1227Hrs- Just Do It
In boat building, as in life, there are things that must be done no matter how much you try and avoid them. It is easy to expend lots of time and energy on avoidance but ultimately you have to do whatever it is. Yesterday the boat building subject in question was sanding, I started, got bored, and wandered off into other things. Today I made up for it and instead of starting on the chine fillets I donned hat gloves and face mask, picked up the belt sander and cracked on. Seven hours later I had all the filled screw holes in both hulls sanded back. I probably won’t be able to move my arms tomorrow but right now I feel very pleased with myself. Thanks to Chuck for posting the link to a site promoting electric propulsion units. This was one of the ones I’d found during my research but I also found some on line comments about problems with their service and with overheating control units. I’m hoping that in a few years things will have developed and there will be a better range of options because it is certainly an appealing option.
Neil,
I am also looking into electric propulsion and I have talked with Kevin (from re-epower) a few times already. I think his system is very promising. I have already looked into where and how it coud be installed on a Tiki 38. I am trying to come up with a system that would keep me completely "off the grid" but I am not quite there yet. I do need a few luxuries like a fridge (cold beer) and I want a watermaker. Both are fairly power hungry. I can deal with both using solar and wind power but I still have not found a way (yet) to have all of that AND electric propulsion. For now, there seems to be no way around a generator to get enough juice. I would be completely off the electric grid but still connected (albeit in a limited fashion) to the oil pipeline.
We can talk more but let me know if you find out more and we can put our collective brain power together to figure out the best "bang for the buck".
Cheers
Martin