Considering electric conversion

[RONALD_WEBER]

I would greatly appreciate input from members who have already completed a conversion or even contemplating the move. I am seeking opinions of the system you chose and the reasons why and are you happy with the result. It looks like near home sailing will be our foreseeable future so I am not that concerned about extended range. We have to motor for about 1/2 hour at 4-5 knots to get to open water depending on the tide state.

I am excited about the prospect of electric and look forward to hearing from those who have already done the work.

Thank you,
Ron Weber
N22 Magic Time
Punta Gorda Fl

[system]

Ron,

Based on responses to the informal poll I did a few months ago on the discussion group, there are at least nine electric Nonsuch owners out there.

If you go forward, you’ll find it much quieter and maintenance will go to near zero.

Are you currently inboard or outboard powered? And what’s the HP on your current engine?

Are you considering doing it yourself, or paying someone to design and/or just install it?

There are a range of options depending on your answers.

If you’re looking for more information to decide which way to go, here’s my personal experience. I did most of the work myself on installing an ElectricYacht Qt 10.0 with 8 12V Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) 100 Amp batteries configured to serve as a 48V 200 Amp power source. Physically removing the diesel required youth and equipment that I lacked. Otherwise, I found doing the work myself completely doable as someone who’s reasonably handy but nowhere near a master craftsman. There’s a long account of it on the Nonsuch.org website under Members Tips & Projects.

Short summary: I’m happy with it. I spent the considerably extra money on LiFePO4 rather than Lithium Ion or AGM because I was attracted to the longer lifetimes, greater fire safety, and lighter weight that made it feasible to install more in a smaller space. ElectricYacht was reasonably helpful, well-priced, and made it easy to configure a plug-and-play kit of motors, controllers, chargers, monitors, instruments, and throttle controls.

In the 15 months since I committed to them, some of their competitors have come out with spiffier looking products at competitive prices, so today I would take new looks at EPropulsion, Torqueedo, Elco, and OceanVolt. If you’re very skilled at electrical systems and don’t need your hand held to configure your own system, ThunderStruck is also worth a look. But ElectricYacht is still a simple, reliable choice.

Under similar usage conditions to yours, of 45-60 minutes under power at 5 kts per average sailing outing, my approx. 9500 lbs. displacement N26 usually uses at most 10% of the available battery power. There have been days when things came up that required more speed and motoring for longer periods, but I’ve yet to use more than 20% of my 200 Amp capacity.

– Bob
Me Gusta
Nonsuch e26U #233

[RONALD_WEBER]

Bob,

Thank you so much for that thorough assessment and sharing your experience.

I have a Westerbeke W10-2 and I too am getting past the point where crawling into the cave to do maintenance is no longer my favorite Sunday thing to do.

I was looking at the Electric Yacht Quiet Torque 5.0 KW system. I really like the simplification of their installation, it seems like an easy swap out and the controls should be a no brainer to install.

I was pondering the battery bank that I would need and it seems like Renogy has a good solution. I have used their solar panels and am happy with the quality.

I wasn’t sure where to find that information on the INA website, so I appreciate that tip for Tips and Tricks.

Thanks again for sharing and I am happy to see that you are pleased with your system

Ron Weber
N22 Magic Time
Punta Gorda Fl

[user11]

Ron

Having the first Nonsuch to convert to electric propulsion back in 2008 I can honestly say I never regretted the move. Though back then it was a leap of faith as so few boats had removed their engines an put in electric motors. Some of my thinking back then went like this:

I choose a Thoosa 9000 system from ASMO Marine now Eclean Marine. They were an established European supplier and provided a turn key system. They used an off the shelf LEMCO motor. Which I liked just in case I should ever need to replace or find parts for it no matter where I was with the boat. Happy to say I never had any issues with the motor in the 15 years since BIANKA went electric.

I also went with with 8A4D 200 Amp hour AGM batteries. Again back then I was thinking that if I was heading down the Intercoastal waterway and developed a bad battery I could replace it within 24 hours locally and be on my way. Lithium batteries were just coming on the market but they were expensive and had long delivery times. That has changed and this years I pulled out the 400 pounds of 200 Amp AGM batteries and replaced it with a single 100 pound 105 Amp Allied Lithium battery this year which has made a great improvement in my system.

It’s one nice things about going electric besides low maintenance is that is easy to upgrade as the technology changes.

I chronicled the conversion of my Nonsuch on my boat blog starting with this post: https://biankablog.blogspot.com/2008/05/going-electric.html

Mike
BIANKA
1986 30U
Long Island

[user43]

Ron -

I may be wrong but I think that yours would be the first NS 22 to convert. I believe that all the rest are bigger (heavier, beamier) boats. My NS 22, fully loaded up, with outboard attached, in the slings, weighs 5800 lbs. The empty weight of an NS 26 is 8500 lbs. Big difference.

All the best with this.

Ernie A. in Toronto

[user11]

Ernie

Electric conversion weight should not be an issue even on a Nonsuch 22. The electric motor on my 30U weighs just 45 pounds. I carried it on board my boat for the install in a boat bag. My new Allied 48 volt 100 amp Lithium battery weighs about 100 pounds. I imagine Ron’s current Westerbeke weighs more than both combined.

Mike
BIANKA
1986 30U
Long Island

[system]

We looked a several manufacturers when we decided to go electric. Thoosa was my first choice, but when I talked to them they told me that they were so backed up it would be at least a year before they could provide a system for me. We went with Electric Yacht for the simple reason that everything would come from one source no hassles if something went wrong. We have been more than happy with them and with our conversion. There is an outfit called Thunderstruck that is interesting, much cheaper, but you are more or less building your own system, they are certainly worth considering if you are resourceful and electrically handy. We did all of the work ourselves and nothing was difficult except my obsession with running the controls up through the binnacle instead of hanging them on the out side. That took two of us an entire day. We had been advised not to try it, but I wanted that clean look. In the end I am glad that we did it, but that was the toughest part of the whole project.

Tim in STL
White O’morn NS e26U #216
Harbor Point Yacht Club
West Alton, MO

[Tim_Cordes]

I just spent my first weekend on my conversion project. The motor was a removed for me by a mechanic last week, and I spent Saturday and Sunday cleaning the engine room. My engine room was exceptionally dirty, because the reason I decided to convert was serious leaking around the exhaust elbows. There was so much soot in there that it looked like the entire tunnel had been evenly sprayed with vanta black paint.

Tim - I am interested in your approach of running the Electric Yacht control cables up the pedestal. I plan on removing the old shifter and throttle levers and shafts, and passing the control cables through one of the empty holes. My concern is chafe from the steering cables, so I was thinking of bundling the control wires in either wire loom or a PVC pipe inside the pedestal. I’ve got to open the pedestal anyway to replace the wheel brake and refill the compass. Do you think a pipe/loom solution is a good idea, or will everything just stay out the way on its own? How did you do yours?

Tim Cordes
Nonsuch 26C #32 “ENCORE”
Ford Yacht Club, Grosse Ile, Michigan

[system]

As soon as you open that pedestal, Tim, start soaking those 4 bolts and tap on the heads as often as you can. They do not like to come out!!

Joe Valinoti
S/V iL Gatto NS30U #221
Sea Harbour YC
Oriental, NC USA

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![Engine tunnel before day 1 cleaning - small.jpg|768x1020](upload://rIFlFUqvSuTFYjiDysoDdCVnBe6.jpeg)
![Engine tunnel after day 2 cleaning - small.jpg|1020x768](upload://mJvv6etKzJg1RUbsEX6uOldRfUv.jpeg)

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[RONALD_WEBER]

This is really good advise - been there done that.

[system]

Tim, Chafe was a big concern of mine. We used two 1/4" PEX tubing fed from below up through the pedestal. The hardest part was removing the old control cables. Lots of “magic” words were used. You can just barley see the PEX sticking out and tied off to one side with a zip tie. We led the tubing toward the forward bulkhead in gentle curves. I’ll try to find a photo of that.

Tim in STL
White O’morn NS e26U #216
Harbor Point Yacht Club
West Alton, MO

(attachments)

[system]

Here is a photo showing the PEX coming out at the bottom of the pedestal. We used the two holes that the control cables had used.

Tim in STL
White O’morn NS e26U #216
Harbor Point Yacht Club
West Alton, MO

(attachments)

[Tim_Cordes]

I hadn’t thought of using PEX as “sleeves” for the cable. That would essentially make the cables behave almost like the old control cables. I will be swiping that idea.

Thanks for the tip on the pedestal bolts, Joe. I had heard they can be difficult.

Tim Cordes
Nonsuch 26C #32 “ENCORE”
Ford Yacht Club, Grosse Ile, Michigan

[Tim_Cordes]

That looks great, Tim.

I was planning on putting my batteries as far aft as possible to have my cockpit scuppers drain better. I’m using two 48v96AH Dakota LiFEPo batteries at 71 pounds each, and with the Electric Yacht QT 10 weighing in at 77 lbs, I thought that moving weight aft would offset the removal of my 290 lb Westerbeke 13a diesel. I have a little shelf in the port laz that I guess used to hold a refrigerator compressor, and the cardboard mock-up of the battery fits nicely. I’ll have to tab in a similar shelf to starboard, but I thought that I would drill a 2-inch hole in the aft rudder post support to run the wires through from port to starboard. Does all that seem reasonable?

Tim Cordes
Nonsuch 26C #32 “ENCORE”
Ford Yacht Club, Grosse Ile, Michigan

[user11]

I added a PVC tube behind the wheel to act as a conduit for not only the boats motor control wires but, also Chartplotter, AIS display, 12 volt power outlet and wires to my homemade battery monitor display. It made running wires very easy. It came in very handy two years ago when I installed a helm mounted VHF mic and made the wiring run very easy as well.

Mike
BIANKA
1986 30U
Long Island

[RONALD_WEBER]

Very nice looking installation. And thanks for sharing.

Ron

[system]

That’s very nice Mike. There is no way in the world that I could ever get a third wire up through the pedestal. As I said, running those two PEX conduits up through the pedestal took two men a full day.

Tim in STL
White O’morn NS e26U #216
Harbor Point Yacht Club
West Alton, MO

[system]

Tim,

That looks like a very good plan from a balance standpoint. My 8 LifePo4 batteries added up 248 lbs. so I’m impressed that you’re getting almost the same total amps for 100 lbs less weight. Mine are placed just forward of the rudder post rather than aft, and with 20-20 hindsight I’d put them further back.

There are a lot of forces on the rudder, and the rudder post supports are structural to resisting them. As an alternative to drilling through one, you might consider running a conduit just above it for the wiring to pass through. That would keep it neat and avoid any risk of compromising a key structural unit. I’m not an expert, so you may be ok with doing it as a cut-through – but the cost would be high if it didn’t work out.

– Bob
Me Gusta
Nonsuch e26U #233

[system]

FWIW, I ran the wires to the pedestal by putting some cable glands in the cockpit floor. Drilled two holes, sealed the sides of each with epoxy.

I ran the wiring up a tube secured to the sides of the pedestal with hose clamps.

Not nearly as clean as Tim’s job on White O’morn, but saved a lot of time and cursing.

If I’d wanted to make it nicer, I probably could’ve secured the cables directly to the vertical stainless and popped some kind of a cover containing both. I did separate cable clams for the two cables but you can also buy single units that handle both.

My cockpit sole is covered with an outdoor plastic tile that costs about $3-4 a square foot. I’m very happy with it. I’ve got great traction and drainage. If I ever get to doing a tighter, cleaner job of the cut-out around the cable glands and pedestal foot, I’ll have to replace one tile. I can probably handle that cost.

– Bob
Me Gusta
Nonsuch e26U #233

[user11]

Tim
With each new project my thinking leans to how can I make this an easy installation and how will I access it if I have to repair or change it. With helm conduit project I was pleased to find that the deck fill fitting I used to fill the hole in the deck also fit a PVC fitting that I used as part of the conduit run.

project

Mike
BIANKA
1986 30U
Long Island