The sailboat electric motor project -This project started a few months ago when we decided to convert our Catalina-27 sailboat to electric drive. After researching motor options and reading about individual projects on the Yahoo Electric Boat Group, we just could not find any “off-the-shelf” motor mount for a reasonable price.
So, after removing the old dead Atomic-4 engine and repainting the engine bed, we took some careful measurements and designed a motor mount that would fit not only our Catalina-27, but would hopefully be adjustable enough to work with many other boats as well. The result is a heavy-duty very modular design, which is easily adjustable for shaft angle and height, and allows for the motor-controller to be mounted on the same frame. Now all we had to do was machine the parts, as owners of a CNC machine shop, this was easy for us. Within a few days, the first unit was machined and ready to install. After bench testing and tweaking the parameters on the Sevcon PMAC controller with Mars motor, the unit was ready to install in the boat.
Click drawing for larger view.
The motor installation was actually very simple. I think it took longer to install and secure the batteries. After completing the final wiring and adjusting a few controller parameters, we took the boat out for her first all-electric test run. Everything worked beautifully and we got about two hours of run-time at 50-70% motor speed. Not bad for just four Optima blue-top batteries. We plan to add more batteries and a Honda-2000i generator soon. We also need to update the original 2-blade factory prop soon.
From the beginning of this project we had many friends with sailboats very interested and closely following our conversion process. If anyone is interested in converting their sailboat to electric drive or reading more about our project, please visit our new website at www.Electric-Sailboat.com and take a closer look at our new adjustable mount system. This mount is adjustable for most sailboats and is designed for the Mars / Etek motor or Perm type motor, but mount-holes can be made for any motor that fits within the frame.
Thanks!
Todd
Website: http://www.Electric-Sailboat.com
