For example, on some freshwater lakes in Europe it’s simply prohibited to use petrol engines, so if you are a millionaire living on one of those lakes and like to go water-skiing then by all means you could get yourself a high-speed electric boat. Yes, there are electric speedboats out there and sometimes it’s the only way to go. For this very reason it’s technically difficult and very expensive to have an electric speedboat. In combination with speed (when boating electric) on-board energy storage is the next biggest limiting factor, because even the best and most expensive batteries available today contain relatively very little energy compared to fossil fuels such as petrol & diesel. That is why you often see small speedboats with enormous outboards of 200HP or more on the back, all this energy is needed to maintain this high speed. If you can make a boat go 5 knots with a 10HP motor, you do not simply need 3 times that (30HP) to go 15 knots, more likely you will need a 90HP motor or even more to reach that speed. However, to get the boat up to the much faster planing speed, exponentially more energy is needed. Think water-skiing, fast tinnies, and all modern speedboats.
These are called ‘planing hulls’ and they can travel at both ‘displacement speed’ (when going slow) and at ‘planing speed’ (when going fast). Speedboats have a different hull shape that is designed to (at higher speeds) lift themselves up onto their own bow wave and rise up out of the water to skim across the surface. We call this type of boat hull a ‘displacement hull’. Many boats are designed to only go at slow speeds (think old wooden boats, most sailboats, old ferries, tugboats, rowboats, most dinghies and tenders). Any small to medium size boat (say up to 10 m long / 5 ton weight) can be quite easily brought up to a speed of 4 or 5 knots with relatively little energy required to keep up that speed. To push a boat through the water fast (at say 10 knots) or to bring a hull up to planing speed (at say 15 to 20 knots), requires exponentially more power than to go slowly at 4 or 5 knots. Generally, speed is the biggest limiting factor when talking about electric propulsion for boats. We’ve outlined the most common decisive factors for you in this article. But, without going into too many specifics, it is easy to outline a few recurring themes that apply to everyone.
You could write a book if you wanted to cover every aspect of the decision-making process that precedes converting your boat to electric. The answer to the question as to whether an electric motor is right for your boat is different for each boat and each owner, how the boat is used and what the performance and range expectations are. Home /Is electric propulsion suitable for my boat? Is electric propulsion suitable for my boat? The most common question we get asked at Eco Boats is from boat owners who are trying to find out if it would make sense to replace the petrol or diesel motor in their boat with an electric motor. Is electric propulsion suitable for my boat?.
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