If your in the market for a spare Torqeedo battery you may want to consider purchasing the Travel 1003 S/L battery. The battery is a little larger but packs 200 more watt hours. This means more distance for you. Designed for the 3HP 1003 Travel electric outboard motor the battery is also compatible with the Ultralight 403 system.

As the 1003 S/L battery is still very light at 9.9 lbs it only weighs 3.5 lbs more than the Ultralight 403 battery. It does not require any additional adapters or cables as all of the existing Ultralight 403 throttle, cables, and charging devices are compatible with it.

Similar to the Torqeedo Ultralight 403 the  Travel 1003 battery has the integrated GPS for your remote throttle readouts and will be compatible with the Torq Trac app for smartphones.

The chart below shows the comparison between the included 403 battery and the spare 1003 battery.

Now for the real question. How much more does the larger battery cost? The Travel 1003 MSRP is $699.00. The Ultralight 403 MSRP is $599.00. For the $100 difference the performance is worth it.

One feature the Travel battery does not have is the auto shut off when inverted. This should not be a problem if you are clipped into the magnetic key. If you fall out of your kayak or flip the motor will shut off anyway.

Although the housing and size is a little larger the battery still fits inside the Jackson Big Rig’s rear hatch.

This past weekend I tested my new Travel battery. The first thing that became apparent to me was that the length of time the display read 100% charge compared to with the Ultralight battery. Granted the battery is brand new.  I was able to fish over 5.5 hours basically full throttling all day between drifts. At the end of the day i had well over 47% of battery left. Typically on the 403 battery i would have had around 20% left.

I will attempt to compare more of the usage between the two  in a future post.

Please visit http://www.torqeedo.com/us/technology for more information.

Kayak fishing has its advantages and disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is paddling against strong winds. This also creates an advantage as kayak anglers are not limited to one port. We can find areas to fish that are sheltered from strong winds. This is precisely what we did on July 7th. Wind was predicted to be 5 – 10 out of the south west.

Our planned rendezvous was under beach replenishment construction still and did not allow us access to the water. The panned area was land within the west vicinity which would have blocked it if it was to be a windy day later on. The decision to drop in on the other side of the bay at tip of Sandy Hook yealded to 10-15 kt winds from the West/Southwest. The plan was to move back across the bay and find an alternate drop in that shielded us. While driving south along the water I noticed the water wasn’t as rough. The wind was blocked from the hills of Atlantic Highlands. It was there that we dropped in. Here the wind was manageable but the braided line still sang to me all day long.

The Map below shows the main area that I tend to fish. The bay is shaped like a large funnel. Any type of east wind makes it a real rough day. West is best!  Highlighted are the most manageable spots to fish at certain directions of strong wind.. Typically it becomes windy no matter what in the afternoon.

The day went pretty well a bunch of short Fluke in the morning. Sean Gavin whom I fished with scored 1 keeper. It was just nice to get out and explore a new area.

In my previous Torqeedo install article I left off that there was some small issues with the performance due to the limit of the manufacturers motor shaft length.  In the install manual it states the boom shaft that attaches to the ball on the kayak is to be completely level. Well this is found to be false. Pitching the boom down towards the water is the fix.

A support brace was custom made by a certified Torqeedo installer which mounts from the factory rudder mount threaded insert location. On the stern of the Big Rig you will notice the two brass threaded inserts molded into the hull. The rubber brace was removed from the kayak position and mounted to the custom bracket to brace the boom closer to the motor and allow the pitch.

The longer shaft allows the motor to use the small pitch and gain about 4 inches deeper into the water which was necessary to fix the cavitation issue. The gain on speed is minimal from the testing i have done but has not been tested in the control venue at Round Valley Res where the first test was initiated.

Lessons learned. If I was to  install this motor on another Jackson Big Rig I would mount the ball on the flat area about 6″ towards the stern. This would have allowed me to angle the boom down more. For me this was the first time following the installation book was wrong. The setup however did work just not well enough for my liking.

The Torqeedo motor system on the Big Rig is awesome! I do recommend it highly. This was my fix. Hopefully your install will be smoother by following my posts on The Plastic Hull.net.

Good Luck!

Disclaimer:

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