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Powersailing the TI ( I'm never going back)
http://www.hobie.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=49014
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Author:  serbi [ Tue Aug 27, 2013 10:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Powersailing the TI ( I'm never going back)

Fusioneng :

Posting below some feedback from forum member Steve (snjsanders) regarding using the evolve on the TI. I think Steve is using the evolve on the TI since quite some time and I actually based my decision to buy the evovle on his experiences...

Peace
Serbi

Post subject: Re: evolve motor for the TI
PostPosted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:24 pm
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Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2011 5:14 pm
Posts: 95
Location: Jupiter, Florida
I have been using the Evolve 2 on my TI for about 2 years and have mostly favorable things to say about it. With my experience I think I can say, with some authority, that depending on your individual needs, some will love it and other will think its a waist of money. For me I spend a lot of time solo fishing off the southeast coast of Florida. The fishing grounds are about 5 miles off shore and the current typically runs 3-5 knots to the north. With good wind to power the sail this is not a problem, but in a no wind or bad wind situation, it has becomes problematic. Especially when recovering and having to fight both the current and a head wind. There have been times after fishing all day long and having to pedal in 5-7 miles in 100 degree temperature, that I have been close to heat exhaustion. The evolve motor has been worth every penny in these situations. My normal game plan is to leave the motor stored in the boat until I launch and evaluate the wind and current. There are some trip I never use the motor, others where I may use it to recover, and still others where it is used the entire day. The synergistic effect of using the sail, pedal and motor cannot be overstated, even on no wind days.

My overall impression is the build on the evolve is first rate. And it is by far the smallest and lightest motor that you can get for the TI. The ability to store the motor in the front hatch and then when needed, pull it out and quickly get it ready, really is handy. Having said that I did have an internal gear failure about 15 months into life of my motor. I had to send it in, under warrantee, to a repair facility in New York for repairs. The company was very easy to work with and fixed it fast. Another problem is the caps supplied with the motor for covering the the canon plugs. They are made by Hobie and are worthless. I talked to Torqeedo and they sent me some old cut off female and male plugs that work great. This is really important with the canon plug you mount inside the boat and plugs into the motor. If it gets filled with water before you plug the motor into it, the motor won't work.

My biggest complaint with the Evolve 2 is the run time. You are going to pay about 2k for a motor that runs about 3-3.5 hours. The TI will run around 3 knots at about 125 w/h. But when you throw in a little wind and a little pedal it works out to real average of about 100 w/h. For the 320 watt battery that comes with the motor than equates to around 3- 3.5hrs or about 10 miles. For my no wind days that is not enough for me. My solution was to invest another $550 into the Torqeeto 1145 battery. It is a 520 watt battery and cost less than Hobie's 320 watt battery. For a 30% increase in overall cost my usable range increased by 162%. Using both batteries my range goes for 10 miles to about 26 miles.

As a side note, I would not recommend the solar panels. It cost about the same as the 1145 battery and the max charge rate is 45 w/h. Obviously, if you are drawing 100 w/h this would result, in a best case scenario, at 65w/h. This would give your 320 watt battery 5 hours instead of 3.5. Your money is better spent on the 1145 Torqeeto battery that extends your time to 8.4 hours (using both batteries).

Author:  fusioneng [ Wed Aug 28, 2013 7:20 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Powersailing the TI ( I'm never going back)

Serbi:
I had missed Steves earlier post from April. Where he lives the gulf stream is very strong, and can be dangerous (I've been out there a few times). I have the same problem down in Key West with strong currents that really are trying hard to sweep you out to sea. On the west side of Key West the current is very strong (around 5-6mph) past Mallory square and tries very hard to sweep you south past the island (out to sea), in bad wind and no motor, I cannot pedal fast enough to get back to the Simonton street ramp (our launch point). Even with my old motor at full, and my wife and I pedaling as fast as we could, with winds from the north we could not make it back to our launch point. I had to swing out offshore, sailing around Tank and Wisteria islands and come in from the north (quite a few miles out of my way, and several hours, it was after dark when we finally got back).
When we are south of the island on the coral reefs (where we dive, usually around Sand Key (5-8 miles south of Key West)) the gulf stream runs from west to east at 5mph, if the wind dies or is wrong you can't get out of it and get drug out into the atlantic (next stop Cuba), I cannot pedal fast enough to get back to Key West. These are the main reasons for having my emergency gas motor, I would be very concerned if I got out there with an electric, and get part way back and the battery goes dead. Of course I have all the radios and safety gear, and a Boat US membership (highly advised) but just knowing if I get in trouble or the wind changes (or dies) or an unexpected storm comes in (which happens a lot down there, they come out of the blue). I just feel safer with a reliable backup and a hundred miles of fuel (about a gallon). Even if I did buy an Evolve and put solar panels on my TI, I think I would still carry my gas motor ( I already own it), it's only 30 lbs and when not in use it just tilts up out of the way. The gas motors have been on my boat every trip for 3 1/2 years now, the few times I have used it, I was in real trouble (besides the screwing around I've been doing this week with the powersail stuff while breaking in the new motor), and thanked my lucky stars I had it.
Bob

Author:  fusioneng [ Thu Aug 29, 2013 2:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Powersailing the TI ( I'm never going back)

I took my TI out again yesterday, the winds were very light (typical for around here).
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I finished breaking in my motor and decided to go up to the Honda dealers marina (Sara Bay Marina in Sarasota) to buy the oil for the 10 hour maintainance which I did myself.
Here is the track from my Isailer app showing the route. The gap in the route up near the top is where I ran aground and got stuck (unfamiliar area that I don't usually go). The launch point was City Island (right next to Sarasota Sailing Squadron, where I normally launch)
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I have no idea how to retrieve the track data from Isailer, though I pushed the button to try and record stuff I have no clue how to retrieve it yet.

I also had my garmin GPS along (no idea how to export track log information from that either, it's a very low end Garmin)
This is a pic of my GPS screen from the trip
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I thought my moving average (5.6mph) should have been higher (closer to 6.5mph) but I did stop on the way up to take a break and have a drink (water), that's the dogleg (on the right track) near the bottom of the trip up. And where I ran aground (up near the top), I wasn't moving fast at all walking the boat off the shoal (should have noticed the birds walking around LOL). Also the trip up was pretty much directly into the wind (you might notice I didn't have to tack at all)
Max speed of 8.9 I think was on the way back (downwind) where the wind picked up a little just before the storm came, I had to furl the main a couple turns in. The trip odom shows 7.92 miles, but the trip was over ten miles, the GPS battery went dead halfway back. I launched at around 12:00 and returned right around 4:00, I hung out at the marina for a while. As a side note when I got to the marina and docked, I put my mirage drive in backwards so I would have reverse when approaching the dock, it actually worked out well, except the TI is a large boat with a small rudder so you can't turn on a dime. If need be I suppose I could have gone back to the back seat and used the motor tiller to maneuver around, but this was my first experience actually docking in a real marina, sure was a head turner, and everyone was commenting and asking me questions about the boat and especially my 100mpg fuel economy (I think fuel is a touchy subject right now with power boaters LOL).

Here are some pics of my Honda 2.3 motor mounted on my old motor mount.
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My throttle control is in the front seat (that white PVC tubing next to the seat). You can also see the tether/kill switch line attached to my PFD. The kill switch is on bungy cord and disappears into the tube so I can roam around the boat without shutting the motor down. The tether line is attached to the AKA brace (500 lb test paracord)and is designed if I fall overboard to kill the engine, then tow me along so I can get back in the boat ( I wear it all the time).

Image

You know those black rubber scupper plugs that come with the boats (shown in my hand in the pic). I finally figured out what you can use them for. I made a boot to go over my tiller/throttle control, and attached it to a 5 ft piece of 1/2" PVC pipe to use as the throttle when I 'm sitting in the front seat. When in the front (my preferred position) I just control the motor from there, and steer with the TI's rudder. I have the tubing bungied down to the rear AKA crossbar, this holds it down and also works as a throttle lock so I don't have to constantly hold onto the throttle (I removed the dead mans throttle)

Image

Going up there the winds were from the north at around 5mph, I kept the throttle at 1/4 throttle pretty much the whole time. On the way back the winds shifted to coming from the northwest, about halfway back (after my GPS went dead) the winds picked up quite a bit and it got very wavy, and lightning was off in the distance and the sky was very black (we had about 5 inches of rain), fortunately it didn't hit until I had the boat on the trailer and was on the way home. When it started getting really rough, I had to furl the main a couple turns, but didn't need to do anything with the jib (it can handle those winds with no problems, and can't possibly flip the boat over). I couldn't open the throttle more than about half throttle on the engine because on the way back the engine turned slightly (wasn't locked tight enough) and if I gave it too much gas I couldn't turn right. I have since fixed that problem, the rudder cable on the TI was loose, and I tilted the motor slightly so the prop is under the boat and turned outward slightly (so the boat will track straight), and I have a lot better lock on the tiller now.
All in all I was out around 4 hrs, and checked my fuel when I got home, and had used less than a quart of fuel. I thought I had covered somewhere between 15 and 20 miles for the day, so I'm still thinking this crazy boat is getting around 100 miles per gallon. When it got really rough and windy, the boat was a handful to handle, (even if I had gone without the motor). So as long as I had my sails up (powersailing) I'm not sure having more motor horsepower available would have helped me. Near the end (the last 1/2 mile) I furled the main completely and just left the wing jib in neutral (unpowered) and used the motor to get back into the harbor, by then the winds were gusting mid to high 20's and it was very rough, and lightning was striking very close. After all that's why I got the stupid motor in the firstplace, 'to get me out of situations like that'. I got my boat loaded on the trailer and ready to go home in record time (under 10 minutes), it's amazing what a motivator lightning close by, pitch black clouds, and the wind howling is at getting you to not doddle around.
Maybe once I understand my Isailer software app better, or get a better software or GPS, I will hopefully be able to send a better report.
Bob

Author:  fusioneng [ Fri Sep 06, 2013 8:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Powersailing the TI ( I'm never going back)

I went out powersailing again today in light winds (around 5-6mph) mostly from the north. I now have a little more accurate information on fuel economy. Today I went around 12.5 miles and used 1 quart of fuel, this comes out to around 50 miles per gallon.
I also made a discovery that when I say quarter throttle on the video, it may be a little more than quarter throttle. It turns out I apparently adjust the throttle to get to my cruise speed (between 6.5 and 7mph) with the sails tuned as close as possible to optimum. Without realizing it that cruising speed is dependent on the wind, when the winds are very low (like today) the throttle is higher (so I use more gas). When the winds are higher I use less, so bottom line I get somewhere between 50 mpg and 100mpg depending on the windspeed (and probably direction). Powersailing performance appears to be best upwind, and worst (by far) downwind.
Here is the video from today you can hear the motor revving higher than some of the other videos:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cTju3DYzPA&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
Here is my route track from Isailer
Image

Here is a snapshot of my GPS screen
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The trip up was almost directly into the wind which was coming from the north at maybe 5mph, it switched when I was up near the top to coming from the north west, but I was going faster than the wind on the way back so I kept my sails tight and was able to go faster that way rather than trying to open up the sails into a batwing downwind configuration (trying to do that actually slowed me down quite a bit). If the downwind had been stronger I would have deployed my wing spinnaker, one of these days the wind will be strong enough to actually use the spinnaker (haven't used it much at all this year yet, never enough wind).
Even worst case scenario with nearly no wind out there I have 10 hrs of fuel on board (1 1/3 gallons) and can go 60-70 miles at between 6.5 to 8 mph. Best case when I have at least a little wind to work with, I can get about 100 mpg and can go about 20hrs and over one hundred miles range at between 6.5 to 9mph (or even faster with more wind).
Going out today cost me one dollar in fuel, and I was able to cover quite a bit of ground in two hours, plus I got my exercise ( I pedaled 100% of the time).
I also shut the motor off for a little while and tried just sailing, I got up to around 3mph, so I started the motor back up again. ( I can walk faster than that)
I'm becoming a huge fan of this powersailing, the tri-power capability of the Tandem Island really works. I'm a very happy camper.
Bob

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