A quick introduction here to myself and my upcoming project. I'm Patrick, originally from South Africa, but moving to Croatia soon where I've bought a modified 1976 Catalac 9M catamaran:
This is a 4 year old picture, the boat isn't anywhere near as clean and shiny at the moment, but it'll get back to that.
The previous owner, a German engineer, did a lot of work I quite liked and would have done anyway if I bought a standard boat. The front cabins have been joined to make a king sized cabin, there's now full standing headroom in the salon, and a hardtop over the cockpit with a decent enclosure. He also did a couple of things that need to be undone, primarily moving the backstays from the rear arch back to the original attachment points, and cleaning up the wiring spaghetti!
When I bought it it had twin 30HP Perkins diesels onboard. They're supposed to be really great engines, though completely overpowered for this boat. Sadly I married a woman with the worlds worst superpower. She has the sense of smell of a bloodhound, and either the diesels had to go or I'd need to find a new wife. Fortunately I'm a huge fan of electric propulsion, and have built quite a few different electric vehicles, so the wife got to stay. It'll also be much easier for me maintaining the electric setup rather than learning how to be a diesel mechanic.
The Perkins will both hopefully get sold when I get back to Croatia in April, and then I'll have a bit of cash to pay for the electric motors. I was planning on installing a pair of electric outboards, but now I'm leaning more towards electric inboards since it's already a shaft driven boat.
Then in terms of battery I'm hoping for 16 300AH lifepo4 cells for a total of around 15kWH in a 48v pack. If anyone knows of a trustworthy supplier who can deliver to Croatia, please let me know! I see Amy from Luyuan comes very highly recommended, but if there's more suppliers with decent 300ah cells at a a fair price I'll consider other offers.
To keep it all charged I'm planning on 8 x Sunpower Maxeon 3 400w panels, for a total of 3.2kW.
Anyway, hope to get a lot of advice on the bits and pieces here, as while I've build EVs before, this is my first build using solar.
Here's a few more pictures for you. Again they're all old. The boat still looked good, but there was obviously a lot of wear and tear and sun damage that needs to be sorted out:
This is a 4 year old picture, the boat isn't anywhere near as clean and shiny at the moment, but it'll get back to that.
The previous owner, a German engineer, did a lot of work I quite liked and would have done anyway if I bought a standard boat. The front cabins have been joined to make a king sized cabin, there's now full standing headroom in the salon, and a hardtop over the cockpit with a decent enclosure. He also did a couple of things that need to be undone, primarily moving the backstays from the rear arch back to the original attachment points, and cleaning up the wiring spaghetti!
When I bought it it had twin 30HP Perkins diesels onboard. They're supposed to be really great engines, though completely overpowered for this boat. Sadly I married a woman with the worlds worst superpower. She has the sense of smell of a bloodhound, and either the diesels had to go or I'd need to find a new wife. Fortunately I'm a huge fan of electric propulsion, and have built quite a few different electric vehicles, so the wife got to stay. It'll also be much easier for me maintaining the electric setup rather than learning how to be a diesel mechanic.
The Perkins will both hopefully get sold when I get back to Croatia in April, and then I'll have a bit of cash to pay for the electric motors. I was planning on installing a pair of electric outboards, but now I'm leaning more towards electric inboards since it's already a shaft driven boat.
Then in terms of battery I'm hoping for 16 300AH lifepo4 cells for a total of around 15kWH in a 48v pack. If anyone knows of a trustworthy supplier who can deliver to Croatia, please let me know! I see Amy from Luyuan comes very highly recommended, but if there's more suppliers with decent 300ah cells at a a fair price I'll consider other offers.
To keep it all charged I'm planning on 8 x Sunpower Maxeon 3 400w panels, for a total of 3.2kW.
Anyway, hope to get a lot of advice on the bits and pieces here, as while I've build EVs before, this is my first build using solar.
Here's a few more pictures for you. Again they're all old. The boat still looked good, but there was obviously a lot of wear and tear and sun damage that needs to be sorted out:
