I don't have any more info than is available from Hunter or from a brief article in Sail:
http://sailmagazine.com/boat-reviews/best-boats/hunter_27e/
I know I gave that last boat a hard time, so let me make it up by saying this is a pretty sweet little set up. Elco is a very good name in electric boats, I'd love to have their systems and expertise designing my set up. The batteries are six 210amp/hr AGMs (4d?), which is a good compromise on cost and easy of maintenance. This is just the right sized boat to have a system like this, small enough that the motor and battery requirements are reasonable, but big enough it can handle the weight and room. Their claimed 20 miles at 6 knots sounds reasonable and not like an 'ideal conditions at 2 knots' type of situation.
I'll note that the motor looks to be a very good system, completely enclosed, and possibly direct drive, its not clear if there is any gear reduction done in the case. Anyone familiar with Elco systems? The only concern I'd have is that it runs on 72V which is beyond the nominal 48V at which more safety concerns have to be addressed. I'm more comfortable with 48V but a professionally designed and installed system should be fine since they know what they're doing and I'm just tinkering.
I didn't see any estimate on cost, I would assume it costs more than the standard diesel, but it really shouldn't be that much more.
Sometimes Hunter is given a hard time for being one of the big-three of sailboats and producing a sort of mainstream product where price and quality have an inverse relationship. I owned a 1977 Hunter 27, the really tubby one designed by John Cherubini, and it was really a pretty good boat for what it was, built like a tank too. They've changed a lot since then of course. I took a tour of the factory a few years ago and was pretty impressed. They weren't quite the modern marvel the new Beneteau factories are but it was clean and well organized and there was still a lot of hand work going into assembling the interior components and installing the systems.
This is the type of electric propulsion I think will be first to go mainstream, in boats that are really a little on the small side for a diesel and a little on the big size for an outboard, where low maintenance is more important than range under power. I really hope the other builders follow suit. As for the hobbyist, this is exactly the type of system that many of us are trying to build for our own boats of about this size and the more Hunter, Catalina, and Beneteau start offering these as options the better available and easier they will be for us to implement too.
Very cool, thumbs up!
David
I just saw that the Hunter 27 has an electric drive option from a company named Elco. Anyone have more info on this?
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