R22 Discussion Group

On Jun 4, 2020, at 3:06 AM, jose <jose.faraldo at gmail.com> wrote:

Well, I just thought of a problem (about using an electric motor with heavy batteries installed onboard).   My lake (Lake Travis, Austin, Texas) has large fluctuations—up to 80 or 90 feet—in dry weather when the City of Austin and many downstream water users (rice farmers and downstream industries all the way to the Gulf of Mexico) take water out of the lake. Some summers, when the lake gets very low, our marina has to move it’s docks out from their cove and into the deeper parts of the lake—where there is no shore power.  So a motor such as the Torqeedo 2.0 or 4.0 would be inoperative for an entire summer.

This would not be a problem with the small, 3 hp equivalent, Torqeedo C 1103–its relatively light battery can be carried back and forth, charged at home, and snapped back into the engine top, where it looks like part of the engine. 

Problems: low power and range, rated for sailboats only up to 1-1/2 tons, and steering and throttle only by its non-removable tiller.  I have Stan’s electric motor lift, which is so close to the boat that I would either have to replace the lift or devise a bracket or pin at the motor top clear of the snap-in battery that sits there.  The bracket or pin would permit attachment to the cross-arm that pivots from the sailboat’s rudder head.  Also, this could work only if the motor’s tiller can be rotated to a vertical position so as not to hit the transom. 

David Keyes
S/V Arrowhead II (if a name were painted on it, which it isn’t)
Lake Travis

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The Rhodes 22 Discussion Group

David Keyes

Electric Motor