alternate houseboat engine

 Hi,

I'm considering buying an old decomissioned military patrol boat (I
have some other possibilities too), anyway it is a fixer upper. I
would have to replace the engine. If I replace the engine I want to
have an alternate energy solution. I am a pretty competent diy and can
pull on a big network of people for fixing this up, including some
engineers (but don't want to do so yet until I finalize decision)

What I would really like is some steam based solution, but it seems
that steam nowadays is all about toys.

Unfortunately the boat would not be efficiently convertible to being a
motor/sail boat.

Since I am going to be converting it to a houseboat situation this
falls under an Alt-home alt-energy for alt-home situation. :)


Any suggestions?

 



Beware the neat-idea-fixer-upper boat. Recall some adages of boats:

You're only happy two days that you own a boat - the day you buy it and
the day you sell it.

A boat is a hole in the water that you throw money in (or lined with
money).

Anyway, get a liquid-cooled (keel-cooled) diesel, and set up to recover
heat from it for heat and hotwater, and generate electricity with it,
but it probably will not be efficient to set the boat up as a
diesel-electric (using an electric generator to drive an electric motor
is a nice transmission system used on many large vehicles, but the loss
of efficiency .vs. a shaft is going to be noticeable). Of course, if the
boat will stay put most of the time, that may not be a big deal, but the
scale of generator and the cost of an appropriate electric motor will
probably still make that non-sensible. You'll probably still need a
smaller generator for when the boat is not going anywhere, for the sake
of fuel efficiency.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by

 On 22 Feb 2007 01:07:58 -0800, "pantagruel"

Why steam? Why not a generator?
Steam nowadays are all about toys and boats. There are a lot of modern
steamships that use cheap bunkers oil instead of diesel.


If this means that it is not going to have a motor to propell it, I
would sugest a landline. And use the extra space for living space. If
a landline is hard/impossible/too expensive to get, I would go for a
generator, possibly supllied with wind/solar and even batteries.


--
SEE YA !!!
Trygve Lillefosse
AKA - Malawi, The Fisher King

 wrote:

I think you're probably right that a generator is the best solution.
There is however something seductive about the idea of a steam engine
in the modern era.

No what I meant by motor/sail boat was that I didn't consider it worth
making into a motorsejler (from your name I take it you are
scandinavian if not danish and know the term), meaning (for me anyway)
a boat that could be propelled either directly by wind power or a
motor.