The rough and ready Charlie Alnut and Rose Sayer
The plan is to build a solar boat that I can rent out here at Crystal Bay to introduce people to electric boats. And I can’t resist getting an African Queen kinda boat, only with an electric motor instead of steam. (Mind you a steam one would be cool, but it would be pure indulgence huh). Do you remember the movie?—Charlie Allnut reluctantly agrees to take the insistent Rose Sayers on a suicidal mission down the river and they have some… but hey, that’s another story, and you’ll have to rent the movie for that.
Anyway, I’ve been looking around for a few months now and couldn’t find quite what I was looking for. Then about a month ago Claude told me about Scruffie Marine and their plan to build an electric boat based on their Sienna sailing boat. That was when I was about to leave for Germany for training on repair of the Torqeedo motors. But I did get a moment to check it out. Take a look at her lines…
Sienna electric boat with solar panels on the canopy
Isn’t she a delightful boat. Hmm, I could take her up the Hawkesbury on adventures… well, between rentals that is.
This artists rendering is based on the drawings that Derek has done of the Sienna. He and Annette have Scruffie Marine in Queensland and they do plans and kits for wooden sailing boats. They’d already made the mold and Claude had seen it and was really impressed by its quality and they’re ready to build the first one, all they needed was a customer. After not a lot of discussion about fit-out and solar panels and batteries and fridge and toilet and well, you know the usual stuff, I asked them to build me one.
Sienna 19 plug - this was used to make the mold
We plan that it will be ready for the Sanctuary Cove boat show in May so to do that they needed to get started ASAP. I gave them the go ahead while I was in Italy a few weeks back, and already the hull’s been built and bulkheads fitted.
I’m gonna start a new category, say solar boat project, so we can track the building of this boat and we can talk about how we chose the various items that make up this boat. We’ll talk to Derek and Annette and you can follow this Sienna’s journey from an idea to a completed solar boat. You’ll be able to see her at the Sanctuary Cove boat show, and later in Pittwater when I bring her down here. And come to think of it we’ll need to name her soon.
But thinking about bringing her down here. Derek has a trailer I can use, so I can bring her down by road, but after all, she is a boat, and I wonder if there’s another way…
But hey, that’s a story for another day.
nise boat yhao