Zap! Pow!

For less than 24 hours we were a sailing only boat. We got rid of Yam, the old motor, sent off to a better place.

Today? A new electric motor was delivered to us: an e-propulsion Navy 6.

Since buying Tornseglare, we have debated getting an electric motor. It seemed silly to rely on fossil fuels, even if only to get in and out of the harbour. But we were always a bit uncertain about electric motors. Are they powerful enough for a 2000kg boat? Do they have enough range for us to get in and out of harbours, as well as motor for a stretch if we need it? To make matters worse, most online text about them feels very SEO-ey, and they all cite some possibly magic numbers when converting from Watts to Horsepower. It’s hard to know what to believe. (In case it’s not obvious by how hopeless we are, we are not sponsored in any way and all opinions are our own!)

Anyhow! Long story short, after deciding that the old motor was no more, searching online (and soul-searching), we bit the bullet, followed the advice to not skimp on battery capacity, and a week later our motor was arriving. All 160kg of it. We were very happy with the expertise, fast responses and patience of Green Boat Solutions in Berlin to help us get the right configuration for the long haul. (We sized up planning to keep this motor and batteries for 10 years, and maybe by then we’ll have a bigger boat…)

Thankfully, our neighbour Jörg offered to help us, and so at lunch today we swept the collection of heavy boxes from one vehicle to another, and then after work we drove out to see what exactly it was we had bought, and to see if it actually all fit on the boat.

Reader, it did! With only a bit more effort than the previous day (45 kg batteries are heavy, yo), we had all the pieces on the boat before our one-hour parking time was up.

Now comes the fun part. How does battery work? Where do cables go? Didn’t we just take a course in this? And why do batteries have Bluetooth these days?

Stay tuned for us actually plugging things in and turning them on!