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Yes, spare batteries are available and very easy to swap on and off at sea. Hold off and try it out before buying a spare battery though - if you're gentle with the throttle then the 1103c battery lasts a couple of hours at normal speeds and all day at low speeds (depending on size of boat). It has a maximum power of 1.1kw which is enough to push a 1.5tonne boat at about 1 knot below hull speed or a 1 tonne boat at full hull speed. That means it'll push a little dinghy around all day long as long as you resist that temptation to make more waves at hull speed without going any faster.

We (electric boat co) can arrange for you to view and/or pick up a Torqeedo 1103c at the distribution warehouse in Auckland after lockdown ends. We have two units of our stock down there and no Torqeedos left in Kerikeri at the moment, just a Combi 2.5kw H-Thruster left up here and 5kw inboards. Anything else we can order in from overseas. Not sure when new stock is coming in yet. We'll give you a better price than anyone in Auckland. Shipping is expensive due to the lithium battery so Auckland pick up is a good idea if you can.

Thanks for the mention Deep Purple. It's not listed on our website yet but we can now offer the Torqeedo 603 which is a de-rated version of the 1103 with reduced battery capacity. It saves you about $1000 and saves some weight too. Perfect if you just need to go out to a mooring and back. The 1103 has several hours running time at moderate speed, which is more than most people need. The standard 1103 is only 8kg and the battery is only 8kg too, really light weight and you are perfectly balanced with one in each hand. You put them on the boat one at a time so you never have to li

We had our yacht repainted at Vuda point, total cowboys, made an almighty mess which all had to be stripped off before starting again somewhere else. It was two months of horrible work with a sander to get it all off. These were supposedly Vuda point's "recommended contractors" so I made the mistake of trusting them to get on with it while I was away for a few days. Ended up with paint on decks, fittings, windows and even some of the places that were supposed to be painted (but just one very thick coat without any of the necessary sanding or primers first!). The job was contracted to be spraye

Unfortunately everything which really works has been made illegal. Some antifouling still works for some types of fouling but nothing works for all types any more. It might keep the barnacles off but the mussels and the slime are another matter... A quick light scrub every few weeks in summer and every few months in winter, take the fouling off before it gets bad is the most effective solution. Being based at Northcote point you can nip round into little shoal bay and dry out on the tide there to clean the bottom. Nobody seems to mind there as it's full of drying moorings anyway (it has b

Arbo 1096 from Arbosil is the absolute business. One component, sticks very strongly to acrylic (and is designed and tested for that purpose, not just for glass). Easy to work with, relatively easy to clean, not too thick so it's easy to squeeze out. Pretty much everyone uses it as the main product for boat windows in the UK. I've been trying hard to find it in NZ but I can't. If anyone tracks it down here then please let me know. It's not only a really good product but cheap too! Only about $13 for a big cartridge of it. If you need a decent quantity it might be worth ordering it from th

Wheels: There's nothing wrong with gel batteries when using a special gel charger. The OP is using an AGM charger so it's rather academic to discuss the advantages of gel. My analysis was based on the OPs specific requirements rather than a more general comparison of AGM and gel. AGM batteries are the correct solution for the OP and if he's not sure what brand to get then picking the heaviest available at the right physical size is a good rule of thumb to ensure he doesn't buy rubbish.

Gel batteries have much lower charge voltage than AGM. The problem is the batteries you had in it were Gel type not AGM. Gel batteries REQUIRE a special Gel charger which operates at significantly lower voltage than an AGM charger. If you charge a gel battery at AGM or flooded lead acid voltages then bubbles will very quickly form in the gel from overcharging. The bubbles separate the gel from the plates and the battery becomes useless. AGM batteries are much more tolerant and can be charged by a normal lead acid battery charger but they will last longer if you use a charger with special

looks like maybe a chinese copy of an andersen, or a very old andersen? Best get a machine shop to make a cap in a lathe, tight fit, press it on when hot and it'll stay on forever. Custom mechanical engineering jobs like that are not as expensive as you might expect, probably cheaper than the spare part in the unlikely event it is available.

Hydrogen is not happening any time soon. If you want unlimited range then solar panels are a cheap, easy, silent solution. Most boats can carry enough solar to do at least 3 knots in direct sunlight without taking anything from the batteries. Motorboats without shade from rigging and multihulls with more space can go as high as 5 knots in full sunshine or up to 3 knots on a bright cloudy day.

That's probably only the tide not the ocean current. You'd need to add the two together to find the total as ocean currents might be significant around Reinga (and amplified by the shallow water, which the forecast model might not include). There are ocean current forecasts available from saildocs.com which you can download as grib files and view using the grib plugin on OpenCPN. You have to really dig into the documentation for saildocs to find how to request the currents forecast but they are very useful for ocean passages. Just be aware that the forecasts are for quite large grid squar

You're right that keeping it simple is the key. Don't confuse the unknown with complexity though. An electric propulsion system has only one moving part (plus the balls in the bearings if you're pedantic). A diesel has hundreds of moving parts. The starter motor alone has more moving parts than a whole electric propulsion system! Not only that but a diesel vibrates everything else in the boat, potentially causing all sorts of other things to work loose or fail before their time, from hull fastenings around the engine mounts to electrical wiring, even metal fatigue in the rigging. Not

Torqeedo is a quality product which is widely used on commercial vessels in daily use, including our own safety boat. The warranty is two years, not one year. Our main product line for yachts, launches and commercial vessels is Combi. If you want an outboard to last a lifetime and pass to your grandkids then choose Combi. Torqeedo's big boat range is more aimed at performance (lightweight, high speed, high price). For a planing boat, superyacht tender, a very small dinghy or a racing yacht I'd usually recommend Torqeedo. Combi started supplying electric outboards 41 years ago. The ou

I was talking about a tender so I assumed that it would come in the package with a shared yacht. Smaller yachts can use the same outboard on the dinghy and the yacht. It might be a nice idea for clubs with big mooring fields like PYBC or Weiti to have a pool of outboards for their members. Two stroke sales were banned nearly 15 years ago in Europe. They don't need to ban using them because there are hardly any of them left to use. Nearly all the remaining petrol motors are four stroke and the EU should soon be legislating to phase out four stroke as well. They are banned from use

True controllable pitch props are popular on Norwegian workboats and big ships, not seen many outside Scandinavia. Nice things though. It's a completely different way of driving a boat, controlling your speed and often even fwd/reverse with the prop pitch while leaving the engine running at a steady speed. Too big, too expensive and too complicated for most yachts. Our Torqeedo pricing is the best in NZ and we can give a little bit more off if you pay by bank transfer but our margins are pretty tight. Unfortunately Torqeedo pricing in NZ is high due to a long, complicated supply chain, we

If it is in daily use then an electric motor can break even in a year and then you're saving money compared to a petrol or diesel. If you're not using your boat regularly then it will take longer. It's not very sustainable to have boats sitting around not being used, better to join a boat share, hire or charter, that way the electric motor will be fully utilised and can pay for itself in a year on the fuel and maintenance savings. Diesel and petrol need to be phased out in the next ten years so you can expect some serious fuel tax increases and hopefully we'll get free electric charg

They have a website at sailingcinderella.com if anyone is interested in their story. I have invited them to visit the forum here and give their perspective.

Ava and Pajo? They are real sailors who use their sails. They get by with a tiny battery capacity and minimal charging capability. Respect to them for doing it right. It's about having the right attitude, remembering you're on a sailing yacht and not a motorboat with a mast.

With a fixed prop you can only use the full torque at one chosen RPM. If you set the prop to use the full torque at maximum horsepower (say 3200 rpm) then it won't be using anything like the full available torque at any other RPM. therefore if you read off the torque curve that your engine can produce 20hp at 2200 RPM, that's not actually true because you didn't set the prop to fully load the engine at 2200 RPM, you set it to be fully loaded at 3200 RPM. Selecting a prop for maximum peak horsepower output results in the engine revving much higher than necessary at cruising speed, bas

If you had a workshop do the work for you as a one off then you may need to win the lottery first on the labour time alone, but it might be possible to make the frame yourself if you have plenty of spare time. Lightning Bolt in Auckland are very good for making up custom shafts and flanges, they might even do the whole job. The simplest approach for a one-off is using U section alloy or steel frame bolted together like the Electric Yacht system we are currently selling on our website. the photos here should give you the idea: https://electricboat.co.nz/index.php/product/electric-yach

I don't see why a belt driven freezer would use much more power than an electric one. You could perhaps put a pulley on the propshaft but I've never seen it done. Remember there's no gearbox so there's no neutral, you can't run the motor without turning the prop. How would you run the fridge at anchor? Better to just use an electric freezer.

A freezer uses about 50-60 watts, negligible compared to propulsion. You won't notice any difference. Some people use a separate 12v house battery and a 48-12v charger (necessary if you have a 12v windlass), others just have a 48-12v converter for smaller loads. A 48v windlass makes a lot of sense but they are hard to find. That will change.

Fair comment. Don't forget the incredible level of low speed control and torque. You either need shore power or a good amount of solar. Solar limits you to doing consecutive long trips only on sunny days or with time to charge in between. Most cruisers only sail in fair weather and it's usually sunny when there's no wind, so that can be OK. A cheap, lightweight portable genset can sit in a locker for peace of mind and get pulled out once a year if you need it in a pinch. Of course it's better if people plan their trips properly and make small changes to their behaviour so they n

This horsepower inflation thing has been going on for a while. One horsepower used to be considered adequate for a 40 tonne coal barge....* * Propeller sizing was not a problem back then and the transmission was nearly 100% efficient. The emissions were still undesirable.

Yep, and outboard horsepower is even more overstated by the manufacturers than inboard horsepower! "Hi thrust" is the key here, you had the right propeller to get all of the available power into the water. Diesel props are often undersized due to constraints of hull clearance or so that the engine isn't overloaded with a big alternator and fridge compressor hanging off it. Or they are sized for a maximum speed rather than a maximum thrust. They could be "one size fits all" so the standard prop on a 30hp diesel might be sized for the hull speed of the longest boat you'd reasonably fit that