Cocktail Class Electrified

[Markus]

It took a bit longer than planned, but this seems to be somehow the underlying theme of this project…

Jeffrey, who was so kind to give me some advice along the way asked me to post an update when I am done. Now here it is – my journey electrifying the Cocktail Class.

There is another whole story about the “why” but for now let me focus on the “what” and the “how”:

It started with the usual. Lots of stitching and gluing – you all know the drill. But already by then it became clear that the electrification would require some creativity – The suggested battery by no means was meant to fit into the tiny boat:

Today, I probably would change the layout of the construction, but back then I simply followed the CCR construction manual – who am I to change a design proven since the 30s anyway?

So the battery problem was something to be solved at a later stage…

First it was about the engine. You’d might think in this Elonesk times finding an adequate replacement for a plain-vanilla 8hp outboard engine would be piece of cake. But it wasn’t. I’ve learnt that most electric outboarders are designed towards max. available driving time, not speed. Thus, many lack simply the voltage required (48V) to get the CCR to a decent speed. And of the few that do, most are not optimised for weight. But having a 100-pounds battery next to a 40+pounds engine is probably not what will do the trick in a tiny CCR.

So, it took quite some research and eventually I identified three manufacturers, who probably would be suited for the CCR mission.

Eventually I decided to go with Torqeedo – for 2 reasons: They had the best power-per-weight performance and they are manufactured in my hometown – Starnberg in Bavaria, Germany. And it’s just cool that such a small start-up around the corner became market leader in this segment (at least this what they say;)

Understanding from the comments in this forum that 6hp engines miss a bit of “oomph!”, I decided for the 6kw version (approx. 10hp), the Torqeedo Cruise 6.0 R operating with 48V.

Pretty clean design, great quality and engineering. So problem #1 fixed.

At that point I still had no solution for the battery, as all 48V-batteries from classic manufacturers where simply to big to suit in the front of the CCR below the wheel (again, I would have better ideas today to get it in, but water under the bridge).

As the search for a battery was rather frustrating, I decided to go for a different challenge – rethinking the steering system of the CCR: From a weight perspective there is probably no better alternative than the classic steer-by-wire solution. Still, I felt that an electrified CCR could also benefit from a modernised steering system with less ropes, loops and stuff. I stumbled over the steering systems from Ultraflex and Teleflex that felt pretty smooth as an alternative:

So, I gave it a try. However, the normal helm was much (!) too big for the small cockpit of the CCR. So, also here it needed a customised solution. While most boat shops were simply not interested to help I was lucky to find Luca, global sales coordinator at Ultraflex, a pretty cool Italian manufacturer. With Luca’s help I found a solution, that eventually – after quite some drilling and carving – fitted into the tiny front of the boat (where – let’s not forget – I still needed space for the battery…;):

The wheel is actually a race wheel of an old Fiat 500 screwed on a piece of epoxied wood. Eventually the steering worked quite fine and left the deck nice and clean.

Now to get this CCR finally racing there was no excuse left – I needed to solve for the damn battery. I probably screened like 100+ potential options incl. some craftsmen offering me to build a custom one (which would have taken months and clearly destroyed any hope for a test drive the same summer).

Eventually, I found a small company in Austria that built batteries with high-performance cells from Magna Steyr (Austrian company producing cars for many major car brands) and slotted them into a plastic, waterproof suitcase (which they actually source from Amazon;). The tiny case weighs cute 60 (!) pounds, but does exactly fit under the wheel in the front of the CCR. I even had 0.2 inches space left to the steering system. So, finally a solution 🙂

Then at a sunny day late August, it was time to take the all-electric CCR to his first drive on the lake. And what can I say? The test drive was a simply blast! You push the throttle full way, and the Torqeedo engine like a Tesla propels you with brute force to full speed in no time. It is just awesome! And this all happens nearly in complete silence. You hear nothing but light hum soon is completely drown by the sound of boat clashing over the waves. With the weight of the battery in the front the CCR gets easily into gliding mode achieving a max speed of 16 knots.

Probably I have totally overdone with the battery capacity (6kwh) that was still at 70% after 40min full-speed drive. Part of the learnings of the first built. Of course there were also other setbacks which I left out in my story (like me installing the steering wheel the wrong way giving me a hard first test drive with swapped directions) and there is still lots of fine tuning to come.

And then the CCR still needs a name and a number. And many, many more electric siblings to make this a race, not a drive. But this is another story.

If one of you by chance is dropping by for Oktoberfest next year – just let me know. Happy to take you for a test drive!

Cheers, Markus

[Jeffrey Weeber]

Hi Markus,

Thanks for the awesome post and for sharing!  What a cool build!  I am sure that there are some other adventurous and creative builders who might be interested.  Please be sure to keep us up to date as you put the finishing touches on your boat.

[Markus]

Thank you, Jeffrey! Also thank you for the guidance along the way so far. For sure I will keep you posted about the next steps. Would be indeed super to see some other electric pioneers building a all-electric CCR. A great example that tradition and innovation go well together. 😉

Stay well! I’ll be back…

Markus

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