When it comes to beautiful, fuel-efficient boats it pays to look back to the early lobster boats that raced home to Jonesport, Maine, in the early 20th century. None were finer than the lovely torpedo stern boats of Will Frost, considered by some as the father ofthe modern Downeast semi-displacement hull form.
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Mark Bielemeier says:
Thanks
Axel Ziegler says:
This would also make a great steam launch. The steam engine would drive a generator.
Sean Scully says:
Wondering about battery placement, if it would help stabilize the boat. Otherwise it looks like upset stomach. You can not have the batteries below the waterline and expect them to live in a salt environment. Just a thought. add solar on top, Think I will pass on this one. Do like the thoughts of electric though, maybe just not for this boat.
Sean Scully says:
My only concern is getting home. I live on the mighty Columbia River with tides exceeding 7-8 knots ,and high winds. Would agree with you on a larger motor, but would want a fossil fuel generator as a back-up like Hondas hy-bread car. I’d hate have to toss the anchor and let the current rotate the prop ro recharge in the shipping channel. Nice design though very clean.
Dale Niemann says:
Doug,
Would it be possible to work a tunnel drive into this design in order to cruise in very shallow water like we have in West Coast Florida. Or does the tunnel drive need speed to function properly?
Thank you for a lovely design and ideas on electric propulsion.
Dale Niemann says:
I was referring to a boat design by Atkins ‘Rescue
Minor’
Tks
william hunt says:
I have run a Rescue minor for six years. She is great in the shallows only occasionally fouling the prop with weed. The draft is about ten inches on 19’ boat.
Dan Young says:
Wonderful design! I like the idea of a quite electric motor and the idea of cruising at 5 knots with friends enjoying an outing on the Lake (I live in Seattle, Lake Washington is what I have in mind) or a cruise out to a different port for dinner. I see so many boaters that fly through the water and wonder “Isn’t it the journey as much as the destination that makes an adventure worth while?” I guess that is the difference between sailors and motor boaters!! :) I think of this a sailing with the sunshine.
David Wyman says:
Hi Doug – You have drawn a beautiful little launch but I wonder why you chose to put a 20 KW motor when at appears that a 5 KW would drive her at hull speed, also since you have added solar cells why not make the canopy larger for a 50% increase in cells?
Doug Hylan says:
Good questions, David.
EVE is what I call a “fishing expedition” design — a preliminary sketch, relatively quickly done, with the hopes that it might resonate with someone who will want to carry the idea to completion. As such, I tend to pick a set of parameters, speed/power being one, and develop the design just enough to prove to myself that the idea can work.
The EVE hull form is one that can exceed hull speed without a tremendous amount of energy, and at the same time not exact a significant penalty at slower speeds. As you point out, going slower would require much less power and I tried to make that point in my description. But most power boaters are fixated on speed and will reject the idea of a boat that is restricted to hull speed, even if they end up spending most of their time at that speed!
Another factor is that electric motors are fundamentally different than internal combustion engines in that their efficiency is much less dependent on rpm. With IC propulsion, you try to design around an engine that will give maximum efficiency at the desired cruising speed. With electric power, there is less penalty for running an oversized motor at lower outputs. Also, in an electric propulsion system, the heft of the cost is in the batteries, not the motor, so again, less penalty for overpowering.
Unlike IC engines, most electric systems come with an instantaneous readout of range at your current speed. These tend to quickly educate the skipper of the costs of higher speeds. So my reasoning was, why not give the skipper the option of higher speeds — some will want it and their usage patterns may allow it.
With regards to the canopy, I picked a size that I thought looked fairly attractive and would allow the skipper to stand up and look over the top for tight maneuvering. The point of the PV top was to give people an idea of what can be realistically expected from such an installation. Even with a 50% increase, you would not be able to, say, run the batteries well down over a weekend and expect that they will be fully charged by the panels for the next weekend. For most boaters, some kind of shore power charging will be wanted.
I am currently working on another “fishing” design that explores much more closely your ideas — what is possible with lower speeds and lots of PV panels. Stay tuned!
David Tew says:
I didn’t know about the Frost/Red Wing connection. One of his early round stern boats like EVE was named Red Wing, so it makes complete sense now.
Crayke Windsor says:
Very nice looking vessel.
Michael McEvoy says:
Doug:
What sweet lines! One can just picture her sliding quietly along the shore of some black-water Adirondack lake at sunset with a fine dinner caught from her earlier in the day laid out on the cockpit table. I’d think the name ‘MILES TO GO’ would wrap very nicely around that lovely round transom seeing as she’s a Frost, albeit one of the Maine school of cedar-on-oak poetry!
Mike McEvoy
Robert Whitehouse says:
What a wonderful, thoughtful boat for the Maine lakes. I would love to be on her early in the morning, before breakfast, watching the sun come up (coffee in hand) as well as after dinner with friends moving along as the sun slips off to bed.
Doug Hermann says:
Hmmmmm… I like this. Would this be a candidate for a collaboration with Hewes & Co. to come out with a “kit”? Aroha…Eve….Aroha… Eve….decisions, decisions. Better finish up the Oonagh first. Doug – Please don’t retire!
Geoff Kerr says:
Thank you Doug for the very complete and well presented performance and logistics info. These truths are rarely acknowledged in the much hyped EV world, where we are often presented with snippets implying round the world range at spped with rooftop solar. Another lovely hull, with an even more attractive vision of use. Well done!
Doug Hylan says:
Hi Geoff,
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head — the vision of use needs to change if electric power is not to be a source of disappointment. Current ads for electric propulsion often show inefficient deep vee hulls doing speeds that can only be maintained for the briefest of periods. With current battery technology, this is very misleading.