Daily Sitka Sentinel

Rechargeable Boat Undergoes Sea Trial

By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
    As the Sunbeam slid through the water at six knots, there was barely any noise from its motor.
    In the cabin, where the floor was pulled up exposing the engine, the gentle whirring wasn’t enough to muffle normal conversation.
    That is, until something in the electric motor tripped an automatic shutoff, triggering the startup of the boat’s diesel engine, which had been in standby. Skipper Fabian Grutter fiddled with the controls and flipped a variety of switches, and in about a minute the roaring diesel went silent and the boat was under electric propulsion again.
    Wednesday’s voyage marked the Sunbeam’s second excursion under electric power. The first sea trial took place the previous day.
    Grutter’s 34-foot Sunbeam is Sitka’s first diesel-electric hybrid fishing boat.
    “Hey look at that – it’s just like a computer. I turn it off, and turn it on, it works now!” Grutter said with a laugh. He expects the overheating problem will be solved when he has the chance to install the cooling system, and reprogram the controller for a lower voltage. Grutter said that the battery works best at 68 degrees Fahrenheit, and that cold temperatures led to irregular voltages.
    “It’s getting hot, I think is what’s going on,” he said. “You need cooling for the controller (a computer which regulates the entire system) when you use continuous (electric power),” he said.

Skipper of the F/V Sunbeam, Fabian Grutter, unplugs the longliner from the Crescent Harbor dock prior to testing a new electric motor Wednesday. The 34-foot boat is Sitka’s first diesel-electric hybrid fishing boat. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

    Grutter said that installing the cooling system and reprogramming the controller are his next projects. “If you add cooling, you can have a motor that weighs 120 pounds that can put out the 250 horsepower equivalent to a diesel.”
    He cited Tesla, which is famous for its high-powered electric vehicles, as the company that has pioneered cooling technology for motors, computers, and batteries for optimal efficiency.
    As far as his reasons for converting his boat to electric, Grutter’s reply was simple.
    “There are two motivations: quietness, and it’s cleaner.” He added that with his current battery bank, he would be able to gillnet in near-silence for about 10 hours without any diesel propulsion. Grutter gillnets for salmon and longlines for halibut and black cod.
    As a rule, Grutter said, he would still use his diesel for cruising, and the electric motor for slower speeds.
    “That’s really the best gain of the electric motor, whenever you’re not cruising you get a lot of time on it. The cruising part takes up a lot more energy,” he said.
    To demonstrate the point, he slowed the boat from six to just over three knots, which reduced power consumption by a factor of ten.
    When under diesel power, he said, an alternator recharges the battery as well. Grutter said that with a little more work, he could charge his boat by harnessing tidal currents.
    “I could park this in Sergius Narrows and recharge my battery overnight,” he said. “The prop spins and it charges the battery.” Sergius, a strait between Baranof and Chichagof Islands north of Sitka, is famous its powerful tidal currents.
    An added benefit is that less time running of diesel power reduces maintenance costs on the engine.
    “It’s going to take a lot of hours off of the diesel... which is a big savings because everyone rebuilds their diesels every 15 years, and what diesels cost is $15,000 to $20,000 to rebuild.”
    Grutter expects his hybrid conversion to reduce his use of the diesel engine by about 40 percent, which will also save money on fuel. But with the cost of the conversion, he expects to break even rather than save money.
    However, with the cost of batteries going down, work like his is becoming more practical.
    “I’ve mostly been impressed how much the price has dropped, and made it more affordable,” he said “A lot of these technologies are already here, it just needs to be backed by some big manufacturer and get going.” He cited developments in solid-state batteries as a possible next step.
    But for the moment, Grutter’s next effort will be the installation of cooling for the electronics, as well as electronically powered hydraulics. Ironically, he said, the reason the cooling is not operational right now is the recent cold snap in Sitka. His new coolant lines froze solid before he could add antifreeze.
    While the Sunbeam’s hybrid conversion remains experimental, others have taken note. Eric Jordan, a veteran Sitka troller and environmental activist, was aboard the boat for Wednesday’s trial run.
    “This is the future... some of us are thinking Sitka is ideally suited to pioneer electric conversions in our fishing fleet,” Jordan said. He noted that, for him, projects like these are an important part of preventing climate change.
    Grutter added that Kent Barkhau, another longline fisherman who shares his views on climate change, also has shown interest in the project.
    “The fishing fleet needs to get with transitioning and decarbonizing,” Barkhau told the Sentinel in an interview. He cited the International Panel on Climate Change, saying that global carbon emissions need to drop by 40 percent by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050 to prevent irreversible damage to the earth.
    “The next step might be all-electric, but you might have... some large battery capacity and small internal combustion gensets that operate at peak efficiency when you need them to charge the batteries. And then the batteries propel the boat,” he said. The best case scenario, he added, would be to fuel the genset engine with biofuels.
    Both Barkhau and Grutter said they have discussed such a project at length.
    But for the moment, the F/V Sunbeam sits at its berth in Crescent Harbor, waiting for Grutter to put the finishing touches on the cooling system and electronics. Grutter hopes to fish for the first time in his hybrid vessel in March.