Electric propulsion

[Figment]

(the following is completely academic due to lack of funds)

What's the take on these electric propulsion systems?

www.solomontechnologies.com



I picked the Solomon rep's brain for a half hour or so at the Newport show. The pic above is their ST37 6HP motor, their smallest, but all the power a Triton would ever need. Draws 32 amps, roughly one cubic foot in size, weighs about 85lbs.

Personally, I'm a huge fan. I think that if I had the money, it's totally the way I'd be going, despite the fact that the Triton is just a tad too small to absorb the ballast of a true-cruising-boat-sized battery bank.

For daysailing purposes, though..... It really does seem ideal. SILENT, clean propulsion. Isn't that what sailboats are all about?

[Tim]

It would be ideal for a daysailer moored at a dock with shore power for charging when not in use. I don't know what you'd do off a mooring, though of course you don't strictly need the motor then anyway, or at least in some cases.

The price of required components, not including the battery bank, however, is a bit steep at over $13,000.

http://www.solomontechnologies.com/Form ... s/ST37.pdf

I think it would be cool if the use of the electric motor fit in perfectly with the "ideal" usage. Lacking that, there are a number of potential pitfalls, I guess, mostly related to charging and the size/weight of the required batteries.

Frankly, it's a technology whose time is coming...but has not quite yet come. Nathan and I were talking the other day about batteries, and we quipped that the person who invents a battery as efficient as a lead-acid, but of light weight, will be a rich person. To my mind, some sort of new storage method for electric power is the key to success in this arena. And more efficient harnessing of solar rays, too. These are two major stumbling blocks for widespread acceptance of electric power.

I'm not a student of things electrical, so these thoughts are totally off the cuff and perhaps completely uninformed.