Re: electric kayak

Posted by Laszlo on Mar 18, 2007

LeRoy,

While on the whole I agree with you, I'm still concerned about having the battery forward for a couple of reasons.

First, Steve only mentions the bow lifting at high power, so his boat is balanced for the normal case. If he moves the battery forward, then for lower thrust he'll be burying the bow, as well as losing the buoyancy needed to ride over waves.

Second, since kayaks have such thin hulls, the weight of the battery is normally supported more by the water than the hull. If the boat lifts even partially out of the water, more weight would be transferred to the hull. And this would be a concentrated weight, since batteries are so dense.

With the battery in the stern it's not really a problem since the motor thrust is trying to put the battery deeper in the water. A battery in the center is on the fulcrum point and would stay at a constant depth with constant support. It's only when the battery is in the bow that there's be a weight on the end of a lever as the bow lifts. Hence my concerns about stress.

Laszlo

In Response to: Re: electric kayak by LeRoy on Mar 17, 2007

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