Amps and Currents - Fun With Electric Boats

Sometimes the roar of an outboard while you race across the water is exhilarating. But sometimes a little peace and quiet is in order, which is one of the reasons I enjoy paddling a kayak so much. When I’m quietly sliding along the river, I see and hear so much more. Round a bend and there is an otter playing on the bank, a heron roosts on a log up ahead and the murmur of the water passing under the hull is soothing.

What if you could combine the best of both worlds? How about a silent, electric launch, that can propel you along at 5 miles per hour, and can run for up to 10 hours on a dollar or two’s worth of electricity? It sounded pretty interesting to me, so I got in touch with Duffy Electric Boats, a leader in the electric boat field and had the opportunity to speak with Kevin Kearns.

Shamrock 14' Electric Launch by Duffy Electric Boats

My first assumptions was that electric boats must be something new, a waterborne cousin of the EV1 or Tesla electric cars, but Kevin set me straight. Duffy has been producing electric boats long before electric became cool. They were producing electric launches back in the 1970’s . Today they produce a line of 9 electric pleasure boats that range from the 14’ Shamrock to the Duffy M240, a 24 foot pontoon like “Party Barge”. Scanning over their designs, they have tended towards that elegant launch styling from the earlier half of the last century. Some models are available with teak furnishings and fittings with leather like seats, and models have removable canopies with full window enclosures. Kevin tells me not to be deceived by their refined looks; they have done a lot to over-build these boats with heavy hulls and a prominent keel for stability and strength.

So who’s using these boats? Most of them are used for casual cruising on protected waters, think picnic on the lake with the family or a romantic sunset tour of the harbor. Apparently I’m not the first person to think about the nature watching possibilities. A nature preserve in Naples, Florida shifted over to electric boats because their outboards were disturbing birds on nesting sites, and tours for patrons were less than satisfactory as the wildlife fled from the boats.

22' Cuddy ST Electric Launch by Duffy Electric Boats

Kevin pointed out several other benefits of Duffy Electric Boats. No gas or oil to mess around with, which is a great benefit when it is easy to drop a C-note on a fill-up. No internal combustion engine also means no direct emissions (I know, it took something to create the energy, but here in the Northwest, hydro and wind are more significant than coal.) Kevin pointed out that there is also no need to winterize. As long as the batteries are kept in a state of positive charge, the boat is good to go. For any of us that have winterized the boat, then been presented with several beautiful boating days, the last features is pretty appealing. Models with the canopies and window enclosures, with a heater and optional seat warmers make boating a year around possibility as long as you’ve got boatable water.

I noticed that one of the images on the Duffy web site showed a boat with a solar array on the canopy. I immediately imagined cruising the waterways, perpetually refilling my batteries on free sunshine. While solar panels are becoming popular as an alternate energy source on larger cruiser and RV’s, the return from one of these solar arrays is not enough to significantly extend the cruising range of these boat. Besides, as Kevin points out, these boats will run longer on one charge than most people want to spend in a boat. Just plug it in overnight and you’re ready to run for another full day of boating tomorrow.

One obvious question I had to ask Kevin was, “How do you keep these electric motors happy around all this water?” He told me it isn’t really an issue. Duffy uses a “bilge within a bilge” configuration to assure that the workings stay out of the water, and they employ “marineized” motors and components, specifically designed to operate in harsh marine conditions.

Electric Boats…What’s next?
Here’s a hint, biodiesel – electric hybrids, and hydrogen fuel cells, but we’ll have to g there another day. Visit Duffy Electric Boats at http://www.duffyboats.com. They have an interesting site that offers a good introduction to the world of electric boats.

M240 Electric Boat by Duffy Electric Boats
Images courtesy of Duffy Electric Boats