Hobie TI, which Torqeedo to choose?

Hello!

I have decided to add electric motor to my TI, decided to buy a Torqeedo...BUT:

Should I take ultaralight 403 OR Travel 503? Pros? Cons?

Hi Seppowa,

Electric power is certainly an enticing idea (said the man with a Honda 2.3 outboard on his TI). What performance do you want from the motor? I saw a very cool 403 setup this past weekend on an Island and have seen 503 and 1003 setups on larger vessels. A 1003 on a Windrider 17 pushed just about fast enough for wakeboarding....

Hi Bobagain!

Thanks for your answer. I was about to buy the 403 ultralight - but then I started to wonder if I get more with 503 - more power, more range (with the new over 900 Wh battery) and more versatility (e.g. put it also on a small inflatable boat).

kind regards
Seppo

First, read this thread: http://www.hobiecat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=58926

Before purchasing the 403 I too considered using the 503 and researched it extensively. I quickly discovered that would be a bad idea.

The 403 was specifically designed and engineered to power a kayak. The 503 was specifically designed and engineered to power a small boat such as a tender, dinghy, or daysailer. The advantages of using a 403 over a 503 on the TI are very significant. The only advantage of using a 503 over a 403 on the TI is a very slight gain in power which ultimately would be insignificant. In practical use you would hardly notice the difference. You might even see a loss in performance because the prop on the 503 is optimized for a completely different style hull and weight whereas the 403 prop is optimized for a kayak's hull and weight such as the TI's.

As with gasoline powered outboards, mounting the 503 on a TI will be inelegant and clumsy. You can certainly do it, but you'll be going way out of your way to mount and operate a motor that was designed for a completely different style of boat when a motor specifically designed for kayaks is readily available. That simply makes no sense. People who have tried it have not reported great results or satisfaction. People who use the 403 on the TI have generally reported excellent results and a high degree of satisfaction, including myself.

In regards to range, you'll get more with the 403 since it consumes less power and has the correct pitch prop for the TI's hull. You can use any battery designed for the 503 including the 530 watt or 915 watt, they are fully compatible. Torqeedo now even sells a version of the 915 watt battery designed specifically for the 403.

In regards to using it elsewhere, you'll have an easier time adapting the 403 for a small inflatable than you would trying to adapt the 503 to the TI.

If you want an electric motor for the TI, there is currently nothing better than the Torqeedo 403, or alternatively the Hobie Evolve which is Hobie's version of the 403.

Hello pro10is!

I was actually hoping you to answer - because I have read before what you had wrote in that link about 403 , it is an excellent review!

Does you TI go well with 403 even with both akas/amas out, so with the maximun width the boat has?
seppo

Interesting thread, I'm a big torqeedo fan. We currently have a pair of big outboards on our TI, and they are awkward, and only suitable for long distance offshore work. When in kayak mode (which we use often) the motors have to be removed, (along with the big sail sets).
With the 403 on a tilt up ball mount I see no reason you couldn't use the 403 in kayak mode.
We have our TI widened to 12ft wide so our AMA's may be higher than a normal TI. In our case the AMA's are out of the water when not under sail, so the don't create any additional drag when motor cruising with no sails up. Obviously the fully loaded TI is heavier that the TI kayak alone, but the boat seems to go well even when loaded down, (ie... 1 passenger vs two only appears to effect speed minimally), however if you overload beyond about 700 lbs, the boat becomes very sluggish and a real dog.
On option we were looking into was a pair of 403 motors (but the motors would need to be re-propped with highly customized props). In our case the motors are never used for primary propulsion of the craft, (propulsion relies on wing tech).
I will likely be going with the 403's myself.
FE

I recently fitted out my TI with a 403 in the configuration suggested by pro10is.

I am extremely happy with the performance of the 403 and it seems well suited to the TI (not that I can compare it to much as it is the only motor I have) The setup described on this site alwows for it to be raised lowered easily which gives you an advantage over the model that fits in the mirage drive well.

so in answer to the OP the 403 is the way to go.

Cheers

I primarily use the TI with both amas extended. In this configuration the 403 works nearly flawlessly. It actually works better than I initially thought it would. It looks tiny and it's so lightweight (less than 20 lbs including battery) but it packs an amazing amount of power. I've used it in all types of conditions from dead calm to 25mph headwinds and 4 foot waves. It's always gotten me home safely and I would never sail without it again.

Because the motor turns with the rudder it's also extremely useful in tight conditions or near hazards because it significantly increases maneuverability. You no longer need to pedal like crazy to get the TI's rudder to bite enough to maneuver in difficult situations. With the amas out the TI is very wide and can become a bit wieldy in tight conditions such as docking or avoiding hazards like rocks, but with the 403 it all becomes so easy and stress free.

I've also used the TI in kayak mode without the amas to cruise up and down rivers. The 403 works excellently in this mode as well even against the current. It was well suited for this because the riverway was a quiet zone where people were serenely fishing. If I tried that with an outboard motor I would have infuriated them. The 403 was so quiet I startled many of them as I went by because they never heard me coming. They couldn't believe I could move so quickly and silently. I always get a lot of thumbs up from them as I cruise by.

People are always fascinated by the TI/403 rig and I think I sell several TI's and 403 motors whenever people stop me to inquire about them. It's a very impressive and effective boat/motor combination.

Embarrassingly I tried my TI in kayak with my outboard.... I was in a rush and was just nipping out to set my lobster creels in a heavy 6ft swell before the weather worsened. As I mounted the TI it overbalanced and I dunked myself and my outboard (2.3HP Honda 4stroke)....

Guess it weighs a bit more than a 403...

_________________
2015 Tandem Island - Golden Papaya "HALIBOO"
(retired) Outback - Hibiscus Red

Recently I went down this road of considering how I would power my TI. I considered all the options from torqeedo as well as considered a small outboard. Ultimately I decided to go with the 403. It is currently in shipment to me and I'll be using the previous post as a guide to install mine.

I think I struggled with the choice because my past experience is with gasoline outboards and not electric. The important thing I ended up realizing for my application (offshore fishing) is that battery supply really overshadows raw-power with electric motors. It really doesn't matter what size motor you put on the boat 403, 503, 1003... The larger motor is simply capable of delivering more wattage faster, thus reducing the real limiting factor of your electric motor, the battery, faster.

What is gained with the larger motor and increased power draw is minimal in terms of speed as it takes exponentially more power to go faster as your speed increases. Sure, maybe a 1003 could push you at 8-9 mph (only a rough guess, but probably close), but only for very short periods. Torqeedo specs their full-throttle 1003 can last 35min using the 915w battery. So what you would likely end up doing in the real-world is powering down to 4-6mph to save on battery life to get maybe 3-4 hours at that speed. This is exactly what the 403 is capable of with the 915w battery. So I would argue it makes 0 sense to get a larger electric unless you have a very specific requirement of needing a motor capable of more wattage draw for very short periods beyond what the 403 is capable of delivering. And that comes at the price of having to deal with an outboard style motor instead of the slick 403 setup.

The gasoline motor is enticing purely from a performance/range numbers perspective, but I just can't see taking the hit of having to deal with the weight, noise (the small outboards are surprisingly loud), smell and clunky setup it would cause.

The electric and gas outboards are being compared here and on the TI outboard thread, some actual measured data can be used to ball park the difference.

First, one of you guys that has a Torqueedo (any of them) should sometime measure the watts used for a variety of speeds on a TI. Ie, measure the watts at 2 mph, 3 mph, 4 mph, 5 mph.. etc. I think all of the models will tell you the instantaneous power (watts) used. The numbers will be dependent on the vessel - which is why this should be done on a TI.

The battery capacity is in watt* hours. So a reasonable approximation on how long you can go on that speed is to simply divide the watt*hours by the watts used. For example, say you measured 300 watts at 5 mph and were using the 915 watt hour battery. 915 / 300 = 3.05 hours. Ie, you could predict that that battery would allow you to travel at 5 mph for 3.05 hours. Very simple to take the measurement and post the results!!


I have a 2.5 gas Suzuki and have done some measurements (I strive to be accurate) and think the watt*hours in the .26 gallon built in tank on the Suzuki has the equivalent Torqueedo battery capacity of 1366 watt hours. Ie, the little tank on the outboard has about 49 percent more energy than the 915 watt hour Torqueedo battery.

If I carry around an extra one gallon gas tank, that is the equivalent of 5253.8 watt hours or the equivalent of over FIVE of the 915 watt battery packs.

Now lets compare what it would take to do a trip I love to do with electric vs. Gas. I motor up the Colorado river about 15 miles at 6.5 mph up through Topock Gorge and then sail back. Super Awesome thing to do. This "should" take me 2.3 hours but it always takes about 3 hours as there is current and sometimes a head wind. The 3 hours uses .57 gallons of gas or the equivalent of 2999 watt hours. At the destination where I would shut the outboard off and begin sailing back, I would still have about 1/2 gallon of gas reserve.. just in case.

If I were to do the same thing with electric, it would require the 1000 watt outboard to cruise at 6.5 mph and use up 3.27 of the 915 battery packs.

So if I were to do the same trip I easily do with the gas outboard, I would need a heavier setup with the electric because of needing four of the 915 watt battery packs. And the gas does the same trip at a fraction of the cost..

So I think gas vs electric depends on how you plan to use it. If you required higher speed for longer distance, gas is the best. If you just want to aid pedal sailing, electric is nicer.

Walt's arguments for the petrol over the electric are the reasons I went with petrol when considering the motor upgrade.
In 6 years of sailing the TI it was not on my agenda but after reading pro10is's excellent post on the Torqeedo I could see the advantages of adding a motor.
When I crunched the numbers though I couldn't justify the electric over the petrol:
Torqeedo UL403- $2750 + 915wh Battery- $1430 = AUD$4180
Suzuki 2.5hp 4 stroke motor = AUD$1150
So a $3030 advantage for petrol over electric with initial purchase price.
Range was also a deciding factor. We like to do 10 day camping trips where there are zero facilities. Recharging then becomes an issue.
But what finally sold me on petrol was the continuing error message problem with the Torqeedo controller.
I'm very happy with the outboard. The 1litre tank lasts about 1hr 15m cruising between 9-12km/h at about 1/3 throttle. Being 4 stroke the problems of fuel mixing are gone and the fuel is much cleaner. We took 2x5L and 2x1L fuel containers with us on our last camping trip and used 7L all up in 10 days. We did one day trip of 60km motoring around 30km and sailing the rest plus lots of smaller trips. At times we towed other kayaks as well.
The only real negative I find is the noise.

Thanks Stringy for bringing the conversation back to the real world.

I believe it was fusioneg who made the comment that "electrics are not there yet"

I too decided I needed auxiliary power, and went full cheapskate mode, being a pensioner with extremely limited means. So I bought a dirt cheap Chinese 2 stroke (which I believe is a 25 odd year old Yamaha design) for under US$200. Sure I needed to spend some time (and a huge $10)replacing 4 mild steel hose clamps and a cheap copper plate water pipe with genuine copper. and it is a relatively loud 2 stroke, but I get nearly the same economy as does Stringy.

My TI can move at a steady 4-5 knots, and I carry one extra litre to supplement the 1.5 litre fuel tank on normal outings, adding more as necessary.

In due course, I will replace my present motor with a name brand 4 stroke, but electric has going to have to perform a miracle before it becomes a viable alternative, even though it currently (sorry ) seems superficially attractive

_________________
Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker

Wow, here we go again. So much sad misinformation about the 403 option out there.

This kind of banter happens all the time in discussions about electric outboard options. Some gasoline motor proponents continue to argue against them based upon (mis)calculated or pointless figures and arguments that do not, or narrowly reflect real world scenarios, or do not reflect what people may consider important for them in a motor for the TI, or worse yet are misleading or entirely wrong. The vast majority of people who argue against the 403 have never owned one and have no actual experience with them. I repeat, they have no actual experience with them. I do, and I can tell you that they work far better in actual use than anyone's theoretical miscalculations or arguments against them. So anyone reading these kinds of discussions who has not decided, please keep this in mind. I almost didn't buy a 403 based upon these kinds of narrow and erroneous discussions because there was little real information about them, and that would have been a huge mistake for me. So that's why I'm here with a year's worth of actual experience with the TI/403 boat/motor combination and a lifetime's experience with professional engineering, motors and boating of all types to offer you some actual facts, rather than mere theory, bias, and conjecture.

I've owned more gasoline outboards than I can remember, ranging in size from 2 HP to over 200 so I know them all too well. Of course gasoline has more power than the equivalent weight in electric batteries. Of course you can go faster and further with a gasoline motor than with an electric motor. If this weren't the case then we'd all probably be driving electric cars by now. This is so obvious, no one is arguing against these points, so I don't understand why they are constantly being brought up as some great revelation that no one is aware of.

However, these are the only two advantages gasoline outboards provide among the much larger list of disadvantages that need to be considered to choose the right motor for your intended purposes and for the TI specifically. Gasoline engines are significantly heavier than the 403; they're far noisier and obnoxious than the 403; they're much smellier; they pollute the water, the air, and the insides of your lungs (if that's important to you) since you're sitting right next to them for hours on end; gasoline is a clearly a very dangerous fire hazard aboard a boat, especially a small boat composed primarily of highly flammable plastic; side mounting a larger, bulkier, and heavier gasoline motor to a kayak is a clumsy, awkward proposition compared to the elegant, efficient rear mounting of the 403, and being rear mounted you don't have to compensate for any undesirable torque steer with the rudder as you would with a side mounted engine; gas motors are significantly more awkward to throttle control and reverse than the 403's beautifully well designed, ergonomic forward/reverse throttle control located right at your fingertips; gas motors don't turn with the rudder in most configurations I've seen so they don't provide better maneuverability as does a 403, or a safety backup in case your rudder fails; they're harder and slower to tilt up and down than a 403; and, unlike the 403, they were not at all designed to power a kayak, they were designed for a totally different type of hull and boat style. I doubt Hobie (or a gas outboard manufacturer for that matter) would officially endorse kludge mounting a gasoline motor to a TI due to safety and liability concerns, yet Hobie officially sells and endorses the use of the Hobie Evolve which is a reconfigured 403, and Torqeedo officially sells and endorses the use of the 403 for all Hobie kayaks including the TI and AI.

The 403 with one spare battery, either the 530 watt or 915 watt, has an excellent range that will carry most TI owners further than they will likely travel in a day's outing, so range is not an issue for most people. Yes, the 403 with a spare battery will be more expensive than a gas motor, but that was not a show stopper for me and many others. I felt all the advantages were more than worth a few hundred dollars more, just like I felt the all the advantages of a Hobie were worth a few thousand dollars more. And keep in mind that you also get for your money a console operated forward/reverse throttle control, remote steering, and an incredibly useful and accurate real time, gps controlled range computer which you do not get with a gas outboard. Yes, a 403 will not be as fast as gasoline motor, but only by a couple mph on average, which is more than suitable for most people. I continue to argue that if going fast under motor power is that important to you then you definitely own the wrong type of boat. And to go much faster with a gasoline motor you're going to need to constantly rev it quite high right next to your ears creating an amount of noise that many of us would find intolerable for long periods of time. The TI is a sailboat after all, not a motorboat. Most of us own them because we enjoy the peace and serenity of gliding across the water nearly silently, not by creating an obnoxious din for hours on end. On the many days with no or inadequate wind, I now still fully enjoy my TI with or without pedaling. I can blissfully cruise nearly silently all day long across lakes and along rivers with the 403 which I find incredibly peaceful and relaxing, one of the best feelings I've ever experienced.

So all of you who own or endorse gasoline motors, please stop knocking the 403 and trying to convince others that a gas-powered option is the only way to go based solely upon inaccurate theoretical calculations or a very narrow set of criteria. It's not, the 403 is an extremely advantageous, very well designed motor option for those who do not require maximum speeds and value far more the many other advantages of a motor specifically designed for kayaks.

From all the research I've done, most people who own a Torqeedo 403 or Hobie Evolve are very satisfied with their choice and have no regrets. That includes me. I'm so grateful there is an excellent electric alternative to gasoline motors that was the right motor for me.

If someone would just do the test below, it would tell exactly what the electric outboard can do. Without it, I just have to take someones opinion about capability. If that includes a ton of other variables like your pedaling and sailing and going different speeds, that is completely useless info. You have no idea what caused what. If this was directed at me, please elaborate. All I see is an emotional response..

Sorry, but I would never make that purchase based on the complete lack of real info I see posted. The only data presented is that it works for someone who likely uses the TI completely different than I do. I dont think we are going to get real data from Pro10is so hopefully one of you other folks is interested in knowing how far you can actually go and and what speed for outing planning. I would absolutely want this info before making this signifiant purchase, I would think anyone about to plunk down that big wad of cash would also. And.. its a very easy set of data..

On a day with no wind and no current and on a TI, measure the power in watts and speed for a variety of speeds. For example measure the power in watts at 2,3,4,5,6 mph or as fast as you can go. Peak speed is also valuable to know.

You can then compare this to your battery pack capacity and estimate how far you can travel and at what speed. Using the example I posted earlier, if you measured 300 watts at 5 mph (just a complete guess on my part but it may be close.. please prove me wrong with real data), and you had the 915 watt hour capacity battery, it it a very simple calculation to estimate how long the battery will last. Simply 915 watt*hour / 300 watts = 3.05 hours. Since I know the speed and how long the battery will last, I can easily estimate the distance I can travel.

It would be very interesting to compare those numbers for the different electric outboards ON A TI. As other have noted, all those outboards likely have similar numbers (related to efficiency) until they top out at their max speeds. The larger outboard will just take you to the next higher speed but at more power. This might even tell you which outboard is the most efficient for use on a TI.

Im not at all trying to trash the electric outboards (unlike what was attempted on gas outboard in the last post - I just had to shake my head). Just being able to turn those on without having the pull start would be very nice. And they are quiet.. Looks like possibly a very nice option if you are using it to fish. But what are the actual speed and range numbers without all sort of other variables for the electic motors.

My use is better met with gas for the speed and range I need but I think I would actually go with a "clunky" motor mount and either the 503 or the 1003. The main reason is that its easy to REMOVE all that stuff for using the TI like its intended. Take a look at the 403 mounting and all sort of things are hung on the boat, extra lines, mods for controls in the back seat in areas that are better used for make the TI easier to sail from the back seat. I go out with sailing clubs and no one is electric motor sailing.. So sometimes you want the motor, sometimes you dont. Being able to easily remove the motor and mount is a important to me. I actually use the TI most of the time with NO motor on it. The single mounting point for the 403 looks a little weak to me also. Maybe on a hot day you would come back to find the motor drooping because the plastic back there got hot and deformed? Easy to remove for long trailering like the 1000 mile trip I do twice per year. Dont know.. And with the motor mount, if you found out that the electric range and speed was not what you expected, you could still go to gas later.