History
The Bluefin adventure began back in 2010 in Vancouver at the Quayside Marina aboard the Volare. Keen on finding a clean, sustainable solution to the continuing pollution of our harbours and oceans, Michael Whatley set out to convert the first marine electric prototype – the Original Bluefin. A classic 1978 Ericson 34 foot sailboat with an original atomic 4 gas engine. The first test run took place February 21st, 2012 and was a major success. The trial ran for 3 hour 15 minutes and maintained and average speed of 4.5 knots with a top speed 6.7 knots. The Original Bluefin has been running successfully without issue since.
In the summer of 2013, Bluefin officially incorporated and began working on a second prototype, a 1974, 30ft Twin Engine, Tollycraft Royal Express. In June of 2014, the first electric retrofit of its kind was completed on this once derelict 1973 Tollycraft 30’Express. E-Tolly as she is appropriately named was originally re-powered by two 13kW LMC motors with energy supplied by 16 GC-2, 6Volt batteries wired in series making each bank 48v. In 2019, she was bumped up to 72V per bank allowing the motors to produce 25kW peak power and run at 13kW continuously. Join Bill as he journal’s The eTolly adventure.
Mission
The core of Bluefin Electric Marine’s mission is to relieve the world’s yachting community from it’s dependency on fossil fuels and shift to increasingly affordable marine propulsion systems.