Going Electric??

[AT Phillips]

Just wondering if anyone has, or thinking going electric??  The technology appears to be available ...  I'm not promoting, but just for convenience, an interesting link .....  https://oceanvolt.com/solutions/private/monohull/ 

[Patches]

Not a problem.  Just be prepared to lose part of your aft cabin for a bank of lithium batteries, and probably $25-30,000 on the conversion.

[Noah]

One could probably stuff enough lithium iron batteries where the fuel tank now sits...but it would be a very expensive retrofit all-in. And, you would need lots of solar to charge the bank if you were to go cruising.

[scgunner]

If you want to go electric converting your C34 might not be the best way to go. You're talking about a major very expensive refit. The side effects like weight, room, performance won't be known until after the conversion is done. The better option might be to look for a boat that is designed and built as an all electric. In the long run it might be cheaper, it would certainly be easier.

If it's the environment your concerned about you can always plan your voyages to use more sail, less motor. An example, who here among us at the end of a cocktail cruise, as it's getting late, hasn't been a little lazy and instead of sailing back just fired up the iron sail and drove the boat home.

As kind of a fun thing we'd do to help sharpen our skills before race season, we'd have a no motor day. That included getting in and out of the slip, sometimes we could backwind the jib to get out of the slip, sometimes we'd have to just push it out of the slip. It helps to have 4 or 5 crew for boat handling and should fending off be necessary. It's a fun exercise and with no motor to fall back on you'll find yourself thinking 2 or 3 moves farther ahead.

[McSalish]

If you search "Electric Propulsion" you'll find more discussion of the topic with a lengthy description of the limitations by mainesail.  I'd still consider it if and when my diesel dies.

[LogoFreak]

I actually looked into this at length, even had a quote from oceanvolt. In my opinion you need a boat that is large enough to house a generator and also be able to do 6+ knots under sail with ease. The generator is for redundancy when you run your batteries down and you need the speed under sail to be able to use regenerative charging which in my opinion is a huge selling point of electric propulsion.