Electric or Diesel, That is the Question...

As those who follow our travel blog will know, this past year our diesel engine declared itself officially and permanently out of service. Since it is an older engine, and rather small for the weight and size of our boat, we were not completely surprised. For a while before the final refusal to start we had been idly debating - when this engine finally quits for the last time, should we replace it with a larger diesel, or should we go electric?

There are arguments for replacing our engine with a more reliable, more powerful diesel. After all, diesel engines are widely available, normally reliable and use well-known technology. Parts are easily available for most brands. And we could use it to generate both electrical power and heat if we needed to.

But there are disadvantages. As we know all too well, a diesel engine tends to be dirty, noisy, smelly and environmentally unfriendly. Even a well-maintained engine pollutes the air and the water when running. Diesel fuel is expensive enough now, and likely to get more expensive in the long run.

Then we thought about when we normally use our engine. This is usually in the most vulnerable waters - inlets, sheltered channels and harbours. In the past our now defunct noisy, smelly motor has encouraged us to use our sails more and our engine less than than we might have. We considered briefly being engineless (think of the space that would free up!). But our last voyage has shown us that we like having an engine to call on when we need to - waiting cold and tired outside a long inlet with a strong current and no wind was one of the things that made that point for us.

We’ve thought about them before, but now we decided it was time to look more closely at electric motors. Though still not widespread, electric motors are becoming more and more common, and we can see that they have some important advantages. They are more environmentally friendly than an internal combustion engine. They are quiet. The motor itself is lightweight and small; the batteries are heavy, but they can be distributed in the way that best suits your own boat. The motor does not need to be warmed up, will run at very low speeds, provides instant torque when needed. The controls used tend to be very simple.

We considered the possible disadvantages, and considered them again. Our range would be more limited. Would that make cruising in some areas much more difficult? While the motor itself might not be terribly expensive compared to a new diesel, we would have to put in more solar panels, probably change our wind generator to a 48 volt one, and change our prop to use the motor more efficiently and take advantage of the ability to regenerate power from its revolutions as we sailed. In other words, we would be laying out the money for our ‘fuel’ now, rather than as we travelled. Somewhat like buying sails.

For a long time we hesitated over the question of range, and researched what was happening in the field of battery technology that might improve things. We found that there is a lot of research and development going on which might help us in the long run. There was even a chance, depending on costs, we would be able to use some of the new battery technology when we actually installed the motor. Richard did a lot of the research on the internet, and a lot of the talking to other people. We kept going back and forth, but underlying the discussions was the feeling that we really wanted the clean quiet an electric motor offered us.

One day in Martha’s Vineyard an EV (Electric Vehicle) and solar power enthusiast we happened to drop in on told us about Electric Yacht. We visited the web site, looked at the systems, read the conversion stories, and discussed things some more. Then we got in touch with Scott there and had all our questions answered.

So the decision is made. We’ve found a system we like (no need to reinvent the wheel) at a reasonable price, with lots of helpful info thrown in for the asking. We will have to put in more solar panels and change the wind generator - but once we’ve done that we won’t depend on diesel fuel for travelling when we have to motor. And once the system is installed and working, we’ll have the pleasure of knowing that we won't be polluting the waters we love to travel through.

We'll cut down on our contribution to pollution. One small change in one small boat, but that’s how change happens - one boat, one step, at a time.