I'm so impressed with Justin's attitude through a trying time and I'm so excited to see the new conversion going Forward. I've been looking at boats for a while and absolutely want to do a Conversion!!
P.s. I think the ideal battery size for a boat is 50-200 kwh and id love to see a proper battery build in a bit larger boat. I hope to do something like this someday.
What's interesting on the Bayfield is that there's quite a bit of room battery under the floorboards above the keel ballast. There's like a 12" high by 9-10" wide cavity that spans a good 6-7 feet long. So we can get a good amount of battery hidden and well below the waterline actually contributing to our ballast and stability. In total there's 4000 pounds of lead ballast in this full length keel. Imagine if just 50% of that dead weight ballast could be replaced with LiFePO4 battery instead we'd have our 100 kWhr right there! For a boat build from scratch this could be the way.
Having an electric boat ourselves, we're following your videos with great interest! A few weeks ago a huge storm here in Monterey Bay, USA, resulted in a hole in our hull, but luckily it didn't sink. (I'm in the process of converting an old 1986 moped to electric with one of your direct drive hub motors).
Happy to see your interest in the marine propulsion, I had this idea for an electric outboard using a hub motor I don't have the resources to give it a try but if you like to hear about it I will be happy to share.
Bummer Justin! Great to see your scientific processing of the sad event and the community spirit of your extended crew family. You’re living life well !!!💕🍀✌️
Consider using Victron for power (Charging and possibly AC inverter) as many boats would already have that installed. Battery can be expanded easily to accommodate boat size.
Hi! I think I saw Shamrock at the yard I'm currently working on my sailboat. My sailboat has an old engine but it works fine. I'd love to consider converting to an electric motor if it fails. Please keep us updated on your progress. Cheers!
Oh interesting, how long ago was this? The Shelter Island Marina said it could be a while before they actually crush the boat. There are a few thru-hull fittings that I kinda want to recover to use on the Bayfield but didn't want to make the long drive out there if it wasn't accessible. And good luck with your current work. Definitely no point in removing a perfectly functional engine if it's still working well. But when it does eventually bite the dust there there will likely be quite a few more electric options out there.
2000W to go 5kt is really impressive on a 30' boat. My Cal 33 has a Motenergy ME1304 motor and Sevcon 4 controller. I don't get a lot of flat water to test with here in SF Bay but I'm pretty sure I'd need at least 5-7KW to go 5kt in flat water. I wonder if they have an ideal propeller. My propeller is an old brass folding Martec racing prop designed for Atomic 4. Sorry for Shamrock's sinking and good luck Justin and team.
Yeah that was really a surprise to us too. Chris said their boat is quite light and low displacement for the length. I'm pretty sure the Bayfield will need more like 5000 watts to hit that same speed.
Props to the friends there! Dropping everything to go waist deep in cold water in the middle of the night is no small ask. Shame about the boat itself, but your destructive testing approach seems to have taken things in stride. Was the relatively low cost of salvage directly due to the electric drive? It would be interesting to get a quote if fuel cleanup had been required. I suspect the salvage yard has similar fuel cleanup cost built in as well. And extra thought: for the rare instance where the wind and solar wasn't enough, a small propane generator seems ideal here. It really only needs to join you on longer trips, and just having the option could let you get away with a smaller battery bank the majority of the time. It does lack a certain elegance, but a cost-effective and flexible backup system has it charm as well. Perhaps worth staring with one for a lower cost build as well as renovation tool, then grow into the battery bank that best matches the demand? Redundant power in combo with redundant motors would seem like a major perk
Yeah the friends really came through here and I can't imagine us pulling that off with even 1 fewer set of hands. The fact that it was electric never came up in the scrapping cost at the yard. They seemed to just have a fixed price based on the boat size. I imagine the fact that they can recover a decent bit of $$ in scrap metal (1900 lb of lead in this keel and lots of aluminum and stainless) helps offset the actual crushing and dump fees. A generator backup is definitely on the drawing board for the Bayfield! It came already with a propane system for the stove and interior heating so it seems logical to tap into that with a generator too and have just one fuel source. We'll still put in at least 30 kWhr of lithium though.
Sad about the boat, but congrats on getting right back into it. A luggage-sized generator (Honda, etc.) would be a good thing for which to find some space. Principles are one thing, safety is another. As for regen, Sailing Uma is trying 2 motors/props to double the available regen. We'll see how effective they are with that approach. I'm a fan of hybrids, myself, redundancy in all things nautical. I can break down on the side of the road, in the middle of a waterway isn't an option. Diesels are fairly simple critters and you are an engineer after all 😀 Fair winds, cap'n!
Most successful set up seems to be that used on the Windelo catamarans .. with a generator back up. Have a look at what Edison Motors are up to with their Topsy Hybrid logging trucks and pick up conversions and solar towers. They are in BC Canada on a river....
Yes a generator is on the drawing boards for the Bayfield boat. Definitely makes a lot of sense on longer trips, and also much easier to service/replace than an inboard engine if ever it gives troubles. But rather than using an off the shelf generator with an AC output feeding a high power charger for the batteries, we can also just hook up another one of these motors to the engine shaft with a rectifier and use it to directly charge the bank. More efficient for sure. Otherwise you end up going from AC (generator winding outout) to DC (generator inverter input) to AC (generator inverter's output) to DC (charger's input) to DC (charger's output), soo many extra power conversions it makes my head hurt thinking about the unnecessary losses.
Excellent video. Effective solutions and technology improvement inputs eventually always lead to more significant technological break throughs. That said, what more could we possibly want besides decreased costs. Here we utilize the sun energy, ample storage possibilities, nearly perfect three phase power controls, and motors with reliability, significant service life having minimal part counts and maintenance requirements. Perfect! 👍 You might consider viewing Doctor John D Kelly's videos for the Weber State University Automotive Technologies where he produces amazing videos of EV battery Technology and related integrated systems and subsystems. The automotive ( and bus) industry has phenomenal technology at scaled costs. 400 VDC is where GM is at now. 😊
I'm really curious about how the battery was handled, how did you guys transport it, and where and how did you pick it up without getting electrocuted??
We ended up slitting the shrink tube and keeping them under water in the crab traps for a couple days to ensure that all the cells discharged to 0V and then they could be handled without as much risk and put in normal recycling stream. We were worried of a fire risk too, and didn't want to take any chances of that either.
Before all this happened we'd actually purchased a larger 14" diameter prop with a steeper 12" pitch (vs the 12x7 prop that came with Shamrock) that I imagined would perform much better, and wanted to do a comparison of the differences both propulsion efficiency and regen capture. But it's hard to quantify regen when sailing given the hugely variable wind conditions. A controlled test towing the prop and motor behind a powerboat moving and different speeds would be more ideal, or just placing it in a river and comparing them in identical flow conditions.
No this never got listed for sale but it's pretty common to see used Cal25's on marketplace. We were planning to sell her this year in 2025 with the move to a bigger boat, but fate had other ideas!
We have both 3T and 2T stator windings available, which are 20rpm/v and 30 rpm/v respectively. For 72v batteries we'd use the 3T winding which allows for smaller phase wires, while for 48v it would usually be the 2T, though with a high pitch prop and a bit of field weakening the 3T can sometimes work well at 48V too.
The Bayfield 32 will make a Great test bed for your EV (Electric Vessel) systems, I am glad you can give her a new life. Congratulations. I will be following. Name????
She came with no name, so we get to christen her! The two leading candidates suggested by my daughter are "Blue Sparkles" and "Galaxy" but the court is still open for suggestions if you have any :-)
My god, in which recycling bin do you put a fizzing Li-Ion battery? lol I'm guessing leave it outdoors until the fizzing stops encase them in a solid concrete sarcophagus?
Yeah, indeed we were a little nervous the whole time about a battery cell randomly shorting internally and going into runaway so we actually kept the batteries just underwater in a crab trap for the whole time before it got towed to make sure that couldn't happen, and also to ensure that they were all fully discharged by the time it got to the scrap yard. We left them with the boatyard as they have all the recycling facilities for separating metals etc. and I imagine would go into the standard lithium battery recycling channels. We're definitely considering potting the batteries we put on on the Bayfield boat so that cells themselves are fully protected if they ever get dunked like this.
@@GrinTechnologiesun caisson étanche pour les batteries : En deux parties comme deux coques l’une sur l’autre. Avec lèvres pour écraser une joint continue. Le serrage de l’ensemble : madriers, tiges filetées. Sinon plusieurs boites…. Si pas assez le place.
You should have treated everything with corrosion x Used it on RC model boats and sailing Uma ised ot on their boats first conversion Set up. The electric 4WD car powerpacks have to be waterproof .. in fact the chinese make one that can actually swim . 😉
great to hear that you're not abandoning sailing! Would love to see electric conversions becoming a mainstream. Should be way easier than converting cars
next...go foiling. electric will rule the world one day. earlier the better. Greetings from a sailor of the steinhuder Meer near Hannover Germany. a lake were no petrol motor is allowed.
Sorry you lost the boat but glad you’re exploring electrification in the marine market.
Good luck with your endeavors.
So cool to see the stacked motors!
Yay! I can't wait to see how this goes. I've been dreaming about converting my Cape Dory 28. Looking forward to updates!
Love the modular stackable axles. Can't wait to see them in action.
I'm so impressed with Justin's attitude through a trying time and I'm so excited to see the new conversion going Forward. I've been looking at boats for a while and absolutely want to do a Conversion!!
P.s. I think the ideal battery size for a boat is 50-200 kwh and id love to see a proper battery build in a bit larger boat. I hope to do something like this someday.
What's interesting on the Bayfield is that there's quite a bit of room battery under the floorboards above the keel ballast. There's like a 12" high by 9-10" wide cavity that spans a good 6-7 feet long. So we can get a good amount of battery hidden and well below the waterline actually contributing to our ballast and stability.
In total there's 4000 pounds of lead ballast in this full length keel. Imagine if just 50% of that dead weight ballast could be replaced with LiFePO4 battery instead we'd have our 100 kWhr right there! For a boat build from scratch this could be the way.
@@GrinTechnologies awesome!that's the dream!
AHHH Shamrock! Nooo. Sad to hear she has been salvaged - but very exciting for you that you now have access to a larger 32fter!
Most interesting and instructive, good luck with the new developments. Thank you .
Having an electric boat ourselves, we're following your videos with great interest! A few weeks ago a huge storm here in Monterey Bay, USA, resulted in a hole in our hull, but luckily it didn't sink. (I'm in the process of converting an old 1986 moped to electric with one of your direct drive hub motors).
Sad to see Shamrock go, all the best for the future! The couplings are super cool!
Happy to see your interest in the marine propulsion, I had this idea for an electric outboard using a hub motor I don't have the resources to give it a try but if you like to hear about it I will be happy to share.
Bummer Justin! Great to see your scientific processing of the sad event and the community spirit of your extended crew family. You’re living life well !!!💕🍀✌️
What a great story, well told, and sure to have a great ending for you, your family and cohorts, and the entire fleet of pleasure marine. Congrats.
Consider using Victron for power (Charging and possibly AC inverter) as many boats would already have that installed. Battery can be expanded easily to accommodate boat size.
Hi! I think I saw Shamrock at the yard I'm currently working on my sailboat. My sailboat has an old engine but it works fine. I'd love to consider converting to an electric motor if it fails. Please keep us updated on your progress. Cheers!
Oh interesting, how long ago was this? The Shelter Island Marina said it could be a while before they actually crush the boat. There are a few thru-hull fittings that I kinda want to recover to use on the Bayfield but didn't want to make the long drive out there if it wasn't accessible.
And good luck with your current work. Definitely no point in removing a perfectly functional engine if it's still working well. But when it does eventually bite the dust there there will likely be quite a few more electric options out there.
@ Shamrock is still in the yard. I saw someone left a message on the hull so I sent you an email with a photo.
2000W to go 5kt is really impressive on a 30' boat. My Cal 33 has a Motenergy ME1304 motor and Sevcon 4 controller. I don't get a lot of flat water to test with here in SF Bay but I'm pretty sure I'd need at least 5-7KW to go 5kt in flat water. I wonder if they have an ideal propeller. My propeller is an old brass folding Martec racing prop designed for Atomic 4. Sorry for Shamrock's sinking and good luck Justin and team.
Yeah that was really a surprise to us too. Chris said their boat is quite light and low displacement for the length. I'm pretty sure the Bayfield will need more like 5000 watts to hit that same speed.
Props to the friends there! Dropping everything to go waist deep in cold water in the middle of the night is no small ask. Shame about the boat itself, but your destructive testing approach seems to have taken things in stride. Was the relatively low cost of salvage directly due to the electric drive? It would be interesting to get a quote if fuel cleanup had been required. I suspect the salvage yard has similar fuel cleanup cost built in as well. And extra thought: for the rare instance where the wind and solar wasn't enough, a small propane generator seems ideal here. It really only needs to join you on longer trips, and just having the option could let you get away with a smaller battery bank the majority of the time. It does lack a certain elegance, but a cost-effective and flexible backup system has it charm as well. Perhaps worth staring with one for a lower cost build as well as renovation tool, then grow into the battery bank that best matches the demand? Redundant power in combo with redundant motors would seem like a major perk
Yeah the friends really came through here and I can't imagine us pulling that off with even 1 fewer set of hands. The fact that it was electric never came up in the scrapping cost at the yard. They seemed to just have a fixed price based on the boat size. I imagine the fact that they can recover a decent bit of $$ in scrap metal (1900 lb of lead in this keel and lots of aluminum and stainless) helps offset the actual crushing and dump fees.
A generator backup is definitely on the drawing board for the Bayfield! It came already with a propane system for the stove and interior heating so it seems logical to tap into that with a generator too and have just one fuel source. We'll still put in at least 30 kWhr of lithium though.
L’empilement : c’est grave ! Sauf pour les moteurs Grin et similaire 😳👍.
Bravo Justin et bon vent.
Belle et heureuse année 2025 .
Sad about the boat, but congrats on getting right back into it. A luggage-sized generator (Honda, etc.) would be a good thing for which to find some space. Principles are one thing, safety is another. As for regen, Sailing Uma is trying 2 motors/props to double the available regen. We'll see how effective they are with that approach. I'm a fan of hybrids, myself, redundancy in all things nautical. I can break down on the side of the road, in the middle of a waterway isn't an option. Diesels are fairly simple critters and you are an engineer after all 😀 Fair winds, cap'n!
Most successful set up seems to be that used on the Windelo catamarans .. with a generator back up.
Have a look at what Edison
Motors are up to with their Topsy Hybrid logging trucks and pick up conversions and solar towers.
They are in BC Canada on a river....
Yes a generator is on the drawing boards for the Bayfield boat. Definitely makes a lot of sense on longer trips, and also much easier to service/replace than an inboard engine if ever it gives troubles.
But rather than using an off the shelf generator with an AC output feeding a high power charger for the batteries, we can also just hook up another one of these motors to the engine shaft with a rectifier and use it to directly charge the bank. More efficient for sure.
Otherwise you end up going from AC (generator winding outout) to DC (generator inverter input) to AC (generator inverter's output) to DC (charger's input) to DC (charger's output), soo many extra power conversions it makes my head hurt thinking about the unnecessary losses.
Trouble seems to follow that Culkin lad everywhere.
Excellent video. Effective solutions and technology improvement inputs eventually always lead to more significant technological break throughs. That said, what more could we possibly want besides decreased costs. Here we utilize the sun energy, ample storage possibilities, nearly perfect three phase power controls, and motors with reliability, significant service life having minimal part counts and maintenance requirements. Perfect! 👍
You might consider viewing Doctor John D Kelly's videos for the Weber State University Automotive Technologies where he produces amazing videos of EV battery Technology and related integrated systems and subsystems. The automotive ( and bus) industry has phenomenal technology at scaled costs. 400 VDC is where GM is at now. 😊
I'm really curious about how the battery was handled, how did you guys transport it, and where and how did you pick it up without getting electrocuted??
We ended up slitting the shrink tube and keeping them under water in the crab traps for a couple days to ensure that all the cells discharged to 0V and then they could be handled without as much risk and put in normal recycling stream.
We were worried of a fire risk too, and didn't want to take any chances of that either.
Also fascinating observation about regen from the prop. I'd been wondering about that for small sub drones.
Before all this happened we'd actually purchased a larger 14" diameter prop with a steeper 12" pitch (vs the 12x7 prop that came with Shamrock) that I imagined would perform much better, and wanted to do a comparison of the differences both propulsion efficiency and regen capture.
But it's hard to quantify regen when sailing given the hugely variable wind conditions. A controlled test towing the prop and motor behind a powerboat moving and different speeds would be more ideal, or just placing it in a river and comparing them in identical flow conditions.
Good thing you were not in a solar sun boat race..sorry to see the delema you had to go through
Tell us more about this solar sun boat race!
Was there a point where you guys had it listed for sale? Thought I saw the same one listed in the last 2 years
No this never got listed for sale but it's pretty common to see used Cal25's on marketplace. We were planning to sell her this year in 2025 with the move to a bigger boat, but fate had other ideas!
I was wondering did you match the kv from moter -to- moter 3T & 5T or something like that. Just a thought which got me all emotional
We have both 3T and 2T stator windings available, which are 20rpm/v and 30 rpm/v respectively. For 72v batteries we'd use the 3T winding which allows for smaller phase wires, while for 48v it would usually be the 2T, though with a high pitch prop and a bit of field weakening the 3T can sometimes work well at 48V too.
The Bayfield 32 will make a Great test bed for your EV (Electric Vessel) systems, I am glad you can give her a new life. Congratulations. I will be following. Name????
She came with no name, so we get to christen her! The two leading candidates suggested by my daughter are "Blue Sparkles" and "Galaxy" but the court is still open for suggestions if you have any :-)
My god, in which recycling bin do you put a fizzing Li-Ion battery? lol I'm guessing leave it outdoors until the fizzing stops encase them in a solid concrete sarcophagus?
Yeah, indeed we were a little nervous the whole time about a battery cell randomly shorting internally and going into runaway so we actually kept the batteries just underwater in a crab trap for the whole time before it got towed to make sure that couldn't happen, and also to ensure that they were all fully discharged by the time it got to the scrap yard. We left them with the boatyard as they have all the recycling facilities for separating metals etc. and I imagine would go into the standard lithium battery recycling channels.
We're definitely considering potting the batteries we put on on the Bayfield boat so that cells themselves are fully protected if they ever get dunked like this.
@@GrinTechnologiesun caisson étanche pour les batteries :
En deux parties comme deux coques l’une sur l’autre. Avec lèvres pour écraser une joint continue.
Le serrage de l’ensemble : madriers, tiges filetées.
Sinon plusieurs boites….
Si pas assez le place.
@@GrinTechnologies Lithium batteries are not recycled. I found this out when I tried to recycle +200 100Ah cells
Pissing Excellence, I watched the entire episode.
No comments, since the content covered is too intense for individual comments!
You should have treated everything with corrosion x
Used it on RC model boats and sailing Uma ised ot on their boats first conversion
Set up.
The electric 4WD car powerpacks have to be waterproof .. in fact the chinese make one that can actually swim . 😉
great to hear that you're not abandoning sailing! Would love to see electric conversions becoming a mainstream. Should be way easier than converting cars
next...go foiling. electric will rule the world one day. earlier the better. Greetings from a sailor of the steinhuder Meer near Hannover Germany. a lake were no petrol motor is allowed.
Being a 30-year live aboard rag bagger, losing a boat is like losing a wife or a husband
and a wife like a boat is a huge drain on resources.