So I've decided to give up on the idea of spending $2000 for a purpose-built electric outboard for my RU-260 dinghy and just getting a $200 Watersnake 54lb. trolling motor from walmart and use it with a 12vdc deep cycle marine battery.
But then I started looking at batteries online and find that (a) the battery is likely going to cost more than the trolling motor and (b) they weigh 50lbs. I can sling that around no problem, but my wife can't, and it's 10% of the capacity of the Dinghy. I'm also extremely unlikely to need more than two hours of runtime for the dinghy battery, and by my calculations a standard Group 24 marine is well beyond that.
Does anyone have any experience with a small deep-cycle that's reasonably inexpensive (<$100), has the discharge capacity to push a trolling motor, and could be used as an emergency starter for an ETEC-60 in the event that my single house/starter dies? I'd also be looking to charge this with some kind of charge controller so that I can just have the house and this dinghy battery normally connected, keeping them both charged, and pull the dinghy battery when it's time to go.
Bonus points for a handle and for easy in/out of the battery compartment below the ladder on a
mastreb wrote:
...., and could be used as an emergency starter for an ETEC-60 in the event that my single house/starter dies? I'd also be looking to charge this with some kind of charge controller so that I can just have the house and this dinghy battery normally connected, keeping them both charged, and pull the dinghy battery when it's time to go.
Bonus points for a handle and for easy in/out of the battery compartment below the ladder on a
Funny you should mention it: My Motomaster Eliminator 700-amp portable battery has a handle.
But in all seriousness, you might consider this or one of its variants (they come in various capacities and with various raisons d'etre). The one I have often comes on sale (Canadian Tire) for ~$65. I love it. It is lighter than a car battery; but one of its advertised roles in life is as a backup starter battery in case your car battery is flat. It has built-in jumper cables, USB outlet, charge indicator, 'cigarette lighter' plug-ins giving 12 volts. It comes with 2 rechargers for itself - one for home 120V electrical outlets and one that will take a cigarette lighter plug off the boat battery. It is the sort of thing you would not mind sitting against in the dinghy (ie. all civilized so you are not touching battery acid or grease or live cable posts). We have so far only had one occasion to use it to jump-start our E-tec 60 motor (before I discovered that the latter's starting battery ground cable was lose).
But having said all this (and I don't own shares in the company!), we have a Suzuki 4-stroke 2.5 hp OB ... bought for the dinghy; but which we almost never use for the dinghy because somehow the oars generally seem less complicated and even my wife is happy to row it for lengthy periods of time.
The Eliminator we use all the time - as a comforting backup and to charge camera batteries etc. on board. I also run my fixed-mount VHF radio off it.
The Suzuki we take along all the time - as a comforting get-home motor.
Kittiwake
Not a real fan of the elec. trolling motor for a dinghy, why? We can get some really nice power engines for the dinghy, for very little cost.
My honda 2 hp cost me 300 bucks used and will run for a very long time from its built in gas tank. It weighs around 20 pounds. It will use gas from my main tank on the mac, to refuel so no other gas can needs to be brought aboard.
It may seem like the electric trolling motor that weighs 10 pounds or so would be ideal, but most forget about the 50 pound battery you need to run it.
electric motors are really not ideal in salt water, eventually they leak power into the water, will eat all the metal on the dink, as well as metal anywhere around them when being used. yep your outboard on the mac. Salt water versions of the electric motor are available and will last longer in salt water though.
Suz and honda make perfect little gas motors for the dink, little 4 strokes that run forever, tohatsu and a few others make a few motors with a little more hp.
The point is you can run the gas motors on a quart of gas longer than an electric with a full battery, but then you have to run your main engine on the mac to charge the battery back up when you have any kind of extended stay without a slip somewhere. So you still burn gas to use it.
Having run bow mounted elec. trolling motors on my whaler for fishing in salt water, they lasted about 2 years before needing replacement, same goes for the extra battery that ran them.
unless we buy a big elec. motor to run on the dink, the performance isnt all that great. A 2 hp gas engine will run circles around them. The reason we see very few electric powered dink motors at the dinghy dock on all those dinks, is for the reasons stated above.
Mike
I'm looking to buy a motor for my small inflatable, right now too (bought at the Toronto boat show). I think the logic of a small outboard is correct. Common fuel, fuel weight, refueling time and to some extent less hazard. While I can't say the same about the motor, at least if you flipped or ripped it the gas can would float.
Though, if I was awash in cash, I would look at the electric/lithium battery outboard that you mentioned. Overall - fossil fuel wins the day, unfortunately!
R
Overall - fossil fuel wins the day, unfortunately!
Hi Ross –
You’re correct with that in many senses. When you look at the big picture electric powered anything is only as “green” (I hate that word for it, it’s been meaningless for over a decade) as the source of the electric power.
Meaning an electric outboard motor (or scooter, or whatever) is only “green” if the battery is charged directly by solar panels or a windmill or similar, and not by running your motor alternator/generator or by the mains. Or hydroelectric, and even though we live close to Niagara Falls, the majority of the electricity that reaches our homes is not hydroelectric, so who’s really is? Hardly anyone’s on our continent, it makes up only a small portion of the total power generated.
Electric cars charged from the mains are not clean for the environment overall either, but they simply move the source of the pollution (combustion) away from the vehicle tailpipe itself and back to the electrical generating stations, which presently in North America happen to be predominantly coal-generated (= filthy).
And that appears to make it all OK, because several auto manufacturers continue to pursue electric vehicles. Maybe the time will come when electricity can be generated cleanly.
I use an electric trolling motor for the dinghy, only because the dinghy does get used much. Buying a smaller deep cycle battery was a problem, so I had to settle on just buying a smaller battery. The regular deep cycle batteries, I agree, are just too heavy to lug in and out of a small dinghy.
On another topic - electric cars: do you also notice that in the electric car tv ads they show an electric car driving through a tall forest untouched by logging companies? As if you are going to save the planet if you buy an electric car.
A smaller offshore cruiser could make way even in dead calm on extended sunny days with a good sized solar array. The cost of the whole setup would be a little crazy but it's a fun concept.
We already have the greenest boat propulsion available, even me, with a 115 hp engine, complete free wind power. when sailing I get unlimited mpg, unlimited range, and no pollution at all. The amount of fuel I use when I use my engine comes out to about 12 gallons a year, 1 gallon a month, or 1 quart a week. Add the dinghy motor to the mix, its 1/2 gallon a year, or .04 quarts a month, or .01 quarts a week.
even at that rate I have plenty of gas left over to toss in the camp fire to get it started when I go camping. with solar power once the battery is full, all the rest of the power is waisted, you cant, like put it in a jug and run the lawn mower, or even start a fire with the left over power.
Sadly many people are guilted into thinking they are awful people if they don't use the natural power of the sun, wind over oil based products. Believe me, other than feel good reasons for solar power, electric motors, and such we would have all the freighters that ship all those outboards and goods to and from us, using solar electric power, if it was worth the cost to do it. Our tanks and planes and every means of our military would be solar powered.
Its all feel good, not one ounce of common sense, and the worst part, we feel good cause other people tell us we should feel good when we use solar, or wind for power. Its sad.
I still have and use an old 4hp, 2 stroke dinghy motor, that makes me feel great because it works so good, should I feel bad because I use 1/2 gallon of gas/oil mix in a year. Heck no. I do my part like every one else, I don't chop down trees for nothing, I only use one light in the house, in the room I'm in, I sail my main boat.
people use the best possible power source for your needs when having fun, don't spend lots of fun bucks on things like trolling motors and battery's for a main source of power, having to worry you have enough charge in your battery to get back to the boat, you cant fight the wind and chop and put yourself and family in harms way cause you don't have the power to propel your dink to fight it. Take my word for it, those little 2hp outboards have lots of power to take care of all the dinghy needs, and if you get low on energy for it, you top off the gas tank and your good to go. Don't let other people control your feel good fun factor.
enjoy life and stop worrying about what the other guy thinks of you. If the battery, elec. motor was the greatest thing since sliced bread, take my word for it, all the dinghy's at the dinghy dock would have them. Its not practical. Plus we get enough bad looks cause we own and sail a mac, we really want to add to that with a kmart electric dinghy motor??????
Well Matt, I'm going to blame you for this! Your post got me into looking into small outboards for my new (as yet uninflated) inflatable that I bought at this winters local boat show. I found, and bought the following good deal - free shipping out of Florida: http://www.boats.net/outboard_motor/Suz ... parts.html
Nothing like spending money, to save money (I'm beginning to sound like my wife)! Looking at several of the Youtube videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxSVP1Oi ... re=related tells me it has all the power I need for my 7.5' dink, and at 30lbs even the admiral can set it up.
Ross
Sorry for the late check-back-in, been too busy with real life. I'm not considering a trolling motor because I'm a knee-jerk greenie weenie, I was considering it for light weight (20lbs) and low cost ($200). But when I started looking at batteries I realized that it was going to double the cost and triple the weight, which is why I asked if anyone had experience with a better battery.
I honestly haven't considered a light outboard at all, and I'm not sure why. Probably bias against carrying around fuel. But the argument of "same fuel" is a good one, and certainly they last longer. How is the noise? $700 for a solution that just works and worse case could get the mac to a slip is not a bad idea.
So... what's the lightest weight outboard that you guys think could actually pull me up to a dock in an emergency? Because everything's got to be dual purpose on a Mac, right? I guess now I'd be talking about a kicker plate as well.
.... 3 1/2 HP Tohatsu since it was the smallest outboard we could find in a long shaft. We also wanted it for a backup motor for the Mac. Since you wouldn't be mounting it in the motor-well like we would, you probably could get by with a short shaft and mount a lower bracket for it.
If you wanted the possibility of double duty considering where you sail I probably wouldn't consider anything under 3 HP and then I would look for a higher thrust prop than came on it if you could find one. We did that with the 3 1/2 HP. The downside to the outboard is that it is 40 lbs. I can move it around a lot easier than the 5 HP 60 lb. motor we were using, but even 40 lbs. in a dinghy rocking around in waves and trying to transfer it to the mother ship can be exciting. I always have a line on it going to a cleat and on to Ruth.
I agree with all of the other comments on the pluses of a gas motor vs. electric that were given above, especially if you wanted it as an emergency outboard for the Mac. The noise on the 4 strokes isn't bad. Ruth and I talk in normal voice levels while in the dinghy,
Choices I know of, honda 2hp....suz 2.5...tohatsu 3...merc 3... same as tohatsu I think... sorry none will give the mac a hard push against a current. but will serve a non planing dinghy well and will mount up to the swim ladder for storage while underway.
knee-jerk greenie weenie
got to love that...
your back up power is the sails, I guess if needed, the dinghy could be used as a sort of tug boat to a slip. If you get the long shaft dink motor performance will suffer as well as beaching the dink some. So the short shaft is best with the dink. I have vessel assist to help with the days no motor, no wind.
I have gone the route of planeing dinghy with a 15hp two stroke for my 9.5 dink, although it works even the 40 pound 15 is a bear to move around and mount from the mac. So I'm set about the smaller hp motors for the dink. My honda is perfect, I have been in dinks with the suz and it works great. Haven't tried the others mentioned, I did get a deal on ebay for a 1999 evinrude 2 stroke 4hp and that works extremely well at about 20 some pounds.
What to look for: gas tank integrated into the motor, a remote gas hook up, if you want extended running ( both gas tank integrated, and external my evinrude is that way). You want a fuel transfer pump from west marine, works great taking fuel out of the main mac tanks into a 5 gallon jug to dump older gas in your tow car too. light weight all above are in the 20+lb range. They are very silent, especially the suz. Extended trips in the dink you carry a one gallon can too.
If you are a knee-jerk greenie weenie all the above motors are 4 strokes, except the evinrude 4hp. which by the way has the most power, lightest of the bunch and is real easy pull start, as well as has twin cyl. If I see a good deal on a suz 2.5 I will buy it, just to have it, its that nice.
Mike
Yeah what I said above.......double post as nice looking the tohatsu, and merc's are they weigh almost twice the honda and suz, thats ok if you are under 30.....my wife can one hand the honda down to our dink, even in choppy seas...
Mike
(I hate that word for it, it’s been meaningless for over a decade) as the source of the electric power. 
all the above motors are 4 strokes, except the evinrude 4hp. which by the way has the most power, lightest of the bunch and is real easy pull start, as well as has twin cyl. If I see a good deal on a suz 2.5 I will buy it, just to have it, its that nice.