The Autoprop Eco*Star
Model range: H5E, H20E, APSE
Diameters 380mm to 510mm or 15” to 20”
Model range: H6E, H9E, H62E
Diameters 470mm to 900mm or 19” to 35”
Shaft diameters 35mm to 75mm or 11/2” to 3”
Benefits
The Autoprop EcoStar is now available for hybrid and purely electrically powered craft. So efficient is this propeller that almost by accident we have found that it also has a lot to offer conventionally powered displacement vessels, cutting fuel consumption and therefore emissions.
Electric motors, unlike diesels, provide a constant torque from zero to maximum rpm. Only the Autoprop Eco*Star Propeller, using its auto pitching ability, can match its own efficiency curve with that of the electric motor. The result, a considerable improvement in the economy deliveries available compared with other propellers. Put simply, more boat speed but using much less energy.
On sailing yachts, when speed is not an issue but increasing battery energy is, the Autoprop Eco*Star Propeller can be allowed to turn in the vessels wake and the drive motor automatically becomes a generator recharging the batteries. Up to 1Kw of power can be regenerated in this way.
All the original Autoprop benefits are still available with the Autoprop Eco*Star Propeller. Backing down is much more efficient thanks to the propeller blades being the same optimum shape in astern as they are ahead.
Drag when sailing with the Autoprop Eco*Star Propeller’s blades feathered is reduced by up to 85%, providing speed increases of up to one knot.
For existing vessels the Autoprop Eco*Star Propeller is ‘retrofitable’. It comes already assembled to fit on an existing shaft or saildrive leg. It is silent in operation and optimises its pitch fully automatically. In short it provides the most environmentally responsible and efficient propulsion for any vessel powered by hybrid or solar systems.
Around the world
An EcoStar has recently completed a circumnavigation of the world on the Dutch sailing yacht ‘Ya’. ‘Ya’ is the first sailing yacht to sail around the world using only her own sustainable energy sources. The EcoStar provided highly efficient propulsion when required but there is an additional benefit; when speed is not an issue the propeller can be allowed to turn in the vessels wake and the drive motor automatically becomes a generator recharging the batteries.
With conventional Autoprops already powering hybrid vessels as diverse as ferries in Sydney Harbour to a 24 foot motor vessel that safely completed an Atlantic crossing with only one stop partly, as its owner planned, because of the considerable fuel saving provided by the propeller, it is hardly surprising that our EcoStar with the additional design benefits it has received will find its way on to many more electrically and conventionally powered craft in the years to come.