New day-yacht by Alphena Yachts

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This very modern "day-yacht" design by TLB is under construction in Lorient in France. It will have an electric-saildrive for those who want to sail efficent and clean... Loïck Peyron, from Gitana-team, is collaborating with the shipyard.
Have a look to the Alphena One and to the Alphena Three

http://www.alphenayachts.com

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It's better with images

[Paul Scott]

I really love the asthetics, but what happens when the teak goes grey, or orangish? While we web footed Seattle mossbacks might like grey on grey, does the rest of the world? I am also pretty envious about the electric drive- tried to do that back in '99 when Amati was being developed, but the technology just wasn't there. And given that we don't even go through 14 gallons of diesel during the season, electricity would have worked...

And if you find yourself muttering "just why doesn't he get it on and change to electricity?", new sails do get in the way. It's only money...........

Anybody seen any figures on how much electric conversions are running?

Paul

[Spence]

Many thanks Paul for your comments. For the Deck, it won't be Teck but Iroko with an FSC label (see www.fsc.org). It doesn't change anything about the color, it will slowly become grey...but it is "life", wood is a living material it will have is own patina (like good wines...) A good maintenance will be necesary like for all other wooden deck.
For the electric saildrive we really think that it a very promising solution, no noise, no oil smell...and a very easy maintenance. It will be charged through a small wind turbine.

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[Paul Scott]

Whose electric propulsion system/wind turbine recharger are you using (the fsc page won't come up)? I really admire where Europe is going with alternative energy. Are folks using biodiesel in their boats? What kind of shelf life are you getting?

Paul

[alphena]

Ok Paul, sorry for the fsc link, this one should work http://www.fsc.org/en/ .
For the electric propulsion we are using a LEMCO engine and for the wind turbine, there is a lot of solutions. Our choise is not yet definitive, we will choose a "safe" soltution (sailers have to keep there fingers!!!). For biodiesel it is not really developped there, we do not think that is a very good "environnemental solution", CO2 is still high and you nearly need one year of human food to fill your tank...it's also one of the main reasons of the dramatic price increase of the corn in south america..

[alphena]

Just have a look

You will also find a picture in the gallery

[ewake]

How did you choose the right electrical engine for your boat?
How many batteries do you use?
I don't understant how a 4kw engine can be as efficient as a 20 Hp diesel engine!

[alphena]

This boat doesn't need a 20 hp Diesel engine!!! Total weight is less than 1.8 ton so a 4kW électric engine is enought. We have three 110 A, 12 Volt batteries and it works very well. At 5 knots we are consumming less than 1kW/hour. For a day boat it's really cool...
Have a look to the boat

[apex1]

Originally Posted by alphena

This boat doesn't need a 20 hp Diesel engine!!! Total weight is less than 1.8 ton so a 4kW électric engine is enought. We have three 110 A, 12 Volt batteries and it works very well. At 5 knots we are consumming less than 1kW/hour. For a day boat it's really cool...
Have a look to the boat

And naturally you cruise free of a lee shore against wind and tide with that installation!? Or means "day boat" absolutely predictable nice weather only?

[alphena]

Believe it or not...As you may not know an electric engine as a much stronger torque than a thermic engine and the efficiency is also the double!! This allows to use bigger propellers for the same power...If we should compare you can consider that it is an equivalent to a 9 to 10 hp diesel engine