First sail on dinghy electric motor

We finally "got off the dock". Today, son Ian, Dad, Leigh, Claire and I went out on our sailboat, Initram, with the dinghy electric motor, a Torqueedo electric outboard, rigged to the back of 35 foot C&C. This is the first time in a few years that Initram has been out for a sail. What a great feeling after so much waiting.

Last Thursday night I spent a few hours jury rigging the Torqueedo, lithium battery powered electric motor to the back of our C&C 35. I basically clamped some hard wood to the swim ladder. We've been using the dinghy with this amazing well built German electric motor for a couple weeks. It has lots of power. I'd read that it could push 14 foot boats and perhaps bigger ones. So, since our Electric Yacht kit is still another week or two away from being fully installed, and we have been aching to get out and sail, we decided to try this temporary solution.

First of all, the boat is new to us so we had to figure out how to rig up the jib sail for the first time. I've worked the main sail up and down a few times at the dock so that was ready to go. We did a double check on all safety equipment, reviewed our plan for taking the boat out, and off we went.

Silently I reversed with the Torqueedo motor jumping a bit as I didn't have the ladder held down in place for reverse. Still, she moved slowly back quite nicely, sputtering a bit but kept moving. Once we'd pulled into the middle of the lagoon, between all the other boats, we hauled in the fenders (not wanting to have to buy everyone at the bar a beer on our first run out), and engaged full forward thrusters captain! Away she went, quietly past our neighbours, to the right of a few sailors coming in to dock, and past the Wards Island ferry dock. A few butterflies churned in my stomach, as I hoped that we would not run out of battery power until we were well clear of the docks and some fellow sailors who have said I am crazy.

Once we'd gotten past the entrance to QCYC, our club, we put the bow into the wind and began hauling up the main sail. After futzing with a double winched line, we got the main sail nicely up and started plowing through the water. I turned off the forward thrust on the electric Torqueedo, to conserve as much battery as possible for our return to dock, and we began hauling the jib up.

She sails beautifully. Smoothe as silk. Feels so well balanced you can hold course with just a finger on the wheel. We had fair winds and so were moving along very well. What a joy to be out in the Toronto Harbour, at last, sailing in a good breeze, with all the other sailors.

After some high fives, hand shakes and self-congratulations we enjoyed a couple hours of sailing. While at the helm the crew mutineed the idea of taking her out through the eastern gap for some open lake sailing. Not yet, apparently not everyone felt ready. What a great feeling just to tack back and forth on this beautiful speedy boat. We all had a blast taking turns at helm.

Finally, we got the word, time to go in. I was a bit worried about whether we'd have enough juice in the batteries to get us back to the dock under some kind of propellor driving power. I was prepared to use the main sail a bit in case we ran out of electric engine power. I kept the throttle in maximum distance setting and we slowly came into the QCYC docks under slow speed, red buoys on the right of course. What a day! The adventure continues. Soon we should have the full blown big 10 kW electric motor kit from Electric Yachts and Odyssey batteries (AGM, 1800 series, rack mountable), and the Analytics super military/marine grade charge controller. Stay tuned.