Can we please keep the politics off these pages?
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Fuel is politics.
Some hate and pretend we don't need it, while driving gas powered SUV. Others love the ability to take a long drive, or boat ride, with out distance limitations.
I am the later, this weekend I traveled to New Hampisire to help my son with a core issue on his Bertram, a 300 mile drive, there are not any eletric cars that could have made this trip with out stops to charge comfortabley .
Not to mention a pick up truck.
For trucks even at the 18,000 GVW 150 miles range is all the manufactures are claiming.
If you have it fuel delivered it, even when it is fuel. With the help of a truck driver that is.
#triggered
I can’t seem to get a lyric out of my head when I think about these things lately. Hardwired To Self Destruct by Metallica.
I for one am thrilled that the ICE car will be going away soon. Dino fuel will have its place for a very long time, hopefully in my convertible sportfish until someone comes up with a good electric replacement powertrain.
The ICE car is going to be with us much longer than you think. The infrastructure doesn't exist to power the electric car fantasy, and will not for quite some time.
Speaking of electric power, I have been following the you tube channel for Acorn to Arabella. The last episode was talking about the engine install, plumbing and electrical service both AC and DC. They are doing very commendable work with great craftsmanship but its starting to look like they don't have a clue what they are going to require to be safe and comfortable if they ever get it in the water.
Walt Hoover
Some think that the oil in the ground might be the result of a biological process or something else that continually gets replenished. But the real truth is, nobody know where the oil comes from.
Oil consumption for 2020 is down vast amounts. Airplanes aren't flying as much, and that is a major consumer of fuel. Oil prices will be low for a while, until fracking is banned.
My bigger worry is when natural gas prices spike, and they eventually will, just like around 2000ish. Except now there are fewer coal power plants to make up the loss in generation. Additionally, coal plants store 1-2 months of fuel on-site. A natural gas plant will shutdown if there is a supply issue in the pipeline 3 states away......
Hey - here's a thread about the boat I might make an offer on in a couple weeks. I mentioned it in the "Mountauk 52C" thread....guess I should've perused all the threads before commenting there.
Every old boat, for sale at an attractive price, has some kind of major issues. I hope I can find it in my big examination in a couple weeks. In any case, I took 10 years off from boating for my kids and am running out of patience to find a decent vessel in this market. It seems half the country moved to Sw FL the past few months - not a house for sale anywhere and only a few good floaters at a palatable price.
As for the rest of the convo in this thread: I looked deeply into making a hybrid sportfish for charter almost 15 years ago. They make a nice electric motor in Tampa for marine application and 100% of their sales were overseas for ports disallowing diesel. The motor goes around the shaft and a centrifugal clutch could grab the shaft under power and let go when the big diesel is running.
The calcs we did were for a 45' Key West #1. It seemed we could troll fishing at 8kn all day on a 30kw genny. For cruising, making 7 or 8 with the big motors off would be very appealing. That's where we're probably headed if the greens run our fuel back up to 5 bucks. Otherwise, I'll have to hang a few sheets up on that full tower if the breeze in on the stern!
Merry Christmas....