Solar Powered Canoeing

How often in life can you say you get something for nothing? There aren’t many places you can go or many things that you can do that won’t cost you something.  In fact, I used to think that the only way I could move my canoe from A to B, without any cost except the sweat off my brow, was with a paddle.  Turns out I was wrong, thanks to free power from the sun and a trusty electric outboard!

Whilst electric drives on canoes and kayaks have been around for quite a long time, they have traditionally suffered from short battery life, requiring large capacity and very heavy batteries to cover any reasonable distance.  Typically, a 100Ah battery (weighing 30+ kg) when paired with a 40lb thrust motor, may have pushed your canoe along for 10-15km if you were careful.  Whilst this was ok, it did somewhat limit your day on the water.

Similarly, solar power is no new thing. However, recent innovations in the engineering of solar cell performance and control of the power they generate has meant that modern panels are lighter, more efficient and more robust than ever before.  The power output from a moderately sized (1m2) panel is enough to recharge an average sized (50-80Ah) battery in a day.  Meaning that in theory the same canoe and motor configuration we discussed above, if fitted with a solar panel and allowed to charge for a short period in the middle of the day, could do almost twice the distance with a lot smaller battery.  That’s a lot less sweat off your brow and certainly worth some investigation!

Just how much sweat will my brow be losing though? Being the dedicated man of science that I am, I decided we needed more facts around the performance of electric and solar powered canoes and so, set about rigorous testing over the recent Christmas break. We came up with some very interesting results.

Before I go into results, I’ll start with a brief overview of what we hoped to achieve how we set about doing it.  We felt that to make electric outboards a viable proposition on a canoe it needed to achieve two criteria.  It needed to have a run time that would provide a reasonable day on the water and it needed to be light enough and compact enough to not interfere with the day’s activities.  It also had to be cost effective, otherwise why not just get a tinnie!  The setup that we envisioned to make this work was a canoe and outrigger fitted with a 40lb thrust electric motor, 1m2 flexi solar panel and a 55Ah Gel Battery.  Our thinking was this combination would be light weight, easy to attach to a variety of different craft and provide a good compromise between run time and overall system cost.

As the power output for solar cells was already known and well documented, we focussed our attention on determining what battery power would be drawn for different canoe sizes and configurations.  We tested a range of canoes from 11 foot to 16 foot, with and without outriggers and at a range of motoring speeds.

To ensure we achieved maximum possible speed from the canoes being tested we used a 60lb thrust motor and a 100Ah battery.  Our theory being once we worked out power draw for a canoe configuration, we could then work backwards to determine what size motor would best suit.  Testing was then a simple matter of motoring a canoe over a set route through the range of speed settings on the motor.  At the end of each run a reading would be recorded for average speed, battery voltage and current drawn.  From this we were able to plot power vs speed, determine battery life and the theoretical distance that configuration could travel.  The testing was done at Logan day use area on Wivenhoe on a very still, and very hot, Boxing Day (after all the Aussies were getting annihilated in the Cricket) in and area unaffected by wind or current.


Here’s some of the interesting things we discovered along the way.  Size of canoe had very little effect on speed achieved and power drawn.  The longer canoes went a little faster and drew a little more power, but not that much.  Having an outrigger on made very little change to speed or power.  Extra weight in the boat made little change to speed or power.  Again, as expected, more weight meant more power, but not by that much.  The thing that did have the greatest effect on speed was depth and trim of the outboard.  We found that setting the motor height as close to the surface practical gave the best speed results.  The outboard shaft is the biggest drag on the system and spending a bit of time optimising the height will have a dramatic effect on travel distance for your canoe.  I also suspect modifying the shaft to be more streamlined would have a significant effect as well.

So, our results in a nutshell.  Average top speed for a canoe between 11 and 16 foot is around 7.5km/h.  At this speed you could expect to travel around 13km on a 100Ah battery (using 60% battery power).  If you want maximum distance, reduce the speed to 4km/h and you’ll get closer to 20km.  Slow and steady definitely wins the race.  The slower you go, the further you are able to travel, great news for trolling fisherman and people without small children.  The max power drawn in most cases was less than 430W (36A) which means a 40lb motor would be a suitable choice for all but a very heavily laden canoe.

Please note; we based all our distance calculations on only using 60% of battery power (60% depth of discharge (DOD)).  It is possible to go to 80% however a corresponding reduction in battery cycles (number of recharges) could be expected.  If you’re not concerned about battery life (you don’t use the battery that often for instance), then dropping to 80% DOD sometimes would be ok.  More expensive Lithium Ion batteries are able to drop to 90% DOD and would be worth considering for regular long-distance motoring.

So back to our original idea of solar powered canoeing, what could a day on the water look like with a solar / battery combination?  Here’s an example case study using a 14-foot canoe fitted with an outrigger, 40lb thrust motor and 55Ah Gel battery with 250W solar panel.


Our party leaves at 9.30am in the morning and motors out on the lake to their favourite swimming spot.  If we have a 100Ah battery on board, that can only be 6.5km away, otherwise we are paddling home.  With a 55Ah and 250W solar panel it can be 11km away.  Our battery will be down to 60% DOD, but we have the sun to recharge it.  We are assuming its Easter time in SEQ and the solar efficiency is about 77%.  We are also allowing for the panel to be mounted flat in between the outrigger poles with no tilting towards the sun.  After 2 hours of swimming and eating lunch we have a recharged battery and are ready to head off home.

With a fully recharged battery and the afternoons sunshine we have enough battery power to motor 11km back again to our launch site without ever having to put a paddle in the water.  Paddle manufacturers of the world are right now calling for my immediate whipping!  The outcome is 22km travelled over the course of a 6-hour day and not one drop of sweat on your brow, not even from having to lift the battery out of the canoe!

The added bonus to this system is cost.  Our proposed combination of 40lb thrust motor, 55Ah Gel Battery and 250W flexi solar cell could all be purchased for less than $750.  When you consider you never have to buy fuel, that’s pretty good economics.  It turns out some things in life can come for free!

To find out more about testing of canoes with electric drives feel free to give Dan a call from One Tree Canoe Company on 0424 00 1646 or Happy Paddling / Motoring 😊


8 Comments on “Solar Powered Canoeing

  1. I’ve been working on a similar idea, but with a goal of being able to troll the canoe for fishing. The research I’ve done indicates that a reasonable trolling speed requires a lot less power than you have shown. I have built a 15 amp-hour lithium-ion battery and am charging it with a 100 watt solar panel. I have a solar charge controller and a PWM set up. I can pretty much go all day on a sunny day trolling at about 2mph. Total weight of the battery, motor, and panel are less than 35 lbs.

    • Yeah that’s what we found too! You can go a long way on little power draw. It’s only if you want to get there fast that the power increases dramatically. We did some graphs on “break even” speeds which were pretty interesting

  2. How much to have this full set up on my 14 foot Canadian canoe?

  3. How much to have this full set up on my 14 foot Canadian canoe?

  4. Hello. I have a four meter two seater canoe. I want to add out rigger and solar power my canoe. Can you give me a price for this set up please?

    • Hi Conrad
      The outrigger is $450
      The solar stuff you can buy yourself off eBay pretty easily or if you like we can work out a price to put it all together for you

  5. Awesome setup and I’m looking to do something similar and include a depth sounder/fish finder as well. Would you be able to provide a bit more detail on the battery box and regulator you’re using?

    • Hi Kaidon
      We aren’t actually making these, only the outriggers. It was more an exercise to show what can be done

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