“Are you going 40 mph all the time? Do you need to?” “You need to realistically look at how you boat and decide if electric can fit into that,” says Mary Jo Reinhart, the director of OEM and retail sales for the electric motor manufacturer Torqeedo in Crystal Lake, IL. “But when you get into planing boats, you make your own hill getting up onto plane, so weight becomes a huge factor.” A planing boat needs more than a burst of power to climb up that big bow wave the motor also needs to run at a higher speed to hold the boat there. “One of the nice things about converting boats to electric, as opposed to cars, is that the weight of the boats is not as big a factor in performance because there are no hills to go up,” explains Jonathan Killing, of Toque Innovations in Midland, Ont., who has worked on a number of design projects involving electric motors. For planing boats, weight, which is always a consideration in boat design, becomes a bigger issue. Planing hulls (V-hulled ski boats, for example) will lift out and skim on top of the water, but to get up on a plane they require an increase in power. Displacement hulls (the round bottoms of canoes, motor launches, and large sailboats are good examples) are designed to cut through the water smoothly and push it aside with little effort. To determine how fast your boat can go, consider its hull shape: displacement or planing.

The faster you go, the more power you will need. Add a charging system for your setup, connect all the components together, and you’re ready to cruise. Second, how far do you want to go without recharging? Your answer will dictate the number and size of batteries you require. First, what kind of boat do you have and how fast do you want to go? This will determine the size of motor you need.

Whether you want to convert an existing cottage boat or you plan to fit your next new boat with electric power, start by asking yourself a few basic questions, says Dean Heinemann, the director of sales at New York-based Elco Motor Yachts, which is a pioneer in electric marine propulsion and classic electric launches. If you’re daunted by the prospect of learning the new technology, don’t be. That’s good news for cottage boaters (and for our neighbours and wildlife) who want a quieter, more peaceful on-water experience or who want to reduce their contribution to nasty emissions, oil, and other pollutants in the lake. They’re the reason for a surge in interest in electric-powered boats. Let’s all take a moment and give thanks to electric car manufacturers.

Elco electric inboard