Big News from Yeargin?

[east tx skier]

Is it any coincidence that this announcement came on the same day that I saw this story about paper batteries that can recharge from moisture in the air!

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/25/p...seemingly-def/

Q: Will this boat steal my soul like when someone takes my picture?

[east tx skier]

Okay, for all my positive thoughts about this boat, I still have some concerns.

Lithium Ion batteries are extremely sensitive to high temperatures. Heat causes lithium-ion battery packs to degrade much faster than they normally would. So, best case scenario, we might get 3--5 years out of the battery pack. What does that translate to in Texas heat.

If you completely discharge a lithium-ion battery, it is ruined. Kind of like the fuel pump issues on the MasterCrafts.

There is a small chance that, if a lithium-ion battery pack fails, it will burst into flame. Fire is not a good thing last time I checked.

[NautiqueJeff]

I thought I owned the first all-electric high-performance Nautique. Guess I was wrong...

[Erik]

Background

This isn't 1960, we have a lot of technology available so that companies don't waste a lot of R&D $$$ on full scale designs. ... R&D is paid now, not in the future.

Man, excuse me but I must disagree with this statement.

So, I am not trying to brag, saying "yeah yeah, I know everything, I'm so cool". But I'm friendly and on a first name basis with Bill Yeargin, so I have a little teeny tiny window into what they're doing in Orlando and an occasional conversation about upcoming stuff, a nod or wink if I ask the right question, but I wouldn't say I am in some elite inner circle. I am standing on the paint though.

That said, you are absolutely right that R&D costs are mitigated by CAD models being stress tested in Pro/ENGINEER simulations or something within Solidworks or Autocad. This is and will continue to be an expensive project with an expensive outcome - anything like this is. They don't have much to reuse, I am sure a good portion of the guts had to be chopped to shreds, with cars, planes or boats, this sort of thing is expensive. I absolutely think they need to sell this idea, then sell a few hundred boats to recoup R&D dollars. I had an inkling 2 years ago that this was in the works (again, a hybrid though, not all electric + batteries) - kind of by a "no comment *wink*" sort of answer by someone at Correct Craft who would definitely know. My point is this has a significant history.

So, right, bleached-white labcoat-wearing engineers wearing dark horn rimmed glasses aren't working at drafting tables perfecting every angle with their bare hands or anything like that, but this has been worked on for awhile. Enough to warrant the price, high as it may be. Too high? Probably. Don't know yet. But they made a lot of noise with this already. Let's see if it catches on.

ps. We need more photos of it too. With all the led going on, plexiglass, it was hard for me to see where everything is laid out. In one view it almost looked like there was some machinery under the bow. More photos will help inform this thread.

[swc5150]

The boat seems to be a big leap forward in electric power capability, but I would be surprised if it actually made it into production, to be honest. The hybrid route makes more sense in real-world use. Actual tournament use may be a different story, I'm not sure?

Now a boat that sucks up lake water and uses the hydrogen for its fuel source would make headlines!

[Erik]

...but I would be surprised if it actually made it into production, to be honest.!

I thought the same thing when the MasterCraft CSX was unveiled. I said "Neat. No way this goes into production."
Seeing that they're this far along, I see it making its way to production - even if its only a handful of boats - say - 50-100?

[swc5150]

You could be right, I guess we'll see? Winterizing it would be much easier than my Excal:-)

I know why they did it, but I bet CC would've prefered debuting this motor system in a 200. They just threw a flamigo to us 196 piranhas!

[DanielC]

This is interesting for a few reasons. First, they chose a 196 hull to use as a platform to do these tests on. I have always contended that a true "designed as a closed bow" ski boat is lighter and stronger that a boat designed as an open bow that you can put a closed bow deck on.
As in any high performance vehicle that operates on land, or water, or in the air the first rule is this. Weight is your enemy. A closed bow boat is a stronger design, and therefore can be made lighter and still have the necessary strength.

I am not saying that the TSC3 196 has a better wake than the 200. From everything I have heard and hope to experience, the 200 has the better ski wake. But here is my main complaint about the 200.
It is not the best ski wake that Correct Craft could make. It very well may be the best ski wake to date, from any boat company, but it is not the best Correct Craft could do.
I fully believe, that if they decided to, Correct Craft could take what they have learned in developing the 200, and apply that new knowledge to a 196, and without the compromise made necessary by an open bow design, produce an even better wake than the 200 currently has.

Now the electric part. This is cool, and I am not a fan of electric cars, or hybrids.
Even in the hydroelectric rich Pacific Northwest, we are still burning coal, and natural gas to make electricity. I know that power companies have to have enough reserve to meet or exceed peak demand, you cannot store electricity in any quantity to make it possible to use solar power at night, or wind power, when it is calm. Additionally, you can move electric power a few hundred miles, pretty easily, but a few thousand miles, not so much. To meet peak demand, electric companies have to be able to switch on additional generating capacity about as easily as you switch on a light.

If you want to do a morning set with this boat, you can rule out charging it with solar electricity. If the wind did not blow last night, that is not an option either.
However, the demand for electricity is low at night, so it can be charged overnight, for those morning sets. Many power companies also have a system where you can get charged different rates for electricity, depending on the time of day (or night) you use it.

Some people seem to be getting excited by the 220 volts the charger most likely would need. This is no big deal. Around water, 110 is just as deadly as 220. Most of Europe, I believe is wired for 220 for all the household appliances. If you have an electric range in the kitchen, or an electric dryer in your laundry room, you, or your wife are already working around 220. Even in 220 installations here in the USA, there is not 220, referenced to ground. there is only two 110 volt circuits, 180 degrees out of phase. The charger connection to the boat is probably a much lower voltage, high amp connection, that is probably isolated from ground.

In the information I have seen so far, the capacity of the battery was compared to about 8 gallons of gas. All day cruises are out. But in a slalom club, this might work out really good. Everybody will have to remember to plug the boat in as soon as you are done using it. Another option is a removable battery pack. it could be set up to be not much more complicated than boat lifts some are using now.

I think this is a better setup than a gas-electric hybrid. Like it was pointed out, no regenerative braking on a boat. When you are running a hybrid boat on gas, you are carrying around the additional weight of the electrics. When it is running on the electric motor, it has to work harder to haul the weight of the gas engine, and gas tank around.

All in all, this is big, in my mind, not because of the electric motor. This is big, because it shows hope that the 196 will come back, not as a bloated overweight family cruiser, with saddlebags, and lots of cupholders, that happens to have a good (the best) slalom wake.

This is big, because maybe Correct Craft will reintroduce a true dedicated closed bow ski boat, that will again set Correct Craft apart from every other "M" boat company that just slaps a closed bow deck on their open bow model.

[east tx skier]

What about a channel to use as a hydro powered charging system from the flow of water when in motion?

I'm an English major. Somebody smarter than me make this work.

[DanielC]

If you use some sort of channel to port flowing water past a generator, you will increase the drag more than the energy you recover.

It also takes more energy to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen that you can burn, than you get back from burning the hydrogen again.

Perpetual motion does not exist. It never will.

[Mikeski]

Well I am not really sure what to say, but I am not very impressed. I could address some of the concerns that I have read about safety so maybe thats' where I will start. Having 220V at a dock is not a big deal. Most saltwater marina's have had 220v/50A outlets right there at the dock barely out of the reach of a swimmer. A common ground fault interrupter circuit is really all that is needed to make it safe. You can probably buy the circuit breaker needed to add this safety circuit at your local home depot.

I also don't see this as any significant breakthrough. It's really more of an exercise with fitment and gearing. They even said that they borrowed two electric motors from the electric car space so there's not much engineering there. I would guess the design process went something like this:
1. Let's grab some old EV1 motors, some AGM batteries, and figure out where things need to go from a balance standpoint
2. Let's borrow some car based power electronics and apply it to the motors for "traction control"
3. Let's figure out how to seal things up so we don't electrocute somebody with the power on board the boat (probably still in the development stage and I doubt you would be allowed to board the boat without signing a waiver)
4. Let's spend lots of time with the marketing folks adding brightly colored exterior graphics, LED lighting to make it look cool (adding zero to the functionality), and custom interior to make it look different and functional when it is really not. After all this is really just a marketing tool for the company.

Why 2 motors??? My guess is that they were too lazy to source an appropriate motor so they instead just used two of what they had lying around.

The weakest link is for sure the gearbox in this configuration.

Last thought... A slalom set is typically less than 5 minutes of loaded running time so 3 or 4 slalom sets versus a 4 hour recharge is pretty sad.

[east tx skier]

If you use some sort of channel to port flowing water past a generator, you will increase the drag more than the energy you recover.

It also takes more energy to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen that you can burn, than you get back from burning the hydrogen again.

Perpetual motion does not exist. It never will.

Ski lake in a vacuum. Dare to dream.

What about something along the spray relief pocket where the boat has already, mostly, released the contact it had with the water. Forgive my limited knowledge (if not full on ignorance) of hydrodynamics, but I'm not talking about 100% regeneration. But if you could add some power back to the battery bank during use, you could extend the battery life. As far as I know, you don't hurt LI batteries by applying a charge before they are fully run down.

[ClemsonDave]

I do not work for CC, but I can almost guarantee the 196 will not come back. It would be moving backwards. I hate to get into the whole 200 thing because we will always disagree. Yes, every product can always be better, heck, my brand new laptop could have been built better.

I would not assume that CC chose the 196 for this project. It's possible that the company developing the power plant chose a 196 because that is what they could get their hands on. It IS a good assumption that all future development will be geared towards the 200.

[east tx skier]

I do not work for CC, but I can almost guarantee the 196 will not come back. It would be moving backwards. I hate to get into the whole 200 thing because we will always disagree. Yes, every product can always be better, heck, my brand new laptop could have been built better.

I would not assume that CC chose the 196 for this project. It's possible that the company developing the power plant chose a 196 because that is what they could get their hands on. It IS a good assumption that all future development will be geared towards the 200.

While the lower drag notion makes sense with the 196, my guess, similar to yours thoughts, is that it is better for them to sell a 200 than to donate it to this experiment. If they can get it working well, they can move it over easily enough.

[swc5150]

No new production 196, but an '07-'09 model will become the '97-'98 911 of the Porsche world:-)