AS YOU would be aware, I did not write a column last week; there wasn’t a hell of a lot to write about and I was hoping that after travelling to Melbourne with work mate, Peter Amos, that I would have a bit more to write about this week.
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Unfortunately this is not the case … we travelled down Friday night and stayed just across the Yarra from the Convention Centre. We arrived just after opening and I immediately thought “it is a bit smaller than last year”.
After a quick receo around and yep, pretty much like last year, all the major players like Honda, Yamaha, Mercury and the like, had huge representation and there were a few locals (Victorian dealers) also had floor space, then there were the business’ selling their wares – fishing, boating, camping gear, clothing, etc.
Now I know we are in the industry but this all seemed like groundhog day so we were a little underwhelmed.
On a very positive side we did stop at a couple of battery resellers who were displaying some lithium batteries so we checked the weight, sizes, availability, specs and drew as much information as we could from the experts.
It all seems pretty good for the likes of electric trolling motors, the only down side is the price and the necessity of a proper lithium battery charger. I found out that a “normal” battery charger that has the capability to charge a lithium battery will only charge the battery to about 97 per cent; that 3 per cent could be a couple of hours trolling depending on the situation.
Fitting a lithium battery to your boat for your electric motor could change the whole characteristics of your boat; the way it gets up on the plane, the maneuverability, the fuel economy and even the fuel economy whilst it is travelling down the highway which means the initial cost could be nullified by all this.
We were told that a lithium battery holds a charge for up to 50 per cent longer than a lead acid or an AGM battery, so instead of eight hours using the electric you should get 12.
The longevity is around six to eight years instead of three to four for a normal battery, so in actual fact the fuel saving and replacement value over a period of a couple of years should have saved you money.
There were a couple of newish model boats but these were manufacturers trying to partially capture some of the markets that some models already have a foot hold in. Some of the bigger plate boats models captured my attention, not Pete’s, but that’s only because our fishing styles differ so after about four hours we were ready to leave, and we did.
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