How many kW does a sailboat need?
Practical sizing guidance for DIY sailors.
Electric propulsion sizing
Hull length, displacement, and target speed in — battery kWh, DC and phase currents, and cable cross-section out. The full spec, with the arithmetic shown.
Free to run · no signup · PDF from €29
Heuristic preview · full wizard refines with drive type, range profile & charging
Quick start
One click opens the configurator with realistic defaults for your length and hull type — tweak from there.
Free tools
See what electric saves, check when it pays for itself, or dive straight into the full spec configurator.
Three sliders. Get liters of diesel displaced, kg of CO₂ avoided, and lifetime running cost saved over 10 years.
5-step wizard. Get battery kWh, DC & phase current, cable cross-section, and a vendor-ready PDF spec sheet.
Net upfront cost, annual saving after electricity, and the exact year you break even — as a cash curve.
What it sizes
Not a generic calculator. Outputs are sized from your real LWL and displacement, tuned for marine propulsion, with conservative continuous ratings installers can actually work from.
Battery kWh, Ah, and runtime from your depth-of-discharge and reserve assumptions.
DC continuous, DC peak (10 s / 30 s), and phase RMS + peak — exactly what the controller and motor cabling need.
Run length, cross-section, and drop % — with 48 V and 96 V bus voltages compared side by side.
Anatomy of the system
From the battery pack to the propeller — how the pieces of an electric propulsion system fit together.
What you get
Run the wizard free, see every number with its formula, then download a 6-page PDF when you're ready to share with vendors.
Your boat's actual battery, controller, motor and prop numbers on the front page.
Every formula with substituted values — the full derivation behind each output.
Conservative continuous ratings & a procurement checklist installers can work from.
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers to what most owners ask before starting an electric repower or new build.
Fresh from the blog
New articles on battery sizing, voltage choice, cable runs, and the math behind every spec — updated as we publish.
Practical sizing guidance for DIY sailors.
How to compute the real capacity of a battery bank from the datasheet figures, how integrated and modular systems differ, and how to combine multiple banks safely — series, parallel, and isolated.
A 2026 rundown of Victron's newest marine gear — Lynx Smart BMS NG, Quattro-II, Multi RS, Orion XS, Cerbo GX MK2, SmartShunt — and exactly which configurator output each product is sized against.
Takes ~10 minutes. Professional output. Pay only for the PDF.