Hello,
I led the conversion of a 36 foot boat into an electro-solar boat from the GM range.
It is therefore possible in reality.
In my case the biggest problems to solve were:
- the release of the large Mercedes 6-cylinder engine,
Coupling and in particular the return of the thrust to the hull.
The boat made a little less than 10 tons and I opted for a BDLC engine 10 kW 48 V with its controller VEC500, it is mainly for a river use.
I did the first tests with 4 AGM 100 Ah batteries mounted in series.
I use a double chain transmission with a 19:25 ratio, with 12.7 double gears for now.
The boat is almost electrically autonomous with a set of photovoltaic panels high-yield and allows me to move between 3 and 5 km / h depending on the sunshine.
The next electrical buffer is provided with 10 kW of 48 Volt LiIium batteries.
Still a few things to improve on cooling and optimizing the controller settings and this should be OK.
What a pleasure to sail in inland waters, without noise, odors, fuel!
Nautical greetings.