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@@fredflintstone1428 you could steer just with the motors, but they'd need to be mounted wider apart. When I angle my motors I can steer with them, but not with them aimed straight ahead. If they were under the hulls then I could, but not where they're mounted now. Also think about what you'd do if you had no rudder or steerable outboards and lost a motor. You need something that can steer, either the rudder or the motor.

@@SailingElectra My transoms, with the 15kW Aquamot Trend 15.0 outboards will be about 5 metres apart (the cat 's beam is 6m). I thought about an emergency situation, where I might lose one outboard and would carry a rudder (tiller) that could be lowered in a central position and manually controlled. Does that sound feasible?

I'd love to see more about your boat, and the new one! Do you have the info posted somewhere?

@SailingElectra no, but I might post it up. I could probably scratch up enough pictures to do a sideshow on the little one. I'm documenting the big ones build, so I might have a good amount to post. CZcams is the only social media I have. I might get a Facebook soon just for the Facebook marketplace. I hate asking other people to use theirs for me.

It was dark and I'm from South Africa where swimming at night will get you eaten! I'll build up the courage for next time if it feels less sharky :) Croatia is really beautiful!

@@SailingElectra It is safe mate. Very safe. Both on land and in water. Just relax and enjoy.

@@adamtedder1012 I'm planning a whole video on that, but it's all about levers. Boats turn around the center of mass, more or less the center of the boat, so with my evolves straight ahead you need to imagine a line going straight forward to the middle of the boat which gives me a lever of 0.5m on each side. With the motors tilted at 25 degrees, the line to the center goes forward in that direction and is effectively much wider. By the time that line gets to the middle of the boat is as if the motors are actually 3.9m apart, so the increased leverage is huge. Another day to think of it is how motorboats turn. They don't have a rudder, they just tilt the motor giving a very wide virtual lever to turn the boat. It's kind of hard to picture, but the video will have diagrams to make things easier!

Haha sounds brilliant, I'll put it on my to do list 😁

Thanks Yogi. I'm happy to report that it got even more amazing once we got to Damlatia!

Thanks Fred, no, no charge, maybe just lucky with the light. I am trying to use the wide angle lens more, maybe that helps.

@@junasmh thanks for the comment, glad you found it useful!

@@jonahcombs451 they're ePropulsion Navy 6 Evo's.

@@jonahcombs451 it's custom but it was on the boat when I bought it, I just had supports added for the solar.

Thanks! Yeah the motors angled make a huge difference. I'll do a video just on them, but the calculations show that it's the same as if they were mounted 3.9m apart. Even further than the inboards used to be apart! It's the difference between me being terrified going into marinas to now having it be almost no stress!

Yes, we're all flea-proof now. Next episode we'll get our rabies shots, and maybe some cones so we don't chew paws 😂 It was a good easy sail, the previous day was the complete opposite and we ran back to Grado for cover!

Sounds great, hopefully we see you on the water soon!

aluminium

Thanks Ralf, still the same dinghy as last year though, the one that came with the boat lasted exactly one trip. Got me 5km away from the boat and then split basically all the seams!

Thanks, Candice always makes me laugh!

Thanks

Thanks! You should be fine, I saw a 6.5m wide trimaran come in without any issues.

@@SailingElectra Ah, that's good to know. Happy sailing.

That's a very good question actually! I've become very weight sensitive to adding things to my boat, so I won't be the one to try, but yeah I imagine it would work as well as the extra wattage you get on bifacials. I suspect we'll keep seeing more innovation in this area.

The v-shaped hulls were designed to provide the lateral resistance in place of the keels.

@@PieterOskam I am, but only because I followed your advice! It's working so well, thanks for that!

@@LostYogi thanks for the tip, I'll add them. It's a Catalac 9M, weighs 5 tons, has a 14.4kwh battery pack and 3200W of solar.

@@SailingElectra Thank you❤

Thanks Rob, yeah I can highly recommend it, especially if you have room for a lot of solar!

Good to hear. I really enjoy it. I wasn't much of a water person, but I always wanted to live on a boat. I've become much more of a water person though :)

Thanks!

Ah great to hear, and yeah the plan is to head in that direction as soon as our new mainsail arrives.

We will be on Rab with our boat 15 july to 16 August. See how it goes, we can meet up for a lekker Braai and Beers

The Adriatic is Beautiful BUT those calm flat waters can quickly change with the Bora. Lightening and thunder and 200km winds. A good tip, chat to local fishermen they know the weather system well

Thanks for that. And yeah lightning does worry me. I have no idea what would work to protect it. I've seen some things and then see some people saying they make things worse and that lightning is impossible to protect against. Any advice would be great, at the moment my strategy is simply to not have the tallest mast around :)

Hi David, we're 5 tons. I know a much heavier boat that does similar speeds with similar power levels, so in my opinion drag is far more important than weight.

No, but it's typically very simple, just treat it like a layer of regular fibreglass except you don't need to add any more resin. It's not even really required, but gives you a great smooth finish.

Thanks! With no wind around 5 knots. The power draw goes up exponentially, so you either need loads of batteries, or to be happy with 4-5 knots.

It seems to do the job, so much so that I'm no longer terrified of docking! I need to do some measurements of angles and proper calculations to see how it really compares to wider motor spacing. I'll get onto that soon.

Thanks Fred, It's great to be back on the water. Have had a few day trips so far, but I'm anxiously waiting for the sails to arrive at month end. I'm a big fan of the hopyacht, but personally I wish they would add more solar. They could put an arch across the back with another 3 panels which would make it near perfect in my view. They have twice the battery I do, but I have twice the panels they do. Personally I think more panels wins but I guess it depends on the use. Hopping from port to port and plugging in when you're there is a good use case for more batteries. We don't plug in at all.

Thanks Peter, i really love my Catalac. Hopefully my mainsail arrives soon and I can actually sail it!

😂I can highly recommend it

She's just not allowed to wear it standing on the top deck or we'll lose all our solar!

@@SailingElectra 😅😂😂Good call!

Thanks Lisa!

Thanks, I really enjoyed that trip too

Glad you found it useful Petar

Thanks for the comment Claudio, good to know!

Thanks for that. Yeah it's been a fun project and I think electric propulsion makes a lot of sense for catamarans with the amount of space they have for solar. We're back in the water this Friday in fact, so I'll be posting more videos soon!

Yeah I think so too. My guess is that soon sailing will become a pure hobby like horse riding. To move a boat at sailboat speeds people will just use solar electric.

Yeah it's where the boat was when I bought it.

Yeah I've had it happen once that the one remote ran out of battery becausei kept it out of the sun too long. All I had to do was plug it into the cable from the motor again and it switched to wired control and wired charging.

I wouldn't have one just for myself either, but the price was right, there's no effort needed and we definitely save water!

Thanks!

That's a big boat, I imagine you can have a ton of solar panels! Unfortunately I don't know any experts on your side of the pond, though I'm sure there are a few. I do know an expert in Europe who is actually an American, if you want his details let me know.

Wow another saffa with a 9M, who would have guessed! You're lucky you can sell the motors to get some money back. Mine were dead so I got almost nothing. One thing to consider is outboards vs pods. Doing it again I would seriously consider pods so they're deeper in the water and further apart. Costs are about the same. Where is your boat?

@@SailingElectra Hey I switched to my boat identity. I know, right? Coincidence or Great Minds or what? As soon as I started researching I found your channel. Tomorrow I am off to Lowestoft on the North Sea coast to take delivery. I will be heading for Cowes to 'borrow' a whole lot of gear off my old ferro Endurance 35 (SV Rolling Stone). Then off to the Med via French canals. Where are you? I would so love to see your lovely Catalac! No name for the Catalac yet.

I haven't seen those. I have a washer onboard but it weighs a ton. I'd love to switch it out with something lighter. And yeah a dishwasher is a luxury, but a washing machine is a must!