Thursday, November 13, 2014

Electric Motor Review - 3 Months in and Going Strong

Our diesel died in May after 33 years of faithful service.  We purchased the boat 14 years ago with any where from 3-6 partners on board and the boat out of the slip 6-8 times per month, so heavy usage over that time period.  She served us well.  We installed the electric motor in July and by mid August we were sailing again.  A few weeks after install, we had a small glitch when we exceeded 2000 rpms.  She stalled out.  We sent a note to our supplier and they sent us a new engine controller and we have been issue free since.  The motor has proved to be powerful enough to get us out of the harbor when the wind is blowing over 25 kts.  We mostly use the engine to get in and out of the harbor and to a lunch spot.  Plenty of juice to do that.  I have had her down past 50% only once and she has done fine.  We are very pleased with the new power plant and would recommend it highly as long as your range was under 15 miles or so.  There alot of boats that will need repower in the next few years and we highly recommend electric.  Our supplier was Electric Yachts of Southern California.

Here were the other power options we considered for our Newport 30.
Options:
Outboard old $1500
Outboard new $3000
Electric new $8000 (including batteries)
Diesel rebuild $8-10000
Diesel new $12 -14000

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