Monday, December 23 2019. During the last days I have finished all the small jobs that were to be finished before the trial sail could be done. Connecting the controllers, the throttle lever, connecting the shaft flange to the motor shaft, filling the thrust bearing with oil, etc. etc.
But today it is E-Day! Around 10.30 the boat is picked up and carried to the crane to be lifted in.
And everything is working! It is a strange experience to hear nothing! Reversing out of the lifting berth are the first meters to sail, and it is difficult to get an idea how fast the prop is turning, so an RPM-meter in the cockpit would be nice.
We do a test run up and down the canal, with head and tail wind, with different current settings and we record everything: speed, current, RPM, etc.
Everything is running fine, some minor details need to be adjusted: there is some vibration of the motor because of a misalignment of the flanges between prop shaft and motor, the throttle behaviour (can’t give full speed with the throttle lever) needs to be adjusted, but that is only minor. The main thing is that the boat is doing 4.3 knots at 2 kW, and 6.4 knots at full (10kW) speed. That 4.3 knots is a very good economical speed, that gives a range of approximately 30 miles.
And of course a bit of boys and toys: the remote is also working fine.
One more video from the running motor: