The Electric Boat Association provides technical information and support in a number of ways:

• The Suppliers Directory of our website provides an extensive list of products and services provided by EBA Business Members together with address and contact details. Click here
• Regular articles in our magazine Electric Boat, available to all EBA members, include technical reports covering a wide variety of topics. As an example, you may like to read an article on batteries and battery maintenance – one of the topics most requested by our membership.  Click here
• We produce a series of Information Sheets covering a variety of technical subjects (see list below). These are free to members and may be obtained from EBA Secretary Robert M. Kay – e-mail: secretary@electricboatassociation.org
• This section also includes information on books about electric boating, and two spreadsheets for calculating hull drag and power (see below).

List of Information Sheets Available

• Solar Photovoltaics  – Paul Lynn
• Electrifying Your Boat – Hawthorne & Wagstaffe
• Hull Design for Electric Boats – Andrew N. Wolstenholme
• Lead-Acid Batteries – Operation & Maintenance – CMP Batteries
• High Speed Electric Boats – Lorne Campbell
• Hybrid Power – John Hustwick
• Trailers & Towing – Paul Lynn
• Fitting Out & Laying Up – John Hustwick and Ian Rutter (covers all aspects of trailing, launching and recovering your boat and tips for getting your boat ready for the cruising season and laying up at the end of the season)

Download our Technical FAQ’s here
 

Books

Electric Boats on the Thames 1889-1914
by Edward Hawthorne

For the electric boat builder,  Edwardian era launches of the River Thames are pictured, mostly of the past but some of the present, restored or replicated. This thoroughly researched illustrated history describes the first electric motors, the boatyards, the variety of boats, and the economics of rental electric boat fleets.

ISBN No. 0750910151 (no longer in print but watch out for it in libraries & second-hand bookshops)

Edward Hawthorne has also written about the history of electric boating in the History Section of this website.

Electric Propulsion for Boats
by Charles Mathys (Paperback)

ISBN No. 1892216493
(see Paul Lynn’s review in the Winter 2004/2005 issue of EB News)

Hull drag and power – useful calculation spreadsheets

EBA member Theo Schmidt has provided two spreadsheets to quickly determine the “best case” drag and power for a craft of any size with a smooth surface, no disturbances like immersed transoms, and traveling at a speed where the wave-making is negligible. All that is needed as input is the wetted surface area, the speed, and the approximate length.  The spreadsheet also allows setting the medium to “air” and thus gives the  drag and power of an equivalent optimal airship hull, e.g. an optimal fairing for reducing wind resistance.

Click to download Excel file: drag.xls

Theo Schmidt  has provided a second spreadsheet to do the same calculation but also allows inputting of various efficiencies, the battery voltage, and the dimensions of the boat’s  wiring. It then gives the actual electrical motor power and the power  required form the battery. e.g. by using a propeller efficiency of 90%, a  transmission efficiency of 100% (no gearing), and a motor efficiency of 90%,  and very thick copper wiring, this then gives a “best case” for the  electrical values as well.  In practice one will want to use more conservative efficiency values and  perhaps degrade the hydrodynamic values somewhat by entering a higher value  of wetted surface, as few boats will be as clean as the rowing shells used  for the data.

Click to download Excel file: EBcalc.xls