48°N Test Sail
By Richard Hazelton
Bimini shown left was replaced with energy package on test boat, see below.
“Back porch” and walk through transom allow for safe and easy transfers to dinghy. Winches and traveler were within easy reach of helmsman for shorthanded sailing. Deck layout is simple and uncluttered.
Going Green with Electric Power Sailboats have always been the first
Hunter 27
hybrid, combining gas/diesel engines with sail. Now, it gets even better by replacing the fossil engine with electric power for a truly environmentally friendly experience. Normally, when reviewing a boat, the power plant is talked of in passing, as it’s the sailing characteristics that we concentrate on. We will, of course, get into the sailing, but the buzz is about the electric motor so let’s get right to it. The Hunter 27e is the same boat
as the Hunter 27 (not to be confused with the Hunter 27 Edge), except that the diesel engine is replaced by an Elco EP-1000 electric motor. As Hunter says, “The electric engine offers the same amount of thrust as the H-27’s normal 14 HP diesel engine. The electric engine offers the advantages of being truly “green” in that it does not emit any “emissions, noise, vibrations, heat, or fumes” as it operates solely on battery power.” This all sounds terrific in theory,
especially to the “green” conscious Northwest, but let’s get into the practicalities: given our light wind summers in Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands, there are times when you just have to motor. “The Hunter 48° NORTH, MARCH 2011 PAGE 46
27e will motor for 5 hours at 6 knots,” says Dan Krier of Marine Servicenter, our host for the test sail. That’s about hull speed and should get you to about anywhere you’d like to go in a day, port to port. And you can extend your run time by going slower. Now let’s say you’ve used up a lot
of juice and need to recharge. According to the Elco Motor Performance Guide, recharging from shorepower should take 1-10 hours, depending on how low you’ve drained the batteries. So, basically, you could completely
recharge the batteries overnight if you’ve run them down to nothing. But what if you aren’t planning on
spending much time at a dock? There is an Energy Package you can add to the boat, which consists of a stainless steel arch T-Top with 3 solar panels and a wind generator. The solar grid would give you 570 watts per hour. Estimates are that you would gain an extra hour of run time per day at full speed. Naturally, the wind generator numbers will depend on wind, but thinking is that, while sailing, the wind generator will also produce power like regenerative brakes. Time to leave the dock. It is a
Energy Package includes SS T-Top with three solar panels and wind generator. Instruments give status of power usage.
bit unnerving not to hear a motor running. A light hum down below is really all the noise you hear. When you’re at the wheel, you look at the instruments to see if the motor’s
running. The “analog” instruments on the pedestal show rpms, amps,
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