Electric repower of Lotus Flower a 1976 Ericson 27

After 8 years of use with AGM batteries for propulsion I have removed and replaced them with lithium (LiFePO4). The AGM's were still working fine for short term motoring needs but the range capacity had definitely dropped in the past few years. Lotus Flower had two 48 volt AGM battery banks...

The existing 11x10 fixed two blade prop gave me a top speed of 4.5 knots and a 20 amp speed of 3 knots. Knowing a bigger prop would be more efficient and reading that a three blade prop would be better for regeneration I found a 12x10 fixed three blade locally and had it installed. This was a...

Sometime around the installation of the second battery bank I installed a PakTrakr battery monitor. The PakTrakr is a fairly inexpensive monitor, not particularly robust looking and not marinized but as of this posting has been basically trouble free and a great asset. To see the functions the...

More Batteries; After initial operations with the existing prop and minimal battery capacity (four group 27 AGM’s) I added four group 31 AGM batteries as a separate 48 volt bank for longer range and redundancy. This brought the battery storage up to about 200 amp hours at 48 volts total. There...

Well, three and half years into life with electric propulsion (EP) on Lotus Flower a 1976 E27 I think it's time to log some thoughts on the web. I will start with a timeline of the process. Phase one; 5/22/07 – Bought 1976 Ericson 27 “Lotus Flower” 5/22/07 – 11/07 docked in Sausalito CA...