I need to introduce myself, as I'm new to the forum and kayaking. Name is Bob and I live near Placerville. I'm not a fisherman but hope my interest in kayak cruising will be acceptable for membership in the forum.

I have cruised in the past using my sailboat's dinghy and have covered the length of Lake Chelan, the San Juan Islands (both Washington State), the Valdez Narrows and Colombian Glacier, and 850 miles of the Yukon River in Alaska. This is camping in the traditional sense, no RVs, just my 15 hp powered inflatable dinghy and whatever shoreline I pitch my camp. This dinghy was a conventional hull, so at cruising speed would get around 10~12 mpg, (2) 6 gallon tanks giving me 120+ mile range before needing to find more fuel.

Next dinghy will be a much more efficient cat hull, and electric powered. But for now, going with the extreme hull efficiencies of a Hobie Oasis kayak. This is so efficient that at 3.7 mph, will only consume 21 watt/hours per mile. By comparison, my home built electric scooter would consume 120 w/hr/mile at 30 mph as a wheeled conveyance.


As much as I wanted to go with the Hobie, it appears the Torqeedo evolve electric drive unit is back ordered. Combine this with the fact that Torqeedo won't allow user configured lithium batteries or solar charging other than their 45 watt $945 thin film flexible panel, just killed the sale. $4860 for the Oasis with evolve vs $2000 for the Ocean Torque with MinnKota drive. It is hard to beat the engineering, efficiency, and features of the Torqeedo evolve, but for the added $2860, a bit too much. Of course this includes the Mirage drives also, which I liked the idea of using my leg muscles for propulsion, but the ambiguous "3~4 week" back order on the evolve, it just won't fly.

I put a deposit on the next production run of the Ocean Kayak Torque, should be out of the molds at the end of the month with delivery to the Sacramento dealer mid September in time for tourist-free, warm weather cruising of Lake Tahoe.

I need to personalize it for longer range so I'll have a 2560 watt/hour lithium battery bank that weighs less than a 512 watt/hour group 24 lead acid battery, plus 80 watts worth of solar and I'll be ready to enjoy the 75 miles of Tahoe's shoreline.


More of an intro than I planned, but a least you know where my head is at.


Bob