Monday, July 25, 2011

Cruising with our electric motor

We have set off on our first cruise with the electric motor from Electric Yacht that we installed last year. We provisioned up for a cruise from our home base at QCYC on Toronto Island to Port Dalhousie. Our first stop is Oakville Club. In preparation for the unknown, this is our first cruise, we charged up the batteries fully (see previous post on the setup and installation of our 10 kW electric motor and four large AGM batteries). We had a terrific sail, starting at 9am we arrived in Oakville by 2pm, to be greeted by wonderful Larry. We used hardly any batter juice despite some big waves coming into Oakville.

Next trick was to sort out the electrical hookup to make sure I could top up the charge on the batteries. Of course the shore power connection in Oakville is different than QCYC. I eventually found an adapter from our three round pronged (name?) plug to standard 3 prong outlet. She charges nicely on the 15 amp circuit provided, using about 10 amps. With that I can still run the fan to keep things cooler in the galley. I charge the house batteries only separately from the motor batteries as it would blow the 15 amp fuse provided by shore power here. Took less than an hour or so to charge up to full storage again. All set for our sail to Bronte or perhaps further out to Fifty Point Park. We'll see.

All is working well. The weather has been hot and humid which is yet another test of the system. So far so good. Met a few sailors from Mimico who'd been to QCYC and had read about our electric boat in the Clipper. I've invited them over for a tour. Off for some Thai food for dinner.

1 comment:

  1. This is really great that you have set off on our first cruise with the electric motor from Electric Yacht that we installed last year. if you have any photograph the electric yacht so please share, i want to see them. Thanks for sharing this great post.

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