 5% of my current range.
Battery density just isn't there for long distance sailing, unless you're committed to an "engineless" style of cruising. Parallel hybrid is an interesting idea, but costs more than twice as much as a traditional diesel setup and most boats will struggle to have space for both very large battery banks and diesel tanks.
I love the idea but it's not really there yet for the way most people sail.
vanalden@reddit
Electric propulsion is brilliant, in some applications. However, folk doing extended coastal sailing and blue water passages have learned that they use more diesel with their backup generator than if they had a direct diesel engine. It’s a conundrum that isn’t solved yet. Look at Jimmy Cornell’s ELCANO experience, with a carbon free Outremer. He didn’t have enough passive generation capacity for crew to be able to have hot meals and cancelled the around the world experiment before even leaving the Schengen area. I had multiple failures with our diesel engine - dangerous and frightening - but that doesn’t make electric propulsion the solution. I hope it is the best choice one day, but at the moment it’s not there.
EnderDragoon@reddit
It is a solved problem though. You can get parallel hybrid which lets you direct drive from diesel to the props. Look at the HH drivetrain. They even provide a manual release clutch for the electric motor if you need to disassociate the electric motor and only have diesel propulsion, that's possible. I think there will forever be a robust conversation about series vs parallel but just choosing to have zero electric drive is becoming antiquated design philosophy.
Rino-feroce@reddit
I agree. It is the future. But OP needs a boat now, not in the future. For a coastal sailboat, all-electric might be viable today (coupled with good planning). For offshore passages, it is not. best we can do today is hybrid diesel-electric (essentially a diesel generator that feeds an electric motor + batteries)
EnderDragoon@reddit
I would go with Antares, HH, Windelo or some other good cat options that are integrating electric faster than the mono world but op wants mono... I don't know that market remotely as well.
Rino-feroce@reddit
Still all hybrid diesel electric: you are not going to motor your way out of trouble for long with just battery power. You can find those in monos as well. I think most premium mono brands would be able to accomodate an almost off-the-shelf solution like the Oceanvolt or Mastervolt system (Oceanvolt's website lists Arcona and Linjett, both mono brands, as partners). Cats have an advantage here because they have more space for solar, and tend to go a bit faster so can juice more out of the hydrogenerator
sailphish@reddit
A lot of these setups utilize hydro-generators, that make electricity and charge your battery bank while traveling under sail. OceanVolt is one example and have good information on their website. It’s worthwhile taking a look. Not ideal for motoring long ways, but a pretty interesting model for someone who is committed to primarily sailing, but needs occasional motor use for docking and gettting around harbors.
Sh0ckValu3@reddit
Right. But not to outrun a storm in the middle of an ocean.
sailphish@reddit
Not sure how many storms you are going to outrun at hull speed. That’s what storm sails and sea anchors are for.
vanalden@reddit
This is what led Steve Dashew to morph his sailboat designs into fast, efficient motorboats. He learned that any big sailboat needs powerful engines to be able to get out of the way of storms. The cost of standing and running rigging and sail maintenance was proximal to the extra diesel for an efficient, long distance motorboat. Look at the FPB designs. I’d never want a motor boat, but the stark reality here is fascinating.
Sailing really is the most expensive way to travel somewhere for free.
Pixelplanet5@reddit
well you just need a plan accordingly, have enough battery capacity and if all else fails simply have a generator as a backup.
noreturn000@reddit (OP)
they have aolar panels on them
Immediate_Matter9139@reddit
Great for running a fridge, not so great for propulsion. Not going to get you very far.
MildlyAgitatedBovine@reddit
You said "in a storm" for the other time though, right?
Sir-Realz@reddit
Yeah most sail boat barely have enouph solar to, run hotel load. Running electric for more than an hour is a whole other league of battery system, it's like comparing a troller motor to a johns son, or a golf Kart to a tesla, batteries typically take up 3X the space of a gas tank to do the same work. You can count in spe ding 5x as much money on the batteries and solar than what ever motor you throw back there
Sh0ckValu3@reddit
Electrics are great for getting out of the marina or short trips - but it doesn't math if you're trying to get longer range. Better planning, fuel management, and if you are worried, bring a few extra jerry cans or increase your fuel tank capacity.
Call Defour, they'll tell you the same thing. All of their electric boats have _diesel_ generators on board.
Dr_Ramekins_MD@reddit
True, but it's a lot harder to fill up the diesel tank while underway
whyrumalwaysgone@reddit
Plenty of conversions of all brands and ages of boats. If you dont mind a used boat you have tons of options, hit up Yachtworld to see
noreturn000@reddit (OP)
we want to buy a new one.
vanalden@reddit
Then you want to look at a custom Bestevaer from KM Yachtbuilders.
Bring money. :-)
Raneynickelfire@reddit
When the phrase "We want a new boat" is uttered, it's accepted that it will involve money.
vanalden@reddit
When the phrase ‘Bring money,’ is used, it means bring more than you originally intended. :-)
Raneynickelfire@reddit
DuFour?
Sinister_Crayon@reddit
Electric's still pretty niche because moving a boat through the water is HARD. Much harder than moving a car.
Propellers compared to wheels just aren't all that efficient at converting energy into motion. They lose almost all of their power due to the fact that what they're working against is a fluid and not a solid. This means that you need to inject a metric ton of energy into a prop to get any motion.
Diesel fuel has incredible energy density... between 30 and 50 times more energy per kg than even the best batteries currently available. Even though a diesel engine in a boat is typically in the 30-40% efficiency range that still puts them roughly 10 times more efficient at converting energy to rotation than an electric motor which is 90+% efficient. This means that if your boat holds 150 liters of fuel that weighs about 125kg, you would need nominally 1250kg of battery to equal the same amount of energy on your boat given the conversions of fuel to power the engine/motor can manage. That's around 1.4 US tons of battery that would consume over 1000 liters of space.
Could you do it? Sure... but not sure where you'd sleep. And that's not even considering other loads like refrigeration, cooking, instruments etc.
trout_or_dare@reddit
For reference the battery in a Tesla model Y weighs ~550 kg. That said, boats generally have plenty of capacity for payload, and it's possible to recharge the battery off of the propeller. Might not work for blue water cruising but for charter boats that don't leave the Med or the Caribbean it could be a good solution.
Sinister_Crayon@reddit
It's still incredibly bulky compared to diesel fuel. Not to mention a significant chunk of payload for a 40 foot sailboat (probably most common cruising sailboat average). Due to packaging and the electronics needed to manage that lithium ion battery pack on a boat too the volume taken up would actually be far more than 1000 liters; for reference your Tesla Model Y pack is itself around that size.
Conservatively your Model Y pack would net you about 30-40 nautical miles of range in your average 40 foot sailboat, but that same 40 foot sailboat would be impossible to load up with enough solar and wind generation to recharge that pack in a single day. For cruising that would be crucial as my estimates say on a perfect weather day (that's every day at sea, am I right?) with no other usage going on (lights, instruments, refrigeration, etc) you might be able to claw back 1/3 of that amount of power before night time hits. Real world might be half that because of all the stuff you're going to want to be running while sailing, and all of this presumes you don't have to run the motor at all. This means that for an average cruising boat you'd realistically have a daily motoring range of about 10 nautical miles, and that's being generous. Yeah you can carry a diesel generator but then why not just have a diesel motor to begin with as you also need the fuel for that?
As a result, electric might be workable for day sailors at the moment who can plug into shore power to charge, but even then fully charging the battery pack is going to take days on your average shore power connection and be far more expensive than diesel.
I'm in no way poo-pooing the idea that electric can be a good tool in future but the tech isn't there yet for it to be practical for anything more than a toy. Proper diesel-electric hybrid can be pretty workable at the moment for larger yachts and can find some efficiencies in running your generator perfectly in its ideal power band with an electric motor doing the propulsion and I think this can be an interesting direction. But unless battery tech takes a sudden leap I doubt we're going to see practical solutions any time soon.
Qrkchrm@reddit
Beneteau has an electric option for their Oceanis 30.1, but that is probably smaller than what you are looking for. I
505ismagic@reddit
Currently, lipo batteries provide roughly 130 watt hours per kg. Agms are much less.
Diesel is about 12,700 per kg. A hundred gallons of Diesel will get you much farther in a pinch.
This means you'd need roughly 100 battery cycles to break even, before considering losses.
Batteries are getting better, but it will be awhile before they are a viable alternative to diesels for most cruising sailboats.
Hybrid systems, and electric motors to get you in and out of the slip have their place.
Correct_Emu7015@reddit
Saffier..... beautiful sailboats
velthesethingshappen@reddit
Reading lynn and larrys books,.. they sailed through storms both ways around the glove without an engine.
Sunburst34@reddit
Check out Dufour and Bavaria
grilledstuffed@reddit
Yeah, that's why we're going to look at a hybrid system. Best of both worlds.
Shhheeeesshh@reddit
We’re like 10 years too soon. There are several people out there right now working on solving the kinks that come with new tech like this, but they aren’t quite there yet. The closest I know is a guy on a 60’ benetau who has converted to electric and his system is quite impressive, and even he relies on a back up westerbeke generator. And that guys whole business model is converting boats, so as of now, 100% full electric isn’t quite it, unless you plan to sail almost always.
I do know another guy who has converted to electric who doesn’t run a generator but he motors at 1.5kn and does it sparingly, despite having almost 2000w of solar.
Dr_Ramekins_MD@reddit
It's workable on small boats right now. There are a couple of guys at my marina that have converted their <30' boats to electric and rave about it. Of course they're not crossing oceans with their boats, but if you're a coastal sailor on a smaller, lighter boat it's viable.
Still not really cost-effective vs diesel, but the cost of electric has come down significantly, it's not absolutely outrageous anymore.
Rino-feroce@reddit
You can read the summary of capabilities of a Hybrid diesel-Electric Ovni 430 here https://www.sailing-nikola.com/hybrid-electric
They can motor on electric for roughly 4 hours. After that they need to run the generator (with diesel). That's probably close to state-of the-art for realistic hybrid electric cruising sailboats.
Westar-35@reddit
Serious question. Did you motor because of the storm? Is that why you ran out of fuel?
A few notes:
noreturn000@reddit (OP)
i didnt say that the storm will last during the whole trip.
if it is diesel, you will have no fuel left AFTER the storm.
if it is solar, you can recharge it after the storm.
Westar-35@reddit
You’re missing the point entirely. You’re screwing up by motoring through the storm. It produces the WORST motion in the boat.
If this is a long enough storm to burn all your fuel it may be another day before you see sun, and another day to charge. Electric sounds cool, and YouTube makes you think it’s the way, but if you can’t manage a fuel tank you definitely cannot manage a battery bank.
noreturn000@reddit (OP)
well people said tesla is useless and it will never get popular in 2015
Rino-feroce@reddit
And yet you don't see Tesla being charged by solar panels...
https://www.drive.com.au/news/solar-powered-tesla-model-3-takes-10-days-to-recharge/
DogtariousVanDog@reddit
max output of solar panels are a few hundred to one thousand watts. it will take days to recharge the system under perfect conditions lol
Rino-feroce@reddit
If full electric was a viable solution for cruising sailboats, we would see electric models everywhere: carrying 500L of diesel, maintaining a diesel engine, cueing to fill up etc are not really fabulous selling points for boats.
The reality is that the math of engine power consumption , battery capacity per kilogram , solar and hydro-generation (think Watt&Sea) charging capability is not there yet, with existing technology.
At most you get an diesel-electric hybrid. There are plenty of brands offering this solution. But it is not a solution to get you out of a storm, or to get you to shore from an offshore passage if the diesel runs out. The electric part of the hybrid engine usually gives a few tens of miles of range.
I assume your case happened during a long offshore passage, so a few tens of miles of additional range would not have made a difference (and in fact you would not have been able to motor more than a few hours in a storm with only electric). Charging with realistic solar surface is generally barely sufficient to ensure the house , instrumentation and autopilot stay on. Large loads like watermaker and induction cooking usually require running a generator (with diesel).
Next-Juggernaut7404@reddit
Out of curiosity…. How and why did you almost die ? Sounds pretty extreme. Did you demast or capsize ?
Roccnsuccmetosleep@reddit
The only concept that actually works is diesel-electric which is being scaled down for consumer boats right now. Less mechanical loss, steerable sail drive, regen, with the range of diesel. You can retrofit but not buy new unless you’re talking like 70+ foot customs.
mrsalanwatts@reddit
Electric motor with diesel generator
Da1sgaard@reddit
X-yacht had one a few years back, maybe they have expanded the range yet. I'm sure they are willing to do it if you ask
Telekomiker69@reddit
X Yachts are building some too. These are really goot boats!
ExtraStranger1177@reddit
You let yourself run out of fuel but think you'll keep that batteries charged? Next time just charter a boat with a captain.
Shhheeeesshh@reddit
They have new boat money. Let them spend it.
BCCMNV@reddit
The solution to your issue is Jerry cans on the side of the boat full of diesel. You’d need an array of panels larger than the surface area of your sail to even remotely get a chance of cruising modestly.
olddoglearnsnewtrick@reddit
Barfour is NSFW? For sure it’s NSFS.
Accomplished_Fee9363@reddit
You are looking for Problem. And I am sorry you do not understand the Physik of Electric Motor. You will not be able to change your Motor (let’s say 15kW) with sollar Panels in a reasonable time. You need a generator to do that. efficiency is not better And still need diesel
Nephroidofdoom@reddit
J9 can come with an electric inboard from the factory
rslulz@reddit
Pegasus