New member intro 5yrs GL33 owner

Hi Everyone,
So glad there is now a Greenline forum setup here and wanted to introduce myself. I'm Todd and my wife and I have owned a 2011 GL33 in South Florida since 2016. It's the VW165 with full hybrid package, solar, etc... and I've done some upgrades to the electrical and mechanical as well.

I'm 'in the business' of marine electric drives and have been the Director of Project Sales for Torqeedo US for the last 7 years. Just this month I made a big change and took a job as Director of Sales for Ingenity Electric, a Correct Craft company out of Florida. Our current product is the Super Air Nautique GS22E electric watersports towboat w/220kW peak motor power and 124kWh of battery capacity. It's a beast.

Looking forward to meeting you all. Much more to come later and I'm happy to be a part of the forum!
Best,
Todd

Hi Todd,

Welcome aboard!

My GL33 is also with the VW165.

I am hoping we can develop some Greenline/Hybrid "critical mass" on TF so people can share their experiences and expertise. Would love to hear about your upgrades!

Best regards,

Scott C.

Welcome, Todd, that's an interesting company! I learned to slalom behind a 17' Correct Craft in the '50's - a bit old for that now! How much does that giant 124 kWh battery weigh, and which lithium chemistry? Our puny 11.5 LiPo's only 175#!

I've had a '14 GL33 Hybrid on Monterey Bay for almost 2 years now, and recent failure of the electric motor to function, but generator is OK - typical of failure of the electro-hydraulic clutch mech. to disengage from diesel. Replacing the master cylinder no help, so assume it's the slave cyl. complex within the VW-165 bell housing - a problem which ScottC has had in past, and he's been a great help to me in diagnosing it. I'm waiting on the VW part, and adapter fittings kit, from GL.

Have you had the same, or other major problems? The boat's been great otherwise, and we'll be heading south on a ~800nm round trip cruise down to the Channel Is. and S of LA in several weeks - did a bit shorter version fall '19.

Hi Scott and Peter,
Thanks for starting this group. 'Critical Mass' would be nice but here it the US we are far and few between (at least those with the VW engine).

Upgrades include a Victron Color Control GX networked to the Quattro, BMV, and a new Victron SCC. This is connected to a Verizon hotspot so I have my solar and battery stats instantly available in realtime while I'm not on the boat. Also added a few cameras connected to the hotspot as well. I travel a lot for business and it's always surprising to me how many times I' find myself checking the live feeds to see how she's doing.

Also added a DTE Chiptuner for the VW to squeeze out a few extra HP which I need for brief periods when running in/out the inlets down here.

Next project is an updated Raymarine AXIOM MFD, new Chirp radar, and associated transducers.

Regarding the clutch being 'stuck' in generator mode, yes, this problem has just surfaced about 3 months ago. I haven't done any diagnosis yet but I have looked to see if the fluid reservoir is full, which it is. I might be needing to order one of these slave cyl kits as well soon!

More later,
Todd

Peter,
Didn't answer your question about the Ingenity battery. The 124kWh pack weighs about 1,700 pounds but since it's a wakeboard/wake surf boat that is good news! We also have water ballast tanks that can pull in another 2k lbs, and room for 10 or so people, so when loaded the boat ends up being almost as heavy as a GL33!

epowermarine said:

Regarding the clutch being 'stuck' in generator mode, yes, this problem has just surfaced about 3 months ago. I haven't done any diagnosis yet but I have looked to see if the fluid reservoir is full, which it is. I might be needing to order one of these slave cyl kits as well soon!

More later,
Todd

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You've done some nice sounding upgrades, Todd!
Regarding the clutch: First and simplest thing to try is bleeding any possible air out of the line between the master and slave cylinders. PM me with your e-mail address if you would like a .pdf of a factory document on how to do this.

ScottC said:

You've done some nice sounding upgrades, Todd!
Regarding the clutch: First and simplest thing to try is bleeding any possible air out of the line between the master and slave cylinders. PM me with your e-mail address if you would like a .pdf of a factory document on how to do this.

Click to expand...

Scott, when your shop replaced the slave cylinder X2 on your boat, did they have to go through the whole procedure of removing the motor/gen as described in the 20 pg .pdf you copied to me? Or were they able to "just" de-couple the diesel from the electric motor after having slid it all fwd, then supporting the engine, unbolting engine from mot/gen/tranny complex and sliding this back aft to expose the clutch?

Hi Peter,
I'm afraid I don't have a useful answer to your question. I wasn't there to observe the work. However, since my shop had to replace the clutch plates in both cases, I suspect they had to do a bit more disassembly than just "separating." I remember they built a temporary wooden "arch" to position over the top of the assembly so they could use a winch to hoist and support the back of the engine. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any picture of this.

Hello Scottc
I am the happy new owner of a GL33 2011, as well as a new member of this group, but have unfortunately goth the same problem with coupling between Hybrid and Diesel operation, Can i ask you to send the guidance you mention regarding venting of head and slave cylinders for this to oleklitkou@gmail.com thanks in advance.

Hi Ole,


Welcome aboard, and congratulations on your new Greenline!


I have sent you the bleeding instructions via e-mail.


Best regards,

Happy to have found this GL forum and thanks for the Worm welcom + promt healp on my newly discoverd CLUTCH problem will keep you updated on the developments in My case.

Slave cylinder replcement

PeterB40 said:

Scott, when your shop replaced the slave cylinder X2 on your boat, did they have to go through the whole procedure of removing the motor/gen as described in the 20 pg .pdf you copied to me? Or were they able to "just" de-couple the diesel from the electric motor after having slid it all fwd, then supporting the engine, unbolting engine from mot/gen/tranny complex and sliding this back aft to expose the clutch?

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Hi Peter,
I have done the slave cylender replacement myself. It is quite a job with some heavy lifting. You have to slide the entire engine forward after decoupling the drive shaft. Then unbolt the bell housing and you can squeeze yourself into the gap to remove the old slave.
I have placed two wooden beams parallel to the engine on borth sides with two girders to carry the weight of he engine and the electrical/fen part.
Good old use of physics does help with the lifting.
rgds GJ

Welcome to the forum GK and thanks for the info. about your replacement of the slave cyl. In looking again at the "Letrica" motor replacement/service .pdf that ScottC sent me, and the Iskra exploded photos of the system, I see that the slave cyl. is within the electric motor bell-housing, not the diesel's, and that the piston f the slave is concentric to the output shaft, with a hollow center, and, I assume, a throw-out bearing on the FWD end of the piston to actuate the clutch release, and both inner and outer O-rings on the hollow piston.

This is VW's more modern manual auto design apparently, that doesn't like to be held depressed for the much longer periods needed in the Greenline's marine application. I wonder what the post-'14 Volvo hybrid models use that's hopefully more reliable.

Mine's a '14, how about yours, and when did it fail? Could you tell where the cylinder was leaking, and were your clutch plates OK, unlike Scott's which were apparently slipping due brake fluid saturation? Did you use built-up transverse 4x4" timbers to support the engine? I'm thinking that a jack-screw with a hook to engage the aft engine lifting eye, adjusted with a wrench, should work, and a sling for the rest.

Any pictures you might have would be great! Did you use a new standard VW slave cylinder - part #02F 141 671 B - and adapt the internal workings to it, or the whole kit from Greenline?


Thanks for any help here,
Pete

Hi Peter,


I have a VW 150-5 and Iskra combi.
I noticed the issue in sept 2019 due a drop in speed on electric, a restart did fix it for 10 minutes then I smelled the clutch plates and knew it was serious. Did some thinking and conclude that there was something wrong with either main or slave cylinder. When I discovered the brake fluid under the engine I knew where to look.In the end the O-rings gave way and luckily my plates remaind clean, no replacement needed.


Took me a while to put all the pieces together and get some info about the part. It became clear this was a normaal exchange part for a VW T4 2.5 engine from LUK or Valeo. It does need some modification.


See attachments for how it lookes like in the housing,

some snaps of the modification process:

- cut the part that does not fit due to the lack of a hole in the housing and the mounted Iskra motor-gen,
- Drill a larger hole for the connector:
- apply/create the new thread, be sure to exactly match the thread on the remaining connector, no need to remove that
- The construction I made


Use locktite or equivalent to seal the connector. I had to do the operation twice due to that mistake, went a lot quicker though...

VW engine is about 260 kg, Iskra and gear box about 150kg. Doable with some planning. For beams I used what I had. 4x4 seems OK to me.

Thanks much for the info and photos! If I understand this correctly, you are trans-planting the cut off piece's end pressure line fitting by moving it to the drilled-out and thread-tapped new hole near the piston.

How did you be sure that all metallic debris from the drilling/tapping were flushed out? By flushing brake fluid through the bleed fitting and out the new pressure fitting hole? And I'll for sure seal with Loctite!
Pete

Hi Pete, Correct. I have been thinking about ways to keep the small peaces out of the new part, from blocking the hole with grease to working under back air pressure.
Finally I decided to just make sure the cylinder is and stays fully compressed, do the work and apply air dusting / pressure through the channel to clean it. Make sure the cylinder is blocked because the air pressure willpush it out.Some good bleeding finished the job.
So far, so good, no issues yet after more than a year of regular use.
rgds, Geert-Jan (GJ)

Quick intro from new member

Martin from Australia with a 2011 Greenline 33 in Europe.

We find it easier to have a boat here and travel over here for the summer and then go back to Australia for the summer. Still working, less here (Germany) and more there.

We bought Sun Chi the year before covid and sailed in the top of the Adriatic for a few months and then left her on the hard stand for what turned out to be two and a half years.

We're now heading up the Danube with a view to wintering in Germany before cruising the French canals next year.

I'm in the process of playing with a Raspberry Pi and OpenPlotter to see how much I can integrate. So far I can see the Victron and NMEA and a GPS. Next step is to see what I can get out of the VW and DDI canbus networks.

Cheers

martyc said:

Martin from Australia with a 2011 Greenline 33 in Europe.

We find it easier to have a boat here and travel over here for the summer and then go back to Australia for the summer. Still working, less here (Germany) and more there.

We bought Sun Chi the year before covid and sailed in the top of the Adriatic for a few months and then left her on the hard stand for what turned out to be two and a half years.

We're now heading up the Danube with a view to wintering in Germany before cruising the French canals next year.

I'm in the process of playing with a Raspberry Pi and OpenPlotter to see how much I can integrate. So far I can see the Victron and NMEA and a GPS. Next step is to see what I can get out of the VW and DDI canbus networks.

Cheers

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Welcome aboard, Martin!

Congrats on your GL33! Sounds like you’re doing some interesting travelling!

We will be especially interested in hearing more about your Danube experience.
In 2019, we cruised from Sweden to the Med. (via French canals) and currently, we are in Elba.
We will leave our boat for the winter in Malta and the resume our cruise next year to either Greece or the Adriatic.
Eventually, we will want to get the boat back to Sweden. We have considered a trip on the Danube, but don’t really fancy covering such a long distance against a fairly strong current!

Given that you’re looking at French canals next year, I can offer a tip, if you plan to stay in Paris. THE Marina to be at is Arsenal. BOOK IT ALREADY NOW! We stayed there for an entire month in 2019, but only managed to do so by booking in November 2018. Ports de Plaisance à Paris

Hope you find some useful info for your GL on this forum!

Best regards,

Scott,
Thanks for the tip on Paris, we'll keep it in mind and book early.

If you end up in the Adriatic and then want to head back up, I'd definitely recommend trucking out of Slovenia and very much recommend KLU-S, they were awesome. We dropped back in at Tulln on their recommendation.

What do people do for clothes washing? Washing machines on the Danube are few and far between.

We've solved our variable WiFi at marinas problem by paying Telekom EUR99/mth for unlimited 5G.

RE: River current. There's been a couple of spots with about 8kmh flow that we've been fighting but most of the time it's been less than 6. I tend to drive by the litres/hr gauge. Worst has been 10 ltr/hr.
In Austria we typically did a 30km travel day with 1 lock in the day. The 6 - 8 km immediately above the lock there is no flow so we've done that on electric @ 6kmh taking the batteries from full down to ~60%. Then switched over to diesel and run at about 1500rpm (9kmh) or 3ltr/hr for the next 90 minutes or so and then needed to bump it up to 4 to 6 ltr/hr for the last run in to the next lock. Rinse, repeat.

Some bits are awesome, some are forgettable but I'd still do it again.

Cheers,
(martinandbelinda.blogspot.com)

Hi martin, your routes sound very similar to those I did in the past on a 70's Jaguar 27 sailing boat, Med around Italy, Corsica etc... and up and down through France de-masted. We loved it all. Thinking of doing something similar in GL33 but what has your experience of "sailing" in choppy med weather, anchoring in swells etc.... Ours would be live aboard for months at a time, but not full time.

Anchoring in swell

Hi Davey, Welcome!
We had a Leopard 40 in Australia for a fair while and I put a decent size Rocna anchor on it so I've been spoilt from an anchoring perspective. ScottC will probably have a better take on it but for me, the GL33 is pretty good while on the move but not something I would like to sit at anchor much. While in the med we only went out for day sailing and always back to the harbour.

Currently at Bischberg on the Main and heading to Koblenz.

Cheers,
Martin

DaveyD said:

Hi martin, your routes sound very similar to those I did in the past on a 70's Jaguar 27 sailing boat, Med around Italy, Corsica etc... and up and down through France de-masted. We loved it all. Thinking of doing something similar in GL33 but what has your experience of "sailing" in choppy med weather, anchoring in swells etc.... Ours would be live aboard for months at a time, but not full time.

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We live aboard for up to 6 months at a time. Would never consider living aboard longer than that in one go, however.


For the possible benefit to others, I will post a couple of excerpts here from the PM discussion we are having:



"We tend to favor marinas over anchoring, as we like restaurants and to explore ashore. While we have an inflatable tender, it's not especially convenient to use, as I keep it deflated and stored under the cockpit most of the time. I have seen some GL33's with davits arranged on the stern to hold dinghies, but I would not want all that "junk" hanging off the aft of the boat and I do not want to destroy the otherwise excellent visibility aft. Storing a dinghy on the roof over the solar panels would work, but would knock the solar production down by ~90%, even if the dinghy only covers 20% of the panels. We try very carefully to avoid any mistral or mistral-like weather. I realize weather forecasts cannot be perfect on this, but so far, we have been fortunate. I would DEFINITELY not want to be anchored in a GL33 during a mistral. I think it would be very uncomfortable and probably too much strain on the boat. I imagine this would hold true for most planing and semi-displacement motorboats of this size. I think sailboats can manage such things better, in my observation (though I have no sailing experience). The GL33 can handle beam seas quite well, when moving at speed. The stabilizing fins help a lot and the faster you go, the better they do their job. At anchor, however, the boat can rock and roll A LOT -- and when I look at the next boat over, a sailboat, it's hardly moving. This, I suspect, is because of the deep keel and the high mast, which provide stability. The GL33 does not have a keel – only the fins, which help very little at anchor. I have been looking for a compact set of “flopper stoppers” to try to mount to the midships cleat on each side. So far, I have not found a compact set. May try to make my own someday. If there are 30-40cm waves head-on, while at anchor, I think the GL33 could manage, but, as can often be the case, the wind can be coming from a different direction than the waves. Having 30-40cm waves on the beam while at anchor would be difficult to tolerate overnight."

Also:
"A GL33 will open up a lot of inland routes to you because you will no longer have a keel, but it will not be as rugged and stable as you are used to with a sailboat in the Med. You will have to be a lot more careful with the weather. If you are wondering more about how it rides in seas, I wrote about it here: https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/...ide-46494.html"

Reading your post while sitting at anchor on our Greenline 33 in a cove off Catalina island.
We have found these flopper stoppers to be very helpful when simply deployed off the cap rail cleat. I also have a couple of old windsurfer poles so I can extend them out about four feet. I use a sea sucker to attach to the hull which works well without putting screws into the hull with an upper line attached to the hand rail under the roof along with bow and stern line. This configuration greatly increases the effectiveness of the flopper stoppers but takes more time to deploy. The flopper stoppers are stackable and stow nicely in the anchor locker.

epowermarine said:

Hi Everyone,
So glad there is now a Greenline forum setup here and wanted to introduce myself. I'm Todd and my wife and I have owned a 2011 GL33 in South Florida since 2016. It's the VW165 with full hybrid package, solar, etc... and I've done some upgrades to the electrical and mechanical as well.

I'm 'in the business' of marine electric drives and have been the Director of Project Sales for Torqeedo US for the last 7 years. Just this month I made a big change and took a job as Director of Sales for Ingenity Electric, a Correct Craft company out of Florida. Our current product is the Super Air Nautique GS22E electric watersports towboat w/220kW peak motor power and 124kWh of battery capacity. It's a beast.

Looking forward to meeting you all. Much more to come later and I'm happy to be a part of the forum!
Best,
Todd

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Dear Todd,
You had the boat I am buying next month. Would you be so kind as to tell me the main items I need to look at? This boat is a Greenline 33 Hybrid, 150hp VW engine, build in 2012.
You will be doing me a great favour by helping me with this.
For me it's the perfect boat for the canals in Germany, France and the Netherlands.
Thanks in advance
Martin