Canadian (Okanagan) Electric Boats
- Thread starter MitchJi
- Start date
torker
100 kW
Man that I4 would be perfect for my semi-retired butt to go fishing in 
I first learned to waterski on Lake Osooyoos? Not sure of the spelling. Was up in South Dakota and the grandparents took us. I think it is in Canada- maybe the border?
I first learned to waterski on Lake Osooyoos? Not sure of the spelling. Was up in South Dakota and the grandparents took us. I think it is in Canada- maybe the border?
enoob
1 kW
osoyoos is very nice . arid dry , great wine and fruit. just north of the border from eastern washington , good drive from south dakota
lake has gone a little down hill last decade or so but still nice
lake has gone a little down hill last decade or so but still nice
Jeremy Harris
100 MW
Nice idea, just a pity they chose such an inefficient hull design. Just look at the bow wave and wake on those boats and imagine how much power they're soaking up!
Why can't electric boat manufacturers get their heads around the need to design low resistance, easily driven hulls? If you go back to the dawn of powered boats, when engine power was limited, boat designers produced some elegant and very efficient hulls. Somehow we seem to have lost this skill during the past fifty years or so, with the result that boat builders now seem wedded to appallingly bad designs, with dragging transoms and massive hull wetted area.
What annoys me about this is that this will be bad PR for electric propulsion. People will buy these draggy things and discover that range is limited if they open the throttle (because most of the propulsive power is being wasted) and they might then assume that electric power is impractical.
In the Victorian/Edwardian period there were lots of electric boats operating here, including day hire boats. They all used efficient hulls and had plenty of battery capacity to cruise all day. It doesn't seem to me that anything has moved on in the intervening 100 years; if anything we've gone backwards.
Jeremy
Why can't electric boat manufacturers get their heads around the need to design low resistance, easily driven hulls? If you go back to the dawn of powered boats, when engine power was limited, boat designers produced some elegant and very efficient hulls. Somehow we seem to have lost this skill during the past fifty years or so, with the result that boat builders now seem wedded to appallingly bad designs, with dragging transoms and massive hull wetted area.
What annoys me about this is that this will be bad PR for electric propulsion. People will buy these draggy things and discover that range is limited if they open the throttle (because most of the propulsive power is being wasted) and they might then assume that electric power is impractical.
In the Victorian/Edwardian period there were lots of electric boats operating here, including day hire boats. They all used efficient hulls and had plenty of battery capacity to cruise all day. It doesn't seem to me that anything has moved on in the intervening 100 years; if anything we've gone backwards.
Jeremy
Lock
100 MW
Hey Jeremy... I'm gonna suggest they're designing to the competition... a price point and a style of gas boat their market has been "educated" to expect. At the boat shows I see lots of these cottage-country designs that are floating lounges with fat padded settees, plenty of drink holders, fridges... At speeds of 10kts and less I figure one long skinny hull would be more efficient, but would sacrifice the "hot tub" style seating for passengers. This hull design from Okanagan is at least a step up from the pontoon-style rafts most of NA is familiar with in this size of picnic boat...
Cheers
Lock
Cheers
Lock
torker
100 kW
enoob said:
Oops.. Must have been when the S. Dakota family was visiting US in Washington. I was like 8 or 10. Thanks for pointing that out. I knew it was just north of the border
I think you got it right about the partyboat mentality. At least it is a catamaran design so it seems we are halfway there. Maybe it will evolve and they will come out with a more sleek (fast) performance version.
FeralDog
100 W
Exactly.
The advert even says it is a "yacht tender", and thus an expensive e-boat for the wealthy who can afford to buy it to mate with their a new yacht ; or a luxury vacation home on a private lake with motor-power restrictions. Similar gas boats are the Boston Whaler Sport Tender series http://www.whaler.com/#.
John in CR
100 TW
Jeremy,
I agree 100%, but I see it as an opportunity, not a problem.
I agree 100%, but I see it as an opportunity, not a problem.
Jeremy Harris said:
Gordo
100 kW
John;
I'm thinking of a HobiCat with e-motors for a starting shape. Anything with canoe hulls would be better than the slug shown.
I'm thinking of a HobiCat with e-motors for a starting shape. Anything with canoe hulls would be better than the slug shown.
Lock
100 MW
Gordo said:
I mentioned the EZ Cat here before:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13166
http://ezcatinc.com/index.html
...but while EZ Cat have designed better in catamaran/efficiency terms, their 16'7" boat only has a 700lb load capacity versus the 14' Infinyte i4 with 1700lbs capacity.
lock
John in CR
100 TW
Gordo said:
It depends which Hobi. I think the big one with daggers is symmetrical, which is what you want. A sailing and power cat designer in France told me we would want symmetrical hulls for an ecat. The actual hull shape will depend a lot on where you plan to use it. eg The Pacific is by far my closest water, at least that I would get in, so I need deeper running hulls without a rapidly increasing volume above the waterline, because I would want to cut through the waves. That increases the whetted surface area decreasing efficiency through the water. On a relatively wave free lake knife like hulls would be a waste. Then there's canal use like Jeremy has, and he's able to go to an even more efficient properly designed monohull. He can hit hull speed with incredibly low power. It won't have the stability of a cat, but he doesn't need it.
I'd be very interested in a power requirement and hull speed comparison of a good mono-hull and a low aspect ratio cat, both properly designed displacement hulls. It's my understanding that the true hull speed of a good cat is higher than a same length monohull, but how that plays out with the cat having to overcome greater friction would be interesting.
I can't get past propeller problems with beach use, so I'm leaning strongly toward a Kort nozzle to both protect the prop and be able to run a smaller diameter, because below 15-17knots a Kort nozzle is more efficient despite the much greater wet area. That's because slippage is drastically reduced. It probably won't be nearly as efficient as Jeremy's large dia prop, which is a lot more like an airplane prop than a typical boat wheel, but I think the potential for greater durability is worth the effort.