If we could only do this while racing without incurring the wrath of the IRC measurement system. Reduce drag, trim the helm to add sail. So many potential benefits so little scope. For now folding up the keel like this allows access to sandy beaches and the owner’s home port of St Tropez. But IRC reacts pretty fast to innovation… usually starting out with a heavy penalty then, once there is enough data to draw on, fine-tuning the formula to suit. But we doubt this one will ever satisfy IRC Rule 1: innovation without obsolescence!
ordered even before signing with the Persico shipyard to build the yacht. A push-supply philosophy, not a pull one. Magic Carpet e is an electric boat. The
team believe it is the first plug-in hybrid racing maxi yacht. There are two electric motors driving the two hydraulic pump trains located onboard, slightly to starboard of the wet box area. The system is separated for multiple reasons. There is an inbuilt redundancy, and the systems can be run in parallel and independently. Pump 2 is for the forward section of the boat – the canting keel, the canard systems and mainsheet, and pump one is the aft system, the winch system, the runners, raising and lowering the rudders and various smaller systems. Either pump can manage any role. Sir Lindsay gave skipper Danny Gal-
lichan and project manager Ed Bell a chal- lenge four years ago: ‘give me a reason to build a new boat!’ They started looking more closely into this during the Covid period, with a lot of conversation on possi- bilities. Following that, Sir Lindsay asked Ed Bell to dig deep and do his homework. The first stage was to run calculations using data from Magic Carpet 3, then the team spoke to key people and came up with a concept. Sir Lindsay was delighted, then tasked them with confirming the numbers. Through Sir Lindsay’s parallel activities
in motorsports the team already had access to the best in the business in electronic drive systems. They approached Williams Advanced Engineering, at the time part of the Williams F1 team, now owned by the Australian firm Fortescue Zero. Williams looked at the data and were soon interested. The Zoom call was lopsided; Ed Bell on one end of the call and 15 technicians from Williams looking and listening on the other. But Williams were fascinated, and E-Helix, the electronic motor supplier
58 SEAHORSE
involved in F1, Formula E and the Lotus Evija hypercar rapidly stepped up to supply the motors for Magic Carpet e. The two electric motors weigh less than 40kg each, and have a continuous power output of well over 100kW; the diesel engine required to deliver equivalent power would be a large V8 or V12, so the weight gains are obvious. Magic Carpet 3 ran at 220-250kW. On
Magic Carpet e they are obviously running significantly more than that, but they can peak at a kW figure that raises your eye- brows. Translate that into sailing function – flat out, they can pump 550-600 litres of hydraulic oil very, very quickly. Just behind the pumps is a household fridge- sized oil reservoir, all of which they move during a gybe… But back to the keel room. On the panel
behind the two Helix pumps is a small alu- minium board – a little larger than an A4 clipboard, with four plugs; it weighs 6kg. To avoid the need for a small 10kW portable generator while cruising, to run the AC and house systems, one of the tech- nicians from Williams suggested using the battery-stored energy, using a DC to DC converter, bringing it from hundreds of volts down to 24v; this now powers the AC, water maker and all the domestic systems, including freshwater pumps and cooking – meaning that cruising is absolutely silent. A range extender can recharge the main battery in 35 minutes. The nav station is a central feature in the
saloon, something designer Axel de Beau- fort wanted from the start. Futuristic blended with traditional. An impressive navigator’s seat was tailored for one of the world’s finest – and tallest – masters of the art, Volvo Race winner Marcel van Trieste. A monolithic carbon chair, with thick padded leather wedges secured like pages in
a book; as heel increases Marcel flips the windward side wedge over to the lower side of the seat to maintain a level surface to sit on. The seat is edged with natural cork, while the veneered carbon table itself is finished off in Hermès leather… Standing next to Marcel as he checks
the weather for a sail testing session, my eye wanders to another detail: the interior cork floor tiling. Axel de Beaufort wanted to continue the outside look – where there is generous use of cork – to flow inside the boat, with cork floor panels for cruising that are swapped out for racing with clear- coat carbon floorboards with non-skid. Why cork, I wondered? Well, again
form and function take charge. Natural cork really is a beautiful material and hardwearing, and on deck is 4mm thick instead of 7mm teak, which has saved roughly 500kg high up on the deck. Now in the centre of the saloon, I am
standing above more incredible technol- ogy, the Magic Carpet e battery. Fortescue Zero created a battery developed from its Extreme E racecar technology, the new cell technology scaled for this somewhat bigger project. The battery unit is roughly the length and width of a small dining table, but with significant depth to accommodate all the kilowatt-hours of stored power. The key performance factor is that it
is situated below the waterline, which delighted designer Guillaume Verdier as the battery weighs in at a figure that I can only say is many hundreds of kilos! Clearly watertight integrity was vital
here, in view of dangerous battery fires in the Imoca and AC75 classes. For reassur- ance the team left their own large unit 1.5m underwater for several hours in a swimming pool, to confirm its IP68 rating. The battery came with an IP67 rating but the inhouse tests lifted that to 68.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150
