BRe 047 'Whimbrel's' mooring is at Redclyffe Yacht Club which is on the River Frome nearly as far west in Poole Harbour as you can get with a mast up. It is 8nm to the harbour entrance but a typical sail for us requires us to motor up the Frome for the first 2nm with a 4knot speed limit, before entering the Wareham Channel where we get our sails up - and of course similar on return. This is all quiet ANOB nature area and a lovely space to traverse – preferably - in peace! Our Mariner 6 packs masses of energy – our 12 litre tank lasts us the whole season and it has been 100% reliable over four years. But its noise in the cockpit and the clunky starting process mars full enjoyment – is it time to go electric?
I checked out the Southampton Boat Show and Nestaway’s stand for the latest news. It was confirmed that the ePropulsion Spirit XS with 1018W battery was now available in an extra short shaft version and according to my interpretation of the drawings would fit my BRe. This XS version is 100mm shorter than the standard short shaft. Might the Spirit do the job? These types of motors are now well used in sports boats of similar size and weight such as the RS21 to get to their racing areas and back and our motor requirements would be somewhat similar. At the show the new Torqueedo 1103, similarly with a direct drive motor and somewhat comparable range and performance to the Spirit was demonstrated but unfortunately was not available in an extra short shaft version which I thought would be needed.
Does it fit?
Ian Thomson of Nestaway Boats offered to bring a motor for testing at Redclyffe - but at short notice we had a two hour window. Ian arrived at the pontoon and the first thing was to get 26kg of lumbago inducing Mariner 6 out onto its trolley. “Arrgh!” I’d forgotten it was screwed on for security with a hex bolt. OK - tool kit out of the cabin and sorted, Mariner whipped out. Ian dropped the Spirit in; but my worst fears were realised; it was too tight all round under the tiller and it wouldn’t tilt sufficiently out of the lamellae! Then I remembered the factory fitted wedge which was behind the engine mounting to make the Mariner fit. Tool kit out again and I hoped the wedge wasn’t glued in – luckily just two screws. Ian dropped the engine in again and this time it fitted perfectly! About 100mm clearance all round under the tiller and the engine tilted perfectly above the lamellae. When the motor is not running the propeller is free to spin which would be handy when sailing with the motor down but when it is up it could rotate a bit and interfere with the back of the tiller assembly. However, there is plenty of room with the propeller horizontal and what would be needed would be some sort of membrane or shelf beneath the tiller to keep them separate. There are little ledges either side of the engine bay on the BRe which seem to be about the right height to support such a shelf.
The final thing I wanted to check was the distance under the hull to the top of the propeller envelope. Ian obliged by feeling under the lamellae and confirmed a roughly 100mm separation – perfect. As for the lamellae the prop seemed to go up and down through them without fuss and more easily than with the three bladed Mariner. Ian then sat back in the cockpit and said “OK all yours, where are we going?” It was glorious day and we had one hour and twenty minutes left of Ian’s time to enjoy the motor. My plan was to go out to the start of the Wareham Channel as we would normally do under engine and then return to Ridge Wharf so that we could get Whimbrel out later – about 2nm out and 1.5nm back. I didn’t tell Ian that the last ten minutes of this time would be spent yomping the engine from Ridge Wharf back to Ian’s car at Redclyffe. So in practice we had 1 hour to cover 3.5 nm – should be easy!
Setting off
A small twist of the throttle got us going – spooky – no gears – no noise! (Our Mariner has been 100% reliable starting, but what a performance – worst case was about 30 pulls of the cord in Falmouth once. Starting has been getting better as we get to understand each other - this year more often than not it starts first time and then my crew and I have a laugh! But it shouldn’t be like this in the 21st century should it? What no electric start? Manual choke? You’re joking!) So yes, moving off with the Spirit is truly spooky and truly wonderful! Anyway - we ambled up river to find a gap in the moorings to turn and I put both tillers right over. I was immediately impressed that with no drag from a fuel pipe we could spin the motor much further round than the Mariner making for a nice tight turn. It was high tide and we ventured down river at half throttle giving us 4knots very slightly assisted by a bit of flow from recent rains. My crew was ecstatic – “listen we can hear the birds!” The engine noise she likened to the level of a sewing machine - not at all intrusive, no gear box whine from the direct drive motor! “There is something missing” my crew exclaimed – no vibration – no rattling locker catches!” “Something else missing too – no petrol aroma, no carbon monoxide, just the sea air.” After 35 minutes we were at the Wareham Channel and well into the area that sails would normally go up so we turned back - we had 25 minutes to get back to Ridge. It was evident that the tide was now running out quite strongly so this would be a realistic test. Normally we would be two up – not three – and we would still have jib and mizzen up at this point on our return. Our water ballast was in. Without sail assistance we upped the throttle a bit – maybe three quarters and we got back to Ridge on time – an overall average of 3.5 knots which compares exactly with the speed we normally run the Mariner in the river.
Battery Range
Back in Ridge we had to get 9kgs of battery and 10kgs of motor back to Redclyffe at a fast walking pace, this to test the portability of the unit as compared with a monolithic 26kg lump!
We’d used up about half the battery giving us a realistic range of 7nm at our speeds. Flat out would give a range of 5.5nm but just for an hour. A time display lets you know the remaining battery duration and of course this varies as throttle settings change. When sailing in Poole Harbour environs once our sails are up we always take routings which avoid narrow windward channels requiring the engine, but I can well imagine with the Spirit which is so quiet and easy to use we would use it to freely get up to such channels and anchorages. This will eat up more into our battery capacity and we also have to allow for an early use of the motor on the return leg up the Wareham Channel if the weather turns adverse. To confidently eat into the full capacity of the battery I would envisage taking a spare 1018W battery on board as a backup and alternate their use. Charging times for the batteries is five hours but there is a fast charging option of 2.5 hours, which would be handy if stopping at a pub at lunchtime!
Costs
The Epropulsion Spririt is about £1500 and a second battery £900 – so £2400 for my application. Sounds a lot, but in proportion to the price and value of the boat – maybe 10% - 12% - seems quite reasonable given the level of refinement you get. Small outboards might seem cheap, but to me they are correspondingly noisy, dirty and clunky to start – especially when you’re up a narrow shallow channel with no sea room, and drifting fast towards the lee side. We’ll report how we get on in 2020!
