Pros and Cons: Torqeedo Ultralight 403 Electric

To each his own. Having all your stuff on the outside of rail or on top for that matter is going to be a real PITA when the fish and fishing line get next to the boat not to mention anchor line and trolly operation which is why i tucked mine down out of the way. Even mounted my rod holders to the H-Bar getting as much clutter off the side rails as possible. More time bagging fish, less time cleaning up a tangled mess.
What kind of speed are you seeing? Have you compared the fixed possition yet?

Yak, I did try the fixed position but being hooked into the rudder is so much better. Had it out yesterday. The fish didn't cooperate but the Hobie got a workout. Did a 6+ mile trip. By the time I got back to the launch the battery was at 20%. I was very pleased with that. I motored around all day. Mixed in a bunch of peddling. I love having both options. That mirage drive is so efficient. Seems like my top speed is 4.5 or so. Not that I use it like that, most of my trolling motor use is at very slow to moderate speeds. Haven't had to use the second battery yet but it is there if have to use it. I actually enjoy the exercise of peddling. I couldn't be happier with Torqeedo. I seem to use it mostly for scouting out some deeper spots, marking fish and some trolling. Yesterday, after a long day in the hot sun it was great to motor back up the river for the 3 miles.

I haven't had any problem with my lines getting tangled but I'm sure it will happen just when I least want it to.

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Just a Kid to the End

+1

Sounds like you're having a blast. Yea i get enough tangled up messes in my Tracker 170. Nothing i hate worse than a tangled mess of fishing line when i'm in the fish!
6 miles is pretty good . What would you say your average overall speed while running was ?

Not sure I would call it running speed, I tend to move around at 1.5 - 2. Let's remember I peddle often. It's a mixed bag. If you ran full tilt it would wear the battery down quickly? I have never gone out and just run the motor. My data is probably not a good measure.

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Just a Kid to the End

You can basically run at 2-2.5 mph all day especially since you usually stop from time to time .......... At top speed a little less than an hour.

I have been looking into and studying electric propulsion for about five years now and have pretty much relinquished to the fact that it will be a long time before we have the endurance, speed, and battery life I would desire on my Tandem Island when electric propulsion is used for primary propulsion only. At least at the speeds that I like to travel, 2-3 mph simply doesn't cut it for me, my normal preferred cruising speed is 8-10 mph.
I have had quite a bit of success however using supplimental power (currently hybrid gas) to provide a small portion of my power needs, with the remainder of my propulsive power coming from my sails and pedal drives ( I've actually had quite a bit of success at utilizing tri-power propulsion (ie... sail, pedal, and supplemental power (gas or electric)) . I really like the Torqeedo 403 and that motor would be indeed my preferred platform to work with for all kinds of reasons, but unfortunately the TI is a little too large for such a small motor. So on my TI my choices would be either twin 403's or a single 1003 Torqeedo (maybe twin 1003's as well).
What I am thinking is with twin 403's mounted on the stern of the boat (one on each side of the rudder) would hopefully provide enough supplimental power to propel my TI to my required 8-10 mph cruising speeds in no to very light winds (of course with special custom high pitch propellers), utilizing tri-power. However I'm thinking this solution would be much more costly vs a single 1003 motor, given that I would need to buy two of everything.
I have several questions:
Since the motors will not ever be used for primary propulsion, I have no need for the stock propellers, I would need props with their power range from 8-12 mph (instead of 0-5 mph), has anyone tried different pitch props on either the 403 or the 1003. Specifically 12 inch pitch props.

Since the motor(s) will be in the water has anyone tried to re-generate electric power back into the batteries from your forward motion, when not providing propulsion (would be a really nice feature on a sailboat).

I'm pretty certain twin 403's or a single 1003 would provide all my power requirements (my current twin 2.3hp Honda's pumping out about 1/4 horse ea (just above idle) easily propel the boat with no sails or pedaling to 6 mph with my custom super high pitch props. At 1/4 throttle (around 3/4 hp ea power consumption) the current twin hybrid gas motors propel the boat to 8 mph with no sails out and no pedaling in calm water. I very seldom use the motors at wide open throttle ( WOT), yea it's really fast but the fuel economy is horrible (plus the motors are loud at WOT), my boat is simply not designed for that (only in dire emergencies).

I'm assuming I would mount a throttle control on each side of the boat if I go with the twin 403's, so I can vary one throttle or the other to help control trim.

Since I already have the twin 2.3 hp outboards, I will likely just keep them on the boat tilted up when using the electric propulsion. This is why the twin 403's is still a contender.

I'm thinking with my minimal horsepower requirements, I'm pretty certain I could propel the boat mostly on solar power with one solar panel on each tramp (one for each motor if I go with the 403's), or two panels one charging an extra 1003 battery and the other providing propulsion power along with the primary battery if I go with a single 1003 setup, and one set of batteries (one for each motor if the 403 setup is selected). I have determined I only need to provide around 1/4 hp from each motor (I think around 75-100 watts is all I need) since this is only supplemental propulsion (not primary propulsion). Since the solar system is rated at around 50 watts, conceivably I could easily achieve more than 10 hrs worth of propulsion on one set of batteries (sunshine is not a problem here in Florida lol). Ten hrs at 10mph is over 100 miles range.

Another viable option would be twin 1003 motors with super high pitch props and retire my hybrid outboards. With 12 inch pitch props I think I could pull it off. I would have a solar panel on each tramp (one for each motor). Which might duplicate my current system speed and powerwise ( I currently get around 60-100 mpg, so I can normally go out sailing all day typically for around $.50 to $.75 cents worth of gas at average speeds between 8 and 10 mph in no to very light winds, of course if the wind picks up so does my fuel economy. If the wind picks up above 10-12 mph I can just tilt the outboards up if I want, but I seldom do, (I just go way faster instead lol).

Personally I feel there is a major flaw in the entire trolling motor and small outboard industry's thinking whereas every single design out there is intended for primary propulsion for a 3000 lb fishing boat at a couple mph (trolling), or primary propulsion only on an inflatable zodiac or john boat to about 5 mph, so every manufacturer, every motor out there on the market is not pitched properly for our types of boats, and there are literally no aftermarket propellers made by anyone anywhere to suite our needs with Hobie pedal drive boats with sails. Think about it we are completely covered with our pedal drives anywhere from zero to 6 mph by our mirage drives and sail kits (our primary propulsion). We only need supplemental propulsion if we want to go faster, our optimum power range needs to be 6-10 mph, on a very light boat (usually less than 200 lbs).
There is literally nothing out there on the market that covers this.

Another problem I have is all this stuff is still extremely expensive, pretty hard to justify a $5000 to $6000 dollar plus system that only has 1/8 to 1/4 of the performance and range of my current system (I currently have a 200 mile plus cruise range at 8-10 mph with 2-3 gallons of gas on board ($5-$6 bucks in fuel)). which with everything cost me around $2,000 bucks (that's with top of the line Honda engines (which are near double the price of everything else out there)).

Hopefully people can publish their power usage and range results, so I can get a better feel about actual power consumption vs what is published on Torqeedo's web site. I would hate to spend all that money, and find out I really only have 20 minutes worth of power before everything goes dark.
The world is what it is.
Bob

..... You might want to consider the Torqeedo Cruise motors. Around hear we have reservoirs that will only allow electric motors. Many of the guys have moved up to installing the cruise 2.0 and 4.0s on their boats. These are flat bottom Jon boats 16 ft and larger some very large. They get the speeds you want I think. I know a friend of mine does with both of us and a lot of tackle etc.

Be careful of putting a different prop on a Torqeedo. The 403 has a specially designed prop for it. This designed for speed and not power. The Torqeedo is German engineered and well balanced ...... They even warn against running it out of water so a larger prop could put unintended stress on the engine. You may want to check with Torqeedo first.

Looks like i definitely made the right call with the extra battery. A 6 mile run with mixed peddling and running the motor at 2mph doesnt sound very efficient. This sounds like somthing my motoguide on my Tracker would do. This fall i will be making some runs that are 12 miles round trip from the launch and 2 mph isnt going to do it and i dont like to paddle...lol

........ Good luck with that ........ Torqeedo batteries last longer than the traditional batteries ...... You get engine power for almost 100% of the battery power. With traditional you only get @ 50% of the engine power because the battery voltage drops below the 12 volts and the engine slows to a stop. At full speed you only get about an hour of run time ...... 1/2 throttle last all day. You might need a third battery if you run and gun 12 miles.

Yup, already figuring on a third battery. The (last all day) bit is where it gets confusing. My Trackers trolling motor lasts all day to.....on speed one....lol. Starting to think the torqeedo really shines more with its weight and footprint than it does its efficiency.

no ...... it's actually more efficient than any other combo I've seen and I have a ton of different motors and batteries. I've used electric motors on boats for decades. Most of the bass fishing lakes here are electric only so I've used a bunch of them. Of course you could go for the much larger engines like the Torqeedo Cruise 4.0 or a Ray but the batteries alone would probably sink your yak.

Problem is that electrics always have a trade off. You might consider a solar panel that will charge while you run. The Torqeedo one is twice the size of the one put out by Hobie. Problem is how to efficiently mount it.

Ive already looked at numbers. Solar panel is useless for anything other than ability to charge in remote area. It does not put out enough to make a measurable difference on the water while in real time use to justify the cost vs another battery .
As for efficiency, perhaps you misunderstood what i was getting at. Its already more efficiant due to its weight and footprint alone BUT what i'm telling you right now is a fact i dont care how much research you have done.
The numbers say at WOT my 403 battery should last about 40 minutes or so. I'll bet $1000 right now that at WOT my Trackers motoguide and its battery will last 40 minutes on speed 5 as well and it will do it without a whole lot of sag in output pulling a much heavier boat along. Slow it down to speed 2 or 3 and its all day long easy. I cant tell you how many miles of river and creek i have trolled in my Tracker in a day other than it could be measured in miles at times .
Now i take that 4mph at WOT with the Torqeedo and it only last 40 minutes. Ive only went 3 miles and it takes a whole battery to do it. Sorry but that isn't much better than my Tracker would do outside the weight and the footprint of the setup.
The point is the big advantages where Torqeedo is concerned is mainly in that it is lightweight and the batteries weight 5 lbs. As far as realistic distance vs battery life i cant see where its all that great for distance unless i want to take all day to reach my destination at 1 mph which would be the same case for my motoguide on my Tracker.

Yak9107:
I'm assuming you have a PA 14 which if it's anything like my TI I can easily maintain 3-4 mph all day long just pedaling at a moderate (walking type pace) of 40-50 cycles per minute, and I'm really old....
I'm just assuming here but I'm assuming our power requirements would be similar (ie... Similar speeds and battery range)
Where we live there are darn few nice places to launch and the area is huge, it's about 7 miles to south lido beach from the launch (where we like to hang out).
Reading the power and range figures on the Torqeedo web site, the 403 system sounds pretty rosy.
From the sounds of what you are saying, I would be plucking down $2000 bucks, mounting the Torqeedo 403 to my TI (which is the same exact motor and battery the Evolve uses), crank the thing up and if I get the same results as you, I would get 3 miles, then everything is deader than a door nail. That works out to about $700 dollars per mile. Actually I might have a problem at 4mph since the normal current here in the bays is 5mph.
There would be no point to running at any lower speed (like the 1mph you mentioned) since pretty much anybody can just peddle at 3-4 mph with little effort all day long).
Obviously I'm missing something here.
Bob

Yup, At WOT with a loaded Pro Angler at 4mph you are at about $700 per mile initial costs but cost per mile goes way down on extra batts. Not sure what you are getting at? IS it worth it ?
Its pretty much the only game in town as it doesn't weight anything plus all the other advantages shown and written in this thread so yes. I bought this thing for one thing, to fish out of so not having the mirage drive between my legs makes room and i can be rigging up between spots with the motor rather than peddling.
Looking forward to my own tests this fall when i go in to heavy use with it.