Trialing the Rudder Drive
When news that Hanse Yachts had launched a new form of electric-powered yacht first broke in the winter of 2016, it was widely reported. After all, Hanse is one of the world’s biggest builders of sailing boats, so this had the feeling of a breakthrough to it.
After nearly a year, though, just a handful of the “E-Motion” rudder-drive-equipped Hanse 315s have been sold, and by its own admission, Hanse is disappointed. “The problem is that people are still quite skeptical about electric propulsion on water, and we are perhaps a bit ahead of time with this,” says Hanse’s Florian Nierich.
It’s not a problem with the boat itself: the 315 is
