(Late 2015) - any developments on the electric BOAT front?

Torqeedo it is!

A prototype fishing boat was made in Norway.

Google translate link to one of the articles https://translate.google.no/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tu.no%2Findustri%2F2015%2F07%2F31%2Fdette-er-norges-forste-fiskebat-med-elmotor&edit-text=

AudubonB said:

Thanks for the links - not surprisingly, none is applicable for retrofitting. What I'd really like to find is a standalone electric outboard that I could pop onto the Whaler. Just for giggles, I may gang up all my Minn-Kotas on its transom to see how fast and far they can push it. Not much, I'm sure.

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I'd love to see the demo of the Minnkotas. I had considered trying that myself last year. I think it could give reasonable if not spectacular performance.

Electric Boat Company, Groton, CT? 1st, you need some uranium..

In the 19th century before gasoline and diesel engines in boats, they were powered by steam (and a few by electricity), including small launches and open pleasure boats. Unlike today's boats they were very narrow for their length and quite slow by today's standards, similar to sailboat speeds.

However, a lot of these ran with 2-5 hp engines. 1 hp = 745 W, so a SWAG might be a 2 hp motor driving a very narrow hull, say 4' beam and 18' waterline length, making 5 mph, which would be 1500 W or 1.5 kWh per 5 miles, about 300 Wh/mile, the same as our cars at 70 mph. Say the battery was a 10 kWh Powerwall, that would drive the boat for about 6 hours and 30 miles.

I suspect that to really make this work, it would be best to design a catamaran with two very narrow hulls, say 18" wide and 18' long, the spacing between them doesn't matter within reason. The ratio of length to width is really critical in this kind of boat design. A total guess says that might get the boat up to 8-10 mph for the same power.

Bangor Bob said:

Electric Boat Company, Groton, CT? 1st, you need some uranium..

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Check out their CPO pig boats, maybe?

The motors of diesel-electric submarines are electric motors. This is what makes them so extremely quiet. The diesel engines are used only on the surface to recharge the batteries.

The newer developments are such refinements as air independent engines so there's no need to resurface.

As for recent developments on the commercial front:
http://cleantechnica.com/category/clean-transport-2/boats/

Torqeedo offers electric outboards in several sizes. Here is one of them:

Cruise - Torqeedo

GSP

McLaren's Design Boss Just Built the World’s Most Beautiful Powerboat



"Instead of a fuel-thirsty V-8 or V-12, Stephenson sources power from a torpedo-shaped, 4.2-kilowatt electric pod motor, with 14.7 kilowatt-hours of storage from eight Varta 12-volt marine batteries that take about eight hours to charge."

I'd love to toss a 200 HP motor in a jet ski, just to take it to an 'electric only' lake. and really mess w/the people.

The 22' Pearsons at my club have electric outboards that work well most of the time. But when the wind and waves kick up they can be painfully slow. Definitely emergency engines for when the wind dies and maneuvering at dockside. Perfect use case.

Love it! This is my conversion of a 2016 175 Bayliner:

Thank you Nathaniel for this great article.
Enthusiast builds all-electric speed boat using Tesla battery modules