Geoff and his Porta-Bote
Geoff Maloney has just taken delivery of a 1003 and has passed on some photos and a some performance data when running on his Porta-Bote. Here’s what he has to say about it…
Monday 6th June 2011; Sunny, Wind 7 knots SE, top of the tide, 11:30 am
Porta-bote loaded and ready to roll
The Porta Bote: 3.85m long, 1.2m beam, 35Kg empty.
Humming!
The Torgeedo Travel 1003 electric Outboard: 3hp, 12.6 kg.
Loaded with 2 adults average weight 70kg each plus safety gear, anchor, rode, buckets etc
‘Retrimmed ‘is with the lovely wife sitting on the forward seat!
Tough work for the test pilot—but somebody has to do it.
Just over 6 kph gave us the best range at over 8 kilometers – stay tuned for the test with the solar panel.
Results of the tests are shown in the table below. This boat is clearly easily driven because even at full speed with two on board the motor does not need to draw its full power.
By the way, the adverse conditions you see in the photos here are midwinter in Cairns, Australia.
Speed and Power of Torqeedo 1003 on Porta-Bote
I use a 2.6 m Porta Bote her in the U.S. and am glad to see your report with the electric outboard. Thanks!
Hi Capt Mike,
you might want to drop by again soon—I’m expecting another report from Geoff about the use of a solar panel with the Porta-Bote. And thanks for the link to the solar powered zodiac story.
Cheers,
Chris
Thank you for the real world data on this very interesting motor. I’m in the market for the Travel 1003, but was holding off purchasing one, as it could be an expensive experiment. This is exactly the kind of data I was looking for.
Hi
Where did you get your porta bote from?
Mick
Hi,
I recently took delivery of the exact same setup as this and have started doing a bit of testing myself. I am also testing the v8 prop from the 503 and will post detailed info similar to what Geoff has provided once I have a few more runs in different conditions etc.
So far using the 1003 prop there is no differnce between having 100kg or 200kg on board as long as the weight is well forward. And with another 70kg added to this, only reduced the speed by about 0.3kph for the same wattage.
Another thing also became quite obvious. Salt water adds about 10% to the performance when compared to fresh water.
The following data was taken with 105kgs including myself, motor, gear etc and on fresh water with a wind speed of around 15kph and sitting on the rear seat. Note the improvement at 400 watts when sitting forward!
SPEED KPH SPEED KPH
WATTS AGAINST WIND WITH WIND
50 2.4 2.5
100 3.3 3.5
200 4.3 4.7
300 5.1 5.5
400 5.5 6.6 – Note. Moving to MIDDLE SEAT = 8.1, FRONT SEAT = 8.4
500 6.1 7.2
600 6.5 7.7
700 7.0 8.4
800 7.5 8.9
850 7.7 9.0 = TOP SPEED
900 7.9 = TOP SPEED
Once I’ve done some testing with the 503 prop I will post the results.
Will also include range aswell next time.
Thanks you guys, great work testing, taking notes & passing on about the Porta-bote set up looking at 2.8 mtr. bote, myself only freshwater, impoundments or coastal use, solo fishing great to have “real world” info I’d pay you for it if I could ! maybe a cold one someday.