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You should check the car for an unexpected load on the battery. Before you reinstall the battery use an ohm meter to check the impedance from the positive lead to chassis. For the battery to completely discharge in 48 hours you would need an impedance of less than 10 ohms.

Oops! I saw that, had not heard of Rosburg WA, saw the Oregon plates and boat registration so assumed Roseburg OR . . .

I live near Roseburg OR, I could check out the boat on Monday (tomorrow). I'm no expert on core rot but could give it a good look over and tap test. You have received great advice.

Power factor, KVA, and kW is not a marketing ploy. An inverter based generator has a hard current limit, the maximum current it can produce. Voltage is fixed, for the US either 120 Vrms or 240 Vrms. The load determines the power factor. If you are powering a resistive baseboard heater, the...

Thanks everyone for the great ideas. Its good to hear others have experienced the same issue. I will store the trailer on jacks so I can spin the wheels every so often.

I have an annoying problem with my trailer. I replaced the non-functioning surge brakes with electric over hydraulic Kodiak disk brakes. They seem to work great with one issue. I leave my boat in the water (salt water) over the summer so my trailer sits unused (but covered). I rinse it well...

I've had several wood drift boats, some with UHMW bottoms, some without. There are advantages and disadvantages to UHMW but here is a trick that can help: As you mentioned UHMW expands and contracts with temperature to a much greater degree than the plywood and the differential expansion can...

It should give some, but not feel spongy. It should be at least as stiff as 1" plywood. I'm not an expert on water intrusion in the balsa core but as long as the core is solid and well bonded to the skins, the floor should be stiff. Try tapping all around on the floor with a small ball-peen...

In my 2008 there is no foam between the cockpit floor and the hull. My cockpit floor feel pretty stiff. Is yours softer on one side or the other? It should feel very stiff down the centerline because of the stringer there. The floor itself is over 3/4" thick with 1/2" balsa core. If you tap...

I also have a 2008 cruiser I purchased a few years ago. I suspected water under the cockpit floor so I added a 4" removable inspection plate near the stern on the port side of the center stringer. I think one inspection point is enough since the center stringer does not extend the full length...

I the mid 80's I would take a hydrofoil ferry from Hong Kong to Macao. I believe Boeing made them. I don't know the fate of the boats but so many people went to Macao to gamble that Macao immigration insisted you had a round trip ticket to board the boat so you didn't end up penniless and...

I'm certainly not a speed freak, there is reason my boat is named "Nowhere Fast"

Bob, Good questions with no easy answer. With a good 3 ph brushless DC motor design there is only a small penalty in efficiency in running a 20 hp motor at a 3 hp point. The bigger question is what is the advantage of having all that reserve hp. Power required goes up as the cube of boat...

Bob, I like your boat design but I think you will still have range issues. 240 amp-hour, 48 volts is only 11.5 kW-hours. Six hp is ~4.5 kW which would drain the battery in about 2.5 hours which does not give you much range at the slow speed. I'v worked in electric boat propulsion (autonomous...

Work is intruding into life so Tango and I will not be able to attend the Friday Harbor event this year.

I also believe that 40 hp (with appropriate prop) would be minimum needed if you wanted to get up on plane and maybe achieve 12 to 15 knots. But with such a motor and the full battery set from (for example) a Chevy Bolt (which has about a 300 mile range on the road), you would completely drain...

Any all electric boat the size of 22' cruiser would need Li batteries (unless it was a submarine where you need the extra ballast). And yes, today it would be very expensive unless you only used the boat for short sunset cruises. But in 5 to 10 years, we shall see.

I have a 5 hp Mercury with a high thrust prop with will push my 22' cruiser at 4.3 knots with is almost 5 mph. That is on a lightly loaded boat (one passenger and a dog)

It has been my experience that an inverter will often fail to save your fuse.

I added round port holes just forward of the navigation lights. These not only mitigated some of the 'cave' like feeling of the v-berth but improved ventilation when opened.