Electric boats aren’t that common yet, they don’t have the range a gas/diesel engine gives you and they cost more. So why on Earth should one get an electric boat????
This blog post gives you five sure fire reasons why your next boat should be electric.
Enjoying Time on the Water – The reason we go boating is to enjoy it. There are very few boaters who believe the fumes, the noise and the maintenance of combustion engines makes boating more enjoyable. These are negatives we put up with for the convenience of being able to push the throttle and go. For many types of boats including monohull sailboats, catamaran sailboats, pontoon boats, power catamarans, houseboats, and motoryachts among others, electric propulsion technology, in some cases using a generator to make it a hybrid, provide enough range for your boating needs without the noise or fumes. For hybrid setups, generators are quieter and don’t have to run all the time. In fact, many boaters who run a generator all night so they can have AC could find they could avoid running a generator at night and have quiet hours depending on the size of their battery bank – a hidden but equally beneficial way of not letting combustion engines detract from your time on the water.
Being a Better Sailor – For too many sailors, the diesel engine has become a crutch that one uses instead of the winds in all but ideal wind conditions. I and most sailors who put the sails up and sail have often passed sailboats under sail while they motored along with their engine. An electric sailboat can give you 10 to 100 miles of range depending on your setup, more than enough to get out of the marina and through any tough spots. But because it doesn’t have enough range to just motor for hundreds of miles (unless you get a hybrid setup), sailors with electric sailboats tend to spend more time sailing, have a better inventory of sails and thus become better sailors. Because of this, they also enjoy sailing more as everyone has more fun with the sails up than the throttle down.
Future Value – 10 years from now, 90% or more of cars sold will be electric and 25-50% of sailboats if not all boats will be electric too. Gas car used prices (when there isn’t a global shortage) have sagged compared to equivalent electric cars so much so that the lease on new gas cars has gone up because the lease is based on lower resale values after the lease is done. The average sailboat registered in the US is 32 years old. It is highly likely that a diesel engine on a sailboat will be as undesirable as many of the trends on sailboats that many buyers want to avoid such as in-line galleys, pullman berths and dark interiors. Going electric today will make your boat more valuable tomorrow. And, electric motors don’t depreciate with hours of use like a diesel engine!
Protecting Our Oceans – Hurricanes Ida, Harvey, Sandy, Katrina, Irma and Andrew alone did $500 billion in damage. California is burning, the Colorado River is drying up, rain on the highest point in Greenland for the first time in 2,000 years. Climate change is upon us. Our oceans are warming with every gallon of fuel we burn. In every aspect of our life from driving to boating to how our goods are transported to us, we need to be going electric and using renewable energy to power our electric motors.
More Interior Space – Boats have become designed around the engine. Power and sailing catamarans lose significant space to fuel and engines. Monohulls have a big space in the middle of the boat for the engine that boat design has to work around. Electric motors are smaller and take up less space. It frees up boat design to be less restricted and allow boats to be designed around humans not engines.
If any or all of these reasons resonate with you, contact Green Yachts and ask how you can get an electric boat today or buy a used boat and convert it to electric.