5,000 Miles Against the Trades with an Electric Motor
Caribbean Compass
December 2022 Issue
How do two 30-something-year olds convert a 43-year-old sailboat to electrical propulsion and beat nearly 5,000 nautical miles eastward in the Caribbean? With a lot of luck, some hard work, and a fair bit of painful learning along the way. Through a series of articles, we want to share it all — the good, the bad, and the ugly. However, first we should introduce ourselves and, more importantly, our boat.
5,000 Miles, Part Two: Installation Overview
Caribbean Compass
January 2023 Issue
There is nothing easy about repowering a boat, let alone an old one, but add an electric motor and it feels increasingly overwhelming. The layout of a traditional sailboat is not intended for an electric motor, of course, and the systems are not compatible. It is not simply a plug-and-play situation or a swap like-for-like affair — but it is achievable. While every person and boat would encounter different challenges, we hope that sharing our experience in detail might help someone plan for their own electric conversion.
5,000 Miles, Part Three: The Charging/Discharging System
Caribbean Compass
February 2023 Issue
In last month’s article, we shared how we physically installed an electric motor in our 1979 Pearson 424, S/V Vagari. This time, we’ll walk you through something a little more intricate – our charging and discharging system. We didn’t get it perfect at the start and we are still in the middle of updating the system to better fit our needs. We hope that by sharing what we’ve learned, our headaches will be ones you can avoid when updating or converting your own system.
5,000 Miles, Part Four: Using the Electric Motor
Caribbean Compas
March 2023 Issue
In our last article we talked in detail about the charging system on Vagari, as well as the 12VDC and 110VAC discharging. In this article, we will discuss in detail the 48VDC discharging. This can be thought of simply as the electric motor usage as it is the only system that directly utilizes 48VDC on our boat.
5,000 Miles, Part Five: Conversion Costs
Caribbean Compass
April 2023 Issue
Our previous four articles in this series have highlighted the electric motor installation process, Vagari’s charging and discharging systems, and the electric motor’s characteristics. In this our final article, we will discuss the costs associated with converting to electric. We will break out the cost by system and note our thoughts on the trade-offs between cost, quality, and support when, not if, you have issues with your system. We believe it is absolutely critical to choose suppliers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that will be willing to support you. As we step through each system, we will give several anecdotes highlighting this fact.