Electric Outboard “Torqeedo’d” on Sydney Harbour
On Thursday 13 May, 2010 TS 1348 was Torqeedo’d in Sailors Bay, Middle Harbour. Fortunately, there was no damage to the boat or injury to the four people on board.
So what happened?
Alan Barrett of the Boating Industry Association, who has crewed for me several times, arranged for a demonstration & try out of an electric outboard made by Torqeedo. Eco Boats Australia at Northbridge provided the demonstration. See WWW.ecoboats.com.au.
The model we tested was the Torqeedo Travel 801. It is a collapsible unit, & comes in a bag. It has an integrated lithium-manganese battery, which would power the TS16 at near full throttle for about an hour. Note, the test boat had 15 k of standard outboard on the transom & 4 adults on board. The GPS’s were showing up to 4 knots with & against an 8-10 knot westerly.
With a large slow rotating propeller, the boat moved well, just a slight hum coming from the motor, which is in a housing below water and direct drive to the prop. The battery sits on the top. The motor can be powered with lead batteries, but these would add to the cost.
While I was generally impressed with the motor & its performance, there were 2 downsides. Firstly, the battery time was too short for our purposes, and the second one was that when at full throttle, the hinging tightened up so that you couldn’t steer. They are apparently aware of this problem.
Ah! Yes, the price? Complete unit AU$2595
A bit much for any of our members, but an interesting exercise. No doubt in a few years this may change considerable with newer battery development etc
Bob Young gives it a try-out
Steve adds:-
1) As an alternative to the ‘Travel 801’ with Lithium battery, one can also choose the ‘Base Travel 801’ which is the same motor, but with a fixed shaft and no Lithium battery. This motor can be operated from an external 24V battery bank and with sufficient Ah capacity (75Ah or more) one can go for up to 6 hours at cruising speed of approx 3.5 knots. The ‘Base Travel 801’ is priced at $1,895 and a matching high quality Optima battery bank of 75Ah can be supplied by Eco Boats for $890
2) The motor does not steer very well indeed when at full throttle in the ‘foldable mounting bracket’. As the Hartley’s are mostly steered via the rudder, it may be more convenient to fix the motor into a straight position on the transom by tightening the knob on the bracket.
The recently launched Travel 1003 (expected in Australia over the next few months) is a more powerful motor with a slightly larger battery capacity and a more rugged, integrated mounting bracket (non collapsible). This model also has an integrated GPS tracker which gives speed over ground reading and remaining range in hours or nautical miles at any given speed. The new Travel 1003 is also fully waterproof and can actually run under water for a short while without harm.
3) While the initial investment for the Torqeedo may be higher than for a comparable petrol outboard, one has to take into account that the Torqeedo does not require fuel (recharge for 50cents), no servicing and will give many years of whisper-quiet motoring without fumes or pollution to the environment.
My thanks to Steve Mullie of Eco Boats Australia for this demonstration, and to Alan Barret of the BIA for arranging it.
Steve can be contacted at 0414 061 795 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.