Carver Owners Forum

Hi, a new owner of a Carver aft cabin 36, 1987. Into my 80’s my sailing days are limited.

Found it advertised on line berthed at the Liberty Mariner in Edgewater Maryland, which is merely 1 mile from my dock: so convenient for delivery as to be the primary reason of all the ‘picks’ .
The boat is named Serenity originally owned by a Marylander.
This is intended to be a live aboard at my own dock ( I found out that as such, Maryland will impose yearly property tax ); in Serenity (an emotional escape ?) . The doctor cannot save my ailing wife from late stage Vascular Dementia

The house is up the hill which, in retirement, I am changing it to Airbnb and manage it down by the dock.

The bucket list: is to replace the two powerful gas engines with a pair of DC motors just to potter around and convert the heads to compost toilets. And, to install a wind turbine to keep the battery banks charged

Welcome aboard!

I also am the owner of a Carver Aft Cabin, a '92 33', and am in my 80's. Bought her 2 years ago, and am still working on her, quite a bit into the engines (elbows, risers, heat exchangers,) and cosmetics, plumbing, etc. and I also thought an electric conversion would be fun to do, especially as I only get 1 mpg at 8 mph.

I had to face reality, though, and admit that maybe I didn't have the time horizon or the strength to accomplish that and still get some quality cruising in.(Last year, got in 2 months and 600 miles on the Hudson and Lake Champlain, so a good start).

But if you are serious about your conversion, I hope you can keep us dreamers up to date on your progress. I thought maybe buy a couple of wrecked Teslas and salvage the running gear. I haven't done all the calculations but if a boat requires 8 gallons of gasoline per hour, how many KWH would be needed for the same range. Are there enough marinas and power poles to recharge often enough? But I don't know; EE's on the forum: what thinkest thee?

Be a really great conversion, if you do it! Keep us informed and inspire a lot of young environmentally conscious boaters!

Welcome to the group!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome aboard

plittle2005 wrote:Source of the post
... But if you are serious about your conversion, I hope you can keep us dreamers up to date on your progress. I thought maybe buy a couple of wrecked Teslas and salvage the running gear. I haven't done all the calculations but if a boat requires 8 gallons of gasoline per hour, how many KWH would be needed for the same range. Are there enough marinas and power poles to recharge often enough? But I don't know; EE's on the forum: what thinkest thee? ...

Just as a SWAG, that 8 gal/hr would equate to about 68kWh of battery capacity.

At that speed, you're probably running the gas engines at their most inefficient portion of the power curve and there might also be a lot of accessory load that's eating into the efficiency too, so that kWh number could be a bit lower, but it's in the ballpark.

Welcome.

Just to share something: an aquantaince of mine had a wind turbine and changed it to solar panels because of the noise and resonance off the turbine. Fine for a short period but for a liveaboard perhaps panels are a better option. And if you have her at your own grounds, you can put some panels on shore if you want to get off-grid as much as possible.

Welcome aboard!

Welcome Aboard.