It is a common question: will the drag from the generator lower your boat's speed? The short answer is yes, but the impact is often negligible.
As a rule of thumb:
- Smaller boats (25–35 ft): You may notice a slight reduction of roughly 0.2–0.3 knots.
- Larger boats (40+ ft): The impact is usually so small it is imperceptible.
The Math Behind the Speed
To put this into perspective, let’s look at the physics of a 46 ft (14-ton) sailing vessel.
To maintain a speed of 6.5 knots, a boat of this size requires approximately 20 kW to 25 kW of power (whether from the engine or the sails). At 6.5 knots, the REMORAN WAVE 3 generates 170 W for your batteries. To do this, it requires an input power (drag) of roughly 204 W. A drag of 204 W taken from a total driving power of 20,000 W (20 kW) represents only 1% of the total energy, which calculates to only 0.065 knots out of the 6.5 knots of speed.
Even conservatively rounded up, this means 0.1 knots, a difference you would be hard-pressed to notice. At higher speeds, more power is available to the sails, and the difference becomes even less.
Note: These calculations are based on engineering estimates. We will update these results as we continue to perform actual measurements on the water.