Competition celebrates the alternatives
The Royal Thames Mansura Trophy
The Royal Thames Mansura Trophy – awarded biannually to the best alternative power solution – may only date back to 2007 but it rests on a tradition that’s almost a century old.
The trophy is actually named after the 1912 motor yacht Mansura. This boat was engineered as a hybrid to give its owner and Royal Thames Yacht Club member, Jack Delmar-Morgan, the greatest flexibility in his cruising.
The competition, held by the Royal Thames Yacht Club in association with Bosch Engineering (and supported both by the RYA and Green-Blue), is open to vessels which use at least two independent sources of propulsive power, with an electrical final drive system.
The revolutionary Green Motion was this year's overall winner. Built in Durban, South Africa, by African Cats BV, it has very lightweight construction and an innovative propulsion system allowing batteries to be recharged while under sail: relying just on this, it completed a long and successful maiden voyage to Ijmuiden in the Netherlands via Cape Town, St Helena and the Azores in 2010.
The Inland division of the competition was won by The Loon built by Tamarack Lake Electric Boat Company in Brechin, Ontario, Canada. This design of sturdy inland electric launch has undergone a long period of prototype development with the result that it has gained such a reputation throughout Canada and the USA that the builders are starting series production at a brand new facility at Rome NY in the United States with the active encouragement of the local authority.
Full submissions for the competition included two craft of different sizes from Mermaid Cruises and Shipping Co Ltd in Thailand, built by Electric Boats Thailand. Another, from Hybrid Marine of Sandown, Isle of Wight in the UK, is Chelonian representing a number of canal narrow boats which incorporate Hybrid Marine’s well proven propulsion system, while the same system is also found in the Offshore Division joint entry by Jeremy Rogers and Hybrid Marine of the 'Green' Contessa Calypso which had received a lot of attention in the British yachting press in 2010.
Greenline 33
Salterns Brokerage in Poole, Dorset entered the hybrid motor yacht Greenline 33 that was seen at the 2010 Southampton Show. Ian Rutter, by contrast, entered his immaculate Irene, a well known but always improving pleasure launch for use on the River Thames. Charly Teuscher from Vevey on Lake Geneva entered his hybrid launch Solarly.CH which completed a record-breaking full circuit of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) using only solar power.
The Royal Thames Mansura Trustees award the Royal Thames Mansura Medal to the organisation that in their view has done most to advance the cause of hybrid propulsion during the competition period. This year the award is made to Agni Motors from Gandhi Dham in Gujarat, India for their development and marketing of the sophisticated DC motor pioneered by Cedric Lynch.
These motors are now installed in all types of hybrid and straight electric craft, from speed record hydroplanes to tourist long tails in Thailand. Agni Motors continue the development of this design and showed a new higher power version of the motor at the ceremony.
Previous winners of the Trophy include the French-manufactured Lagoon 420 Hybrid sailing catamaran and EnviroBoat Developments from the UK. The inaugural Mansura Medal was awarded in 2008 to the British Electric Boat Association.
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