Boat Journal

Chronicling a love affair with sailing

Tag: Electric Yacht

Electric Engine

Those who have monitored this site have seen the enginer problems I’ve dealt with. The Westebeke 18W that was in the boat when I purchased it 3 years ago, like an old man, was cranky and hard to get along with as winter moved to spring. Last year, rather than just being cranky, it just wouldn’t start.

The surveyor I employed when I was purchasing the boat had been familiar with it. We also had questions, since the boat came with both an inboard and an outboard (a sailboat needs 3 forms of propulsion?), so I’d had the engine surveyed separately. The person I found to look it over had actually seen that engine in an earlier incarnation. He remarked that it was near death last time he’d seen it, but that someone had taken the time to bring it back to life, and done a good job of it!

In summer, it ran like a charm. In winter, it gave me problems. Finally, last year, the only shop I could find that would even look at it required I bring the engine to them. So I did. They said there was water damage inside.  The price they then quoted me to rebuild was going to be more than another used engine would run me – I think the quote was something like $7K. So I said thank you but not thanks and sold it for parts to someone for about $200.

I got back the outboard from the person I’d sold it to. He hadn’t been able to use it because it was too big for his boat. So it had sat on a stand for 2 years.

I had the outboard cleaned out and tuned up. It ran ok – with the choke on. Found out it had air leaks that the mechanic couldn’t trace down. Not only that, one blustery race day, the outboard couldn’t even get me out of the marina. I ended up tying off at another dock and coming and moving my boat back into its slip the next morning, after the wind died down.

ARGHHH! Sailboats! All I needed was something to get me out of the marina. Why did it have to be so difficult?

Being the proud owner of a Prius, I had been intrigued by what I’d been hearing regarding electric engines for boats. I started lurking around the electricboats mailing list, and checked out the vendors at the Annapolis Boat show last fall. After conversations with the Electric Yachts folks, I settled on the 180ibl they made. My boat size/weight is actually at the cusp between their smaller engine and this midsized version. But my fear of being underpowered after my fiasco mentioned above led me to go with the larger model.

The engine is ordered, as are the 150AH AGM batteries. I’ll place the order for the Dual Pro charger this weekend. The prop will need to be reinstalled, since I had it removed and the shaft plugged when I decided to use the outboard. I’ll try to keep the information on the conversion up to date as I go.