Sanctuary Cove is a waterside community in southeast Queensland well known in the boating world for their hosting of one of the best known boat shows in Australia. They are now setting new standards with their adoption of electric outboard powered vessels for their security patrol.
For the full details of this project are here in this extract from the official Sanctuary Cove body corporate magazine Our Sanctuary Magazine in pdf format.
We tend to think that to use green technology we need be prepared to spend a little more. This idea is turned on its head by the careful costing analysis that has been done for this scheme. The Sanctuary Cove installation is not only environmentally friendly but the solution that makes the most sense whichever way you look at it. Its projected to save the community $900,000.00 over the 20 year life of the project. As well as economic benefits it also brings quiet operation.
The installation includes twin Cruise 4R short shaft outboard motors each matched to a pair of Torqeedo marine lithium batteries known as Power 26-104.
The boats can run at a top speed of 10 knots when necessary but the normal patrol speed is around 3 knots and at this speed they can run all day without charging. Each time the boats are docked they are put on charge—such as when the crew has come ashore for lunch—and this opportunistic charging is sufficient to the keep the batteries well charged.
In a project such as this the savings that come from using lithium batteries instead of lead-acid batteries of any type are significant. In particular the losses during charging, known as the charge efficiency factor, are an advantage that is not well known. Compared to wet cell lead acid batteries there is a 30% saving in electricity costs when using lithium batteries. And for boats that are used around the clock this is an important consideration.
For all the details be sure to download and read the magazine extract.
The Cruise 4 outboard motors and Torqeedo batteries were supplied by Davmar Marine and Leisure of Coomera.