Electric boat record

[FrenchPhil]

It happened a few moths ago, but 98.806mph is very impressive. Pilote is Mike Bontoft & he used a 133V 900amp setup with 60lbs of lithium batteries.Anybody working on fast electric motors ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76e19SxVzXE

[NNT]

pretty cool

[Mike Bontoft]

This is a better video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yNu2_LlO9s&NR=1

I like playing with model boats too; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8q3SvV6iiY&NR=1

[FrenchPhil]

Thanks Mike ! What gearcase did you use. I was told its a Prestolite 48v motor pumped to 133v, was it tough to adapt to the gearcase. What type of controller did you use & what are the things to be careful with the Li-Po batteries.

[oldschoolltv]

that is cool!

[Mike Bontoft]

Thanks, The outboard lower is a racing unit which I mated up to a homemade gearbox. I machined splines on the motor output shaft and made a stub shaft from the gearbox into the lower unit. I machined a new motor end bell which incorporates the gearbox cover.
I remove all 42 batteries from the boat for charging and they are all balanced, Charging takes one hour. The batteries have been excellent and they all balance within 0.002 volts/252 cells total. A short is bad news with any electrical system but with li-pollys you must be extra careful and watch the amp draw very closely. They deliver so much energy they will burn up if shorted.
We data logged voltage, amps, RPM ,speed, and throttle position. The speed control is a Zilla 2K unit. We have the electric motor currently on a Stuska dynomometer and will be testing this Monday, It will be interesting to see how much horsepower we had. If I remember I will get some pics for you.

[Charger200]

Welcome to the board.

That is an amazing acheivement congrats

[oldschoolltv]

I would love to see more pics that thing sounds wicked going by and congratulations also, i have had rc nitro boats and just got a brushless electric it is amazing how battery technology has come in the last few years, Matt

[Instigator]

Congrats on the record! Setting a APBA/UIM record is a major achievement and much more difficult to accomplish than most realize.
There was a very nice story about your record in a recent Propeller magazine.
Showed Wartinger helping you with wheels. Also sounded like you think theres more in it???
Wondering if the props that you ran were close to any other existing gas powered classes???
Again, Congrats my friend and welcome to the board.
Gary

[Mike Bontoft]

Sorry Gary, I haven't been on this board for a while. We have been busy running dyno tests on the motor and trying different brush timing settings. I think it will be possible to get it up to 105mph but the conditions would need to be near perfect.
The prop we were using is one of Bobs C mod record props, very low rake, 4 blades running at about 8700 rpm. I'm not sure how much faster I want to take this little boat (12 1/2 ft). She was walking around pretty good at 102, this was at the beginning of the last set of runs on Sunday and the conditions were starting to deteriorate.

[JW]

This is VERY cool!

I'd love to be able to run electric for the hours of tube pulling I do on the weekends. To be able to replace the loud drone of my Merc V6 for hours on end with quiet electric torque would be ideal!

[whipper]

Simply incredible!!! That is so amazing. I always wondered what was possable with electric motors on a Boat. How long can you run like that on a one hour charge?

[Mike Bontoft]

Because this boat was built specially for running the UIM and APBA kilo events it only has a run time of about 2 minutes wide open. With this battery technology, bigger battery packs and with the latest brushless motors a 30 minute speedboat ride is not out of the question.

[afr]

i was going to try this in a 15 ft boat some time back
but i never got the bugs worked out $$
i seen you got the record some time ago
i spoke with john paramore about a week after your run you used wills boat right
i thought clowd was pose to be the driver as well

great job you set the bar forsure

i designed and built my own hull and my own propulsion unit
i designed built my own controler witch later on became just a on/off switch
the batteries were wrong again just lack of exsperance and $
i tried it the hard way to say the least no computors just old school seat of the pants testing
i finally did get my hull design to show some speed with a 200 gas motor
moral of the story i needed way more help and exsperance with both the hull and propulsion designs
but on a positive note because of my effort i found the guys on scream and fly met a lot of new freinds
looking back i made several mistakes along the way
i built a new hull for it but i think ill just keep the gaser on it and play
and on another note i got cool hybrid that will run all day on 48 volts and generator/ charger and only use 3 to 5 gallons of gas

again wtg glad the record is staying in the USA that other team over seas had some numbers around 86 mph but they re charged between rounds

great job
scott

[Petr Kuhtreiber]

Congratulations to the record.
Our electric boat rides while only 55.3 mph.




Paremetry:
Ship AXES 400
Baterie100V Li-pol
BLDC brushless motor 420A CR110 6000 rpm,

Now we build a lighter boat with more powerful engine so maybe converged to 100 mph
Petr