My dock neighbor has a new Jeanneau twin-outboard cruiser, and it's beautiful. But when our club held its annual Memorial Day raftup with 20 boats in a nearby cove, he came as a passenger on a friend's boat. He said the Jeanneau is no good for raftups because people have trouble walking past the outboards.
So it depends a lot on how the owner wants to use the boat.
I remember seeing a fairly large outboard powered cruiser at one of the boat shows that had twin fiberglass " humps " that covered the outboards. You could walk between them to get to the swim platform, and they opened electrically to service the engines. The " himps " were painted to match the boat, and did not look bad, just not my thing.
My dock neighbor has a new Jeanneau twin-outboard cruiser, and it's beautiful. But when our club held its annual Memorial Day raftup with 20 boats in a nearby cove, he came as a passenger on a friend's boat. He said the Jeanneau is no good for raftups because people have trouble walking past the outboards.
So it depends a lot on how the owner wants to use the boat.
@jhofmann - you're talking about the Pursuit 365i. It does have a wee little walk-around ... not really a swim platform. And it's separated from the rest of the cockpit by that huge engine structure, so it's basically a separate social space.
It's all the space and amenities of a Rinker 320EX, but the LOA is 41 feet so you have to buy an extra 8 feet of slip fees.
On second thought what if you converted or tried to convert a 342 to electric. What about all the space for batteries and weight of the electric motors?
BoatTest .com just reviewed the Greenline 40 Hybrid, and for Handymans edification it has diesel propulsion with electric motors linked to the engines via a hydraulic clutch system. The motors function as generators when the boat is using diesel propulsion charging a bank of lithium polymer batteries. It also has a rooftop array of solar panels. Pretty cool, but its around $400,000 so I'm not a buyer.
Solar propulsion for boats is a farce. The power density just isn't there. Yes, you can propel a boat, but not a boat that anybody would want. Solar is for keeping house batteries topped off, not pushing a hull through water.
Electric propulsion works great for boats that have a nuclear reactor. Too bad that's a $1B option not available to recreational boaters.
Comments
2002 FV 342 on Lake St. Clair - Past Commodore SHC - Vessel Examiner USCGAUX
"A new 37' Rinker Open Bow Crossover with triple engine outboards IS in the works."
http://rinkerboats.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/92821#Comment_92821
So it depends a lot on how the owner wants to use the boat.
It's all the space and amenities of a Rinker 320EX, but the LOA is 41 feet so you have to buy an extra 8 feet of slip fees.
Solar propulsion for boats is a farce. The power density just isn't there. Yes, you can propel a boat, but not a boat that anybody would want. Solar is for keeping house batteries topped off, not pushing a hull through water.
Electric propulsion works great for boats that have a nuclear reactor. Too bad that's a $1B option not available to recreational boaters.
Andy