My friend Jerry Culik, who made the Potter available to me, drove down from PA to help me practice rigging and launching, and to take it for a small shakedown cruise. Since I acquired the Potter in November, Jerry helped me select, buy, and configure an electric propulsion and power system for the boat. This turned out to be the eLite electric outboard from ePropulsion, River 3 power station and backup battery by EcoFlow, and two 50w solar panels from Renology.
We launched from the public landing and marina in the town of Choptank, in Caroline County near where I live. This is about 12 miles up the Choptank River from Cambridge.
The eLite pushed us out of the marina and into the wind and chop at about 2kts, using 200w output, about half the power capacity of the prop.
We sailed for 20 minutes then hummed back into the marina. Jerry really wanted to tinker with the power and propulsion system before heading back to PA. Got power from the solar panels to the River 3 okay but were not so successful using solar to charge the outboard. We saved that for another day.
