R&C Electric Leopards

[TonyWest]

Hi, my name is Tony West. I'm new to Cruisers Forum -- only just discovered it but wish I had long ago!

I see there's LOTS of interest in electric catamarans, so I thought I'd start a new thread to post/discuss things about my boat, which is the first Electric Leopard built by Robertson & Caine -- hopefully the first of many!

The boat is powered by an OSSA Powerlite diesel/electric system built by Glacier Bay, Inc. It does not use a large propulsion battery bank (like the Lagoon 420), but drives the motors directly from the generator. The system is DC, not AC, and the gen is variable speed/computer controlled, and so it's extremely quiet and fuel-efficient. The engine is a work of art - collaboratively developed between Glacier Bay and Mercedes - uses common-rail injection, so gets fantastic fuel economy and low emissions. More later.

The boat was built in the factory in South Africa 11/2005 and was sailed to Tortola, BVI in early 2006.

I was expecting some teething problems (given the hassles reported elsewhere that have been experienced with other systems), so we decided on a conservative approach and planned on a lengthy shakedown period before the boat went into production "service".

We did, indeed, have a number of problems - all fairly minor, I'm happy to say. As an ex-service guy myself (computers), I know about product service, so I was relieved that, when they did root cause analysis of each problem, a deterministic cause was identifiable in each case and easily resolved, so we're not expecting recurrence.

I'll post all the details in a separate post early next week.

Electric Leopard is now operational in The Moorings' charter fleet there.

All 3 companies have been great/responsive - The Moorings, Robertson & Caine and Glacier Bay - thanks, guys!

Any of you that might be planning to go to the Miami Boat Show will be able to poke under the covers - my boat will be there at The Moorings dock. I'll be there too and look forward to meeting any of you who would like to go into this in more detail.

I'll start posting things as I think of them, but meanwhile, any questions? Fire away and I'll answer. Also, you can find some more info at my website, Electrosail -- I just need more hours in the day to get more info up on the site.

Links:

The Moorings' Leopard sales site is at Leopard Catamarans
Robertson & Caine's website is at ROBERTSON and CAINE
Glacier Bay's website is at Glacier Bay's Home Page
Info on OSSA Powerlite is at Diesel-electric marine propulsion systems and accessories.

Enjoy,

Tony West