At the recent Southampton boat show the Victron Energy equipped Arcona 380Z sailing yacht, built to Victron partner Oceanvolt’s specification, picked up yet another award. This time it was the Sailing Today Awards 2015 – Green Award (in association with Astins Sailing Sculptures). This is the second award this year for the vessel, having previously won Boat of the year 2015, at the Helsinki International Boat Show.
Zero emissions
What makes this boat so special is it has zero emissions, as no diesel engine is fitted. That is not to say the vessel lacks power or indeed a power plant. Far from it. The Arcona 380Z is fitted with Oceanvolt’s electric propulsion SD15 Sail Drive shown in orange (plus many other colours) below. Besides that you’ll of course also note the familiar blue colour of Victron Energy products, which is a result of Oceanvolt and Victron Energy teaming up back in 2013.
Another special partnership in commissioning the Arcona 380Z is the one with UK Sailmakers, as the mainsail of the vessel is fitted with innovative Power Sails® a solar sail developed and patented by Alain Janet, CEO of Solar Cloth System and owner of UK Sailmakers France. Add in further flexible solar panels on the deck, boom and mast plus substantial regeneration from the propeller when sailing to charge the lithium batteries – and it is only then that you begin to realise that a modern zero emission sailing yacht is now a reality.
Victron onboard
Besides being fitted with a BlueSolar MPPT solar charge controller, a Multiplus 48/3000/35, Orion DC-DC converter, Color Control GX and using remote monitoring via the VRM (Victron Remote Management) portal, Oceanvolt are the first to use the solar cloth Power Sails® referred to in previous blogs on a production based boat. These diverse system all need to be monitored and controlled. Below you can see the Arcona 380Z ‘s control panel which includes the Color Control GX to achieve this, along with a Digital Multi Control to manage the Multiplus.
Bringing the technologies together
As some of you may know I converted my own sailing yacht to electric propulsion about 3 years ago and chose to use Victron Energy products wherever possible. My own boat is a hobby rather than a commercial project, but back then I believed that electric propulsion was going to be a rewarding, quiet and particularly fulfilling experience. That has proved to be the case, yet my personal dream other than carrying out my own individual project – was that someone somewhere would make all this mainstream.
Without well funded visionary commercial companies like Oceanvolt, that could have remained a personal pipe dream. In fact without Oceanvolt and their partners I doubt any comprehensive zero emissions systems would have been fitted to a production sailing yacht, such as the Arcona 380.
The latest award to my mind is recognition of all this and how well they have brought the companies and technologies together. The short video below I think captures that.
Conclusion
In light of recent events with cars and diesel engines, this award seems timely if not an ideal opportunity for other boat builders to consider the planet and help rid the sea of diesel particulates. To my mind Oceanvolt and Arcona are pioneers in this field. Victron Energy are proud to be associated with them.
And it seems zero emissions sailing does not stop there, as I also heard recently that the new J/88 Fast Family Daysailer & Racer is also Oceanvolt, Solar Cloth System & Victron equipped.
Personally I think this all goes to prove there is a sailing revolution underway – what say you?
Credits: Thanks to Christian Hallberg of Oceanvolt & Alain Janet of Solar Cloth System for the images and information used in this blog.
