The main engine of Current Sunshine is a Cruise 4 and the motor for the dinghy is a Travel 1003. I used to have a Travel 801 for the dinghy but no longer – you can read of its demise here.
The Cruise 4 is mounted in a well that was originally sized for a 25hp Yamaha. So there’s plenty of room and this extra space has made it possible to have the Cruise 4 steerable. It can be fully raised to present a clean hull when sailing. In the fully lowered position there is a fairing to also present a smooth bottom so that the water flowing past the prop is as streamlined as possible.
I have set up spectra steering lines from the main steering so that when manouvring the motor will steer in parallel to the rudder. This allows her to turn in a much tighter circle and when turning against a breeze allows her to maintain the turn on less throttle.
Current Sunshine has a 10kwhr battery bank (200 ah at 50 volts) and this allows me a range of two hours at maximum speed and 8 hours with the throttle set at quarter power. At quarter power (that’s 1000 watts) she travels at 3-4 knots.
Travel 1003. This replaces the 801 – its a much more suitable motor for the task. Being totally waterproof it would have been unharmed if it had suffered the same dunking as the 801. Even though its rated at 1 metre for 1 hour, from reports I’ve had it should have handled the 15 or 20 minutes at 4 metres quite easily. In addition the 1003 is more powerful, more strongly built, and has a bigger battery so in most repects its an ideal motor for its main job of powering the tender.
Travel 801 This used to be the motor for powering the dinghy and could be set up to help steer the mother ship when manouvring in tight quarters. The furthest I’ve travelled with it is to the Bosun’s Locker chandlery which is at the other end of Pittwater (near the RPA yacht club). Its about six miles there and back. On return there’s still 20% showing on the battery. As you can see from this photo it was a calm day. I used the “maximum range” option which takes me along at about rowing speed.
By the way, the twist throttle has some extra settings to the usual forward and reverse each side of neutral. On the forward side, there’s also a full power position, a fixed time setting and a mark for maximum range. On days like when I went to the Bosun’s locker, and not being sure if I’d have enough battery capacity to get there and back, I used the maximum range setting. Here it senses the best operating speed to maximise the range from the available battery power. Full power is a bit too much for my Avon inflatable – it tends to bend the stern of the dinghy and tries to fold it under. So I rarely use full power.