Thanks, John. Just the kind of experience I was hoping to get a synopsis of… Will
On Mar 6, 2017, at 2:26 PM, John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net> wrote:
Forgot to respond to this part...
On 03/05/2017 05:22 PM, Wilson Frye wrote: ...
Will any M17 owner who has used a trolling motor as auxiliary propulsion for leaving and approaching the dock, and for short term auxiliary propulsion when winds are light, share what you may have learned from the experience?
Haven't used one on my own M17, but have used them on a Potter 19 and a Venture 17. Both are somewhat lighter overall than the M17 - Potter at ~1200 and Venture at ~900. But the Potter has more windage than an M17, I reckon.
Both boats had to be launched at a ramp, then motored several hundred yards under a low bridge to rig up at another dock past the bridge. The channel has a constant current, ~1 kt. at the low end (tide coming in against river outflow) and probably ~2.5 kt. at the high end (tide and river going out). The trolling motors were fine for this. On the return there was motoring back into the basin/dock to de-rig, against the same current and sometimes against some wind for the first part. The trolling motors also did fine with that. They were not fancy trollers - just ordinary old small ones. I think the Venure 17 one was just a 30 or 35 lb. thrust. The Potter might have had a 40-45 lb. thrust.
Against max current and some headwind progress could be slow back to the dock, barely a knot or so over ground. So the motor might be running full or near full power, but only for a short time, a few hundred yards or maybe 1/4 mile at most when returning. As long as the battery was charged up, this was all fine.
cheers, John S.
-- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design -------------------------------------------- - Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com