Amped up boats CT/ Se Fl

[irie E]

Hello boat building ladies and gentlemen,

Its been said that " nessecity is the mother of invention" and living on an "electric only" lake the options have always been a trolling motor or rather expensive commercial electric outboard. So i got to tinkering and I've spent last year or so experimenting with electric drives on a small 12' boat.

Initially I did an outboard conversion, and while sucessful, I was disappointed with its performance. I then set about fabricating a steerable, trimable, surface drive. The results of which have far exceeded my expectations.

I've decided that the next version of the drive should be installed on a nicer hull. I ordered pee-wee plans and jet cat plans. The pee-wee will definitely be fitted out with an electric surface drive, but I'm more interested in building the jet cat with twin surface drives. I'd prefer to fit it out with electric motors but I'm entertaining the idea of using jet ski engines coupled to the surface drives.

I plan to start fabricating the new drives soon, construction of the boats will have to wait until summer after a move to fl. But I've got plenty of planning to do until that time. If you've read this far thank you for reading my long winded first post.
-Dom

Here's some video of the drive in action.
https://youtu.be/bnRqIf6_nxQ

[gap998]

Really interesting - Been living with A Renault Zoe EV for the last 12 months so I'm 100% convinced of the future of electric propulsion. Been reading a bit about surface drives lately too - Will be watching this space!

Good luck.

[Roberta]

Very impressive. Well done.

Roberta

[irie E]

Really interesting - Been living with A Renault Zoe EV for the last 12 months so I'm 100% convinced of the future of electric propulsion. Been reading a bit about surface drives lately too - Will be watching this space!

Good luck.

Thank you, I really like the electric propulsion, its a very pleasant experience hearing only wind and water doing 21 knots throwing a 5' rooster tail. I agree that it will definitely increase in popularity, especially with improving battery technology. Surface drives are great, and in my opinion are ideally suited to electric power.

Very impressive. Well done.

Roberta

Thank you very much, your builds are very inspiring!!

[Roberta]

I am not at all familiar with surface drives. Could you post some pics or diagrams? Are you planning on marketing them? I think there would be a market for them and useful to a lot of Glen L designs.

Roberta

[hoodman]

I'm with Roberta. These seem like they would be ideal for the cat designs as well. The Batteries could be stored in the hulls. I know the limitation is the batteries, but if you replace the weight of an outboard (plus it's fuel) with an equivalent weight in batteries I wonder what the range difference would be with this type of drive (provided it is light weight itself).

[irie E]

I must have goofed somewhere, the post I wrote last night is MIA. Bummer.

Anyway, a description of surface props/drives from N.A. Paul Kamen. "What is a surface-piercing propeller, anyway? Simply stated, a surface-piercing propeller (or surface propeller) is a propeller that is positioned so that when the vessel is underway the waterline passes right through the propeller's hub. This is usually accomplished by extending the propeller shaft out through the transom of the vessel, and locating the propeller some distance aft of the transom in the relatively flat water surface that flows out from the transom's bottom edge."
http://www.well.com/~pk/SPAprofboat.html

Roberta, I hadn't thought much about marketing such a drive. My current drive is a very crude prototype designed simply to transfer all of the motors power to the prop and gain some first hand insight with a surface drive. The internet is full of contradictory information on the subject. I made as many parts adjustable as possible so i could try many variations, and honestly i had no idea if it would even work. I've just begun work on version 2 if it turns out as I plan it could have potential. I will probably build the pee wee first so I can have prototype #2 in a glen l design faster than starting with the jet cat.

Hoodman, I don't have an exact weight of the drive itself, it weighs less than the Johnson 6hp I used for my outboard conversion. Its all aluminum except for the prop shaft and motor coupling. I'm using (2) 48 volt modules from a Chevy volt battery. Each one weighs 43lbs, roughly the equivalent of 7 gallons of gas. I have not been able to do a real world test of range, but once spring arrives I'll get that bit of info.

I've attached rough drawings of the pee wee (jet drive version) with surface drive, and jet cat with 90° transom and 12° transom. There is also a picture of my drive.

[Roberta]

Very cool!! Keep up with your development!

Roberta

[CaptDave]

Very impressive. 20+ knots with 48 volts is amazing. Where did you get your volt battery modules?
I look forward to seeing additional posts as development progresses.

[irie E]

Thank you CaptDave. I have been very surprised by how well the drive performs. I got the volt modules from eBay, they have performed well so far. I am currently waiting on one part to begin mocking up the new drive. Hopefully I'll have some progress by next week....