My Experimental E-Boat, the X-24v

Ulu

10 µW
Joined
Aug 2, 2017
Messages
5
Folks, I did not know of this forum's existence until now, and so I have chronicled most of my boat's EV conversion in my Waterwheels room.

http://gnarwheels.proboards.com/thread/13/electric?page=1#post-118

(You may have to register at my site to see the photographs; but it's free, I don't spam you, and I pay a monthly fee in order to have no advertisements at all. I'm a retired IT guy, so I take this stuff seriously and I HATE flashing advertisements.


I have owned this aging scow nearly 20 years, and I recently converted it over to all electric power. It currently has two Navigator-5000 55 lb thrust trolling motors at the stern and a Minn Kota 40 lb thrust thrust motor at the bow. I'm currently running six 12v RV batteries, Gp 29.

I would just copy and paste all the stuff over here to the 'sphere, but I'm not sure about the photo posting privileges and conventions on the site yet. If you want to see the whole business will just have to visit Gnarwheels.

Anyhow many years ago I bought this cheap boat as someone's misguided attempt to set a runabout up as a bass boat with a 40 horsepower Evinrude Lark, and they had removed the front deck, windshield, and steering wheel to open up the boat. This left a crude plywood edge where they had cut through all the hidden reinforcing (!) It surely did not improve the structure of the boat.

There are full length boxbeam floatation chambers at the chines, and they cut into each one at the very mid-span for a fiberglass livewell. OMG!

I have added a large casting deck at the front of the boat and reinforced the bow by adding a platform for the front motor, which all substitutes for the structure removed fairly well, and is probably not much heavier. I reinforced the gunnels with fiberglass, and I also added wood rails so I could lash things down in the boat.

The batteries are heavier though: 6 group 29's under the mid seat. I had the batteries divided in the boat fore and aft, but I found the heavy polar moment of inertia made for poor seakeeping. I decided that mass centralization was the way to go.

The old Evinrude propelled this boat pretty fast, but it was heavy and this really was only qualified as a 30 horsepower boat.

In order to carry the extra weight and power I notched into the sagging transom and put two steel tubes in it, injected as much epoxy into the wood as I could get for bedding, and then sealed it all with epoxy filler and fiberglass.

Originally I bought this boat set up with tandem seating for two, and stick steering in the front seat with throttle at the left hand and steering stick at the right. This worked out well because the passenger at the rear was required to operate choke, the electric choke having long ago failed on this motor. The motor was also an electric shift & at some point the front clutches gave out. I simply disassembled the lower unit and switched the front and reverse clutches and put it back together. If I needed reverse I had the trolling motor up front, and actually reverse gear worked okay at idle speed. With front gear operational this rig flew pretty good.

The bait wells were poorly installed and I made the mistake of reinforcing the installation instead of just removing them completely. Now they stand in structurally for the missing box beam in most respects. Sorta. Anyhow I should remove them completely and restored the beams, but this is an experimental boat. I'll get around to it at some point, maybe.

I've already done plenty of fiberglass work, reinforcing the gunnels, reinforcing the live wells, repairing the transom, and repairing a fist-sized hole that I knocked through the chine one day. When I fixed that, I stripped the boat, inverted the hull patched it from both sides sanded, filled and patched the entire hull, I brushed it with resin and sanded it and then shot it with Star-thane catalyzed urethane rubber paint. This does not look bad after 15 years, and I'm glad that I spent the money for high-quality paint and the time to prepare the boat properly.

I am currently working on my fourth incarnation of this boat (it was reincarnated at least once before purchase) and this is Phase 2 of the electric motor conversion and phase 4 of the fiberglass repairs.

The gasoline-powered Evinrude has been put aside, perhaps forever, & my idea was to create a boat for fishing at quiet little lakes where gasoline engines are not welcome.
 
Well I finally found the edit attachments button...
 

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Having problems with the attachments...
 
I am still trying to make the attachments work correctly.

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