Josh Masters

Growing up on the East Coast of England in a sailing family, boats and everything on the water came naturally to me. From traditional sailing, dinghy racing and the endless fascination of moving water. It's no surprise that my path lead me here.

Training initially as a marine diesel engineer, I began to question the longevity of the fuel source and try to imaging the next few decades. I began work on the new type of propulsion, an interesting path of discovery, disaster, delight and endless learning lead me to where Lightning Craft is today.

With our products and expertise, making the change to electric has never been more available. 

Longer form explanation of lighting craft

We offer CAD service including working drawings, product models, and 3D scanning.

CAD, engineering drawing and 3D scanning

Helps to include all equipment and understand if the system has enough capacity and how long it can run. Also useful for the larger self-installs offering drawing, including cable sizes and protection ratings

Electrical system design

This is the bread and butter of what we do, problem solving. We’ve enjoyed a range of solution design work ranging from eclectic propulsion in 80 year old wooden boats, off grid pontoon sets, new build steel utility boats and concept high efficiency hulls.

Solution design and engineering

The team has many years of combined experience, being part of new builds from the design and concept stage to final drawings, fit-out, and commissioning. Even construction in some steel, wooden and carbon hulls.

If you have a project you wish to discuss then please feel free to contact us – 

We have a range of experience in converting boats to electric, a knowledge and understanding of boats and their unique nature. 

Among our engineers we understand this along with different hull materials and construction methods. This helps us to overcome the challenges in the conversion process. We can offer custom engineered solutions for the equipment, needed in a job along with the thoughtful designs for our own propulsion motors.

This 30ft sailing yacht originally fitted with a diesel sail drive leg, needed new propulsion as the old engine was no longer an option. Working with the customer we engineered a solution to get the boat sailing again ready for the 22 season.

Given the hull design and existing sail drive, the obvious answer here was to adapt the existing propulsion leg to suit electric. We selected the 10Kw motor from our Belt Drive range. For economy, size and simplicity. Being air cooled its smaller than the liquid cooled equivalent power - (Direct Drive range)
This motor proved to be a great choice and the relative damp free bilge of a GRP boat poses no concern to the air cooling.

Motor Selection

At the beginning of 22, battery technology was facing lengthy lead times, so a Lead AGM battery was selected, this was available within the time frame but also fitted with the low spend goal we were working to. 4 x 12V200ah batteries were chosen and fitted nicely beneath the salon bunks down below. This pack delivers approx. 10Kwh total and 5-7Kwh usable. Plenty enough for the very sailing experienced owner. After all this is a saling boat…!
A basic shore power system was fitted to suit the 1000w DC charger for when alongside.
A critical part of the system was for the boat to be off-grid. Living most of the time on a swinging mooring, the boat had to be able to charge the propulsion batteries. Solar PV was opted for with 4 x compact and dense mono-c panels 120w each. These are being trialled with great success on the coach roof and fitted nicely. Though shading form the boom does effect the output somewhat, there is still enough to charge the modest battery bank to 100% over a sunny weekend from 40% charge state. Alternative panel positions and set ups are being planned by the owner.

Battery and Charging

Nigel Waller

"Lightning Craft provided me with the ideal engine solution, fulfilling my requirements with range, power and solar recharging. An absolute pleasure to deal with this company"

This 30ft sailing yacht originally fitted with a diesel sail drive leg, needed new propulsion as the old engine was no longer an option. 

SAILING YACHT

This 1950’s 4 meter wooden speed boat was built with a 10hp Ford side valve engine. But years gone by has seen the engine become uneconomical to repair. The owner opted for a re-power and decided on a B-Drive system. To suit the unique power requirements of this project, we modified one of the aluminium frames to take a larger liquid cooled ME motor, adapted the direct shaft coupling, and fitted the original coupling to join the prop shaft with original propeller to the new unit.

A liquid cooled version of the 10Kw motor used on our B-Drive10 was used on this project. The liquid cooling allows the motor to run harder for longer, increasing its continuous and peak power ratings. This increased power was needed for the boats planning requirements. This motor was fitted to the B-Drive frame and running a 1:1.17 ratio belt pulley had a final shaft speed of 2,500 RPM and motor output speed of 3,000 PRM.


Having undergone a stunning restoration by the owners the best solution to the batteries was Lead AGM - explained below;


The best solution to power the boat would have been to use LiPO4 batteries, due to their light weight and high output current, but cost was prohibitive. So, lead acid AGM batteries were chosen as the energy storage solution in the interim (until lithium batteries become more affordable). Four Yuasa L36-AGM batteries were fitted in series to give a nominal 48 Volt output

The first run of the boat, with the new propulsion, showed that the output was not quite up to the potential, the boat could only achieve 12 knots, a shaft speed of 1600RPM and electrical power consumption of 8kW. The excellent support offered by Lightning Craft was requested and Josh provided a solution to have the motor controller tuned using a remote (mobile 4G) connection while the boat was on the water. This tuning enabled the controller to get as much out of the batteries as possible (15.5kW)

First run - electric power!

Robert McPhee and Trevor Deacon

"Lightning craft offer a very flexible design capability, they have significant knowledge and experience of the system and the support they offer made them the best choice for this conversion."

This 1950’s 4 meter wooden speed boat was built with a 10hp Ford side valve engine. But years gone by has seen the engine become uneconomical to repair.

An engineering company run by engineers

Contact us, however suits you.

Start your electric journey today