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.

Considering Our Environments

There are many different kinds of environments that make up our world. Most of the time when we think about environmental consciousness we think of the ‘natural’ environment we travel through and live in - in our case the waters that are our home.

Yet the ‘social’ environment we are part of as we travel is just as important. Part of it is made up of other cruisers, who in their own way and for their own reasons travel the seas and waterways. The other part is the social world of the people whose homes we visit.

Many cruisers find companionship and help among that first group; friendships form and groups develop when we are with those who are most like us. Some find more friends in the countries they visit, and in doing so come to know people whose lives are different, sometimes very different, from theirs. Their interaction with the social environments they find themselves in leaves them more knowledgeable about and aware of the world they are passing through.

Care of this social environment should be as much a part of cruising as care of the natural environment. Caring for either takes effort - the effort to learn what helps and what harms, the effort to consider your own individual actions and their effects, and the effort to make changes when change is needed.

If each person did what they could, learned what they should, and acted with the thought and consideration they wished others would - then person by person, step by step, a little at a time, we would enhance our relationship with the world around us. If each person took the time to observe what was expected and by their actions showed their respect for other people and other places, then our passing would weigh more lightly where we visited and we would be kindly remembered after we left.

Like those cruisers who understand when resources are scarce, as water is in many places, and find ways to avoid using those scarce resources. Or those who take the time to observe how people dress and behave, and, having observed, dress and behave in ways that will not offend. Or those who, asking, learn what is needed and help where help is needed - or asked for.

At the very least we can try to avoid doing things that harm our natural environment or create difficulties in living with our social environment. The reward? Why should it be any more than knowing we are doing the best we can for the world we live in?

Setting Out, Toward A Smaller Boatprint

When you travel and live, as we now do, on oceans and along coast lines, you see things that were not part of the expectations, the dreams that set you on this path. I remember leaving Miami once and passing garbage and cast offs as we sailed away - plastic bottles, balloons, bits of wood, even a chest of drawers floating along. Far out on the ocean we have passed chunks of styrofoam, plastic crates, all kinds of plastic packaging, more balloons, more bottles, as well as the lost fishing and mooring buoys that weather or circumstance have torn away from where they were intended to be. We have seen plastic bags floating under the surface close to beaches, even lying on the bottom as we snorkel near the boat. Add to that the garbage which will deteriorate more quickly, the wood and the bits of food and fabric and rope that appear from time to time (and some of that plastic), the glass that washes up on some beaches, and it seems that wherever we human beings go we leave our trails of garbage behind. And since there are a lot of us, that makes a lot of garbage. And then there is all the garbage that lies mostly invisible in and under the water - from chemical waste to human waste to the remains of things we have constructed of materials whose permanence has outlasted their usefulness. And all the remains of all the fuels we burn, exhausting into the air and water...

Pausing in Dartmouth has give us time to reflect on a lot of this. And living with the multitude of kinds of packaging that come with each thing we buy, and the ongoing discussions about reducing/reusing/recycling that are now part of life in North America has helped focus our thoughts. As well as the news about the Bisphenol-A debate and the possible implications for our health of using our Nalgene water bottles. At the same time we have been reflecting on the price of using fossil fuels - both financially and to the environment - and exploring the use of electric motors and ways to improve our collection of electrical energy from wind and sun. At this point in our lives we are ready to do more to reduce our boatprint on the environment.

As I sorted the plastics, those that could be recycled and those that could not, I started to think about how to reduce the amount of plastic passing through our lives. A look through the things we buy revealed how much is packaged and contained in one kind of plastic or another. And of course we do live in what is, essentially, a plastic boat, constructed using a combination of petrochemicals. And use tools constructed of plastics. To live completely rid of plastics would be impractical. But there have to be practical ways to reduce the packaging we acquire, a way to replace at least some of what we use now with products less packaged, or not packaged in plastic at all. And we thought about the fact that even when plastic is recycled (not possible everywhere we visit) that recycling still uses some of our world’s precious supply of energy. And the less we use the less we contribute to that supply of almost indestructible garbage, wherever it ends up. Figuring out what we will do, and doing it, will be a good place to start.

So over the next little while we will be evaluating what we do now and what we hope to do while thinking about how to reduce the impact of our life on the environment around us, exploring what is possible and what is practical. We’ll keep a chronicle of our adventures, our ideas and actions and how things progress, on this blog. And talk a little bit about groups and people we meet along the way whose work is related to what we are trying to do. We hope you’ll join us in our explorations from time to time, and will be happy to hear any helpful suggestions and ideas you have. Next blog we’ll start tackling getting some of the plastic out of our lives...