We have problems with our Honda 2.3 hp outboard due to a small but messy oil leak and are wondering about replacing it with an electric outboard. We're planning to visit the Southampton boat show on Friday to see what's available - and any thoughts about what to look out for, or things we should know, would be much appreciated.

Gilliane

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Hi, Gilliane. I spoke to somebody last week and they had bought one off amazon for £100.00, and were very pleased with it. I don't know about the longevity of it but seems cheap. Regards Paul Morris

Hi Gilliane, I have an electric outboard I bought on Ebay (new) it has 68 lbs pull, equivalent to a 2.5Hp petrol outboard and weighs 9 kgs. I paid £160 for it, look for Bison electric outboards, they do various sizes upto I think 90 lbs pull (3 Hp). I use lithium golf cart batteries which are around £190 each and will give about 25~30 minutes of power but only weigh 1kg, they are also available from Ebay. The slight inconvenience is they are long shaft so sit up a bit and also the tiller is fixed at 90º degrees to the shaft (it does not fold) I have modified mine but it required some additional bits I had from an older electric outboard so you probably won't be able to do the same. The shaft is carbon fibre and the bracket is glass reinforced plastic so it only leaves the motor head itself which is metal and lacquered to be looked after. They come with a spare propellor too.

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Many thanks for all the helpful replies.

To report back: it was a very interesting day at the Boat Show on Friday - we really enjoyed it. We spent some time talking to the people on the Nestaway stand as they sell Torqueedo and ePropulsion, both serious electric outboards, but expensive. We also talked with a guy selling Minn Kota, a trolling electric motor similar to the Bison that Martin mentioned. With both ends of the market, the battery is crucial and Martin is right to go for something like a golf-buggy battery, rather than a standard 12V leisure battery. Nevertheless, we were convinced by both sellers that if we wanted the outboard to cope with River Hamble spring tides (which we hope not to *have* to drive against, but would like to be able to!), the trolling motor wasn't powerful enough. It still wasn't an easy choice between the two expensive ones and the trolling motor on technical grounds: the Torqueedo and eProp were significantly heavier than the Minn Kota, partly because the sealed battery was much heavier - though this did represent a longer range or, probably more usefully, a less frequent need to recharge. We'd expect a full charge to give us more than three hours, providing we weren't going flat-out. The weight could be redistributed in use by being able to separate the power pack and the drive unit, making each reasonably easy to carry. Torqueedo and Minn Kota offer just two shaft lengths and the shorter of the two was longer than our Honda shaft length, while eProp offer three shaft lengths, the shortest being XS, which is similar to the Honda. The Torqueedo and eProp both looked much more marinised than the Minn Kota, which had a battery cable ending in flat connectors.

I think if we hadn't been determined to replace the Honda because of its slow oil leak (which makes it messy to carry round and to store), we'd have decided against buying an electric outboard at all. What we actually did was to buy the eProp with an XS shaft length. Incidentally, we were impressed by how knowledgeable the Nestaway people were about the two makes.

Gilliane

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Gilliane, thank you for sharing your experience. Choosing can be quite stressful so it was very helpful to understand your selection logic. Best of all, the deed is done. Now you can look forward to the reward. Congratulations on your new purchase.

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