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The Promises and Pitfalls of an All-Electric Yacht

• By Tim Murphy
• Updated: November 8, 2021

This past October, I saw one of the most interesting exhibits in more than 500 new cruising sailboats I’ve reviewed over two decades. It was the Arcona 435Z, built in Sweden and introduced by Graham Balch of Green Yachts in San Francisco. Balch describes his business as “a new brokerage dedicated to the electric revolution on the water,” and it was the “Z” in the boat’s name, which stands for “zero emissions,” that made this boat so interesting. This was the first electric propulsion system—not hybrid but all-electric —I’d ever seen on a cruising sailboat.

Electric propulsion isn’t new. Since 1879, electric motors have propelled boats; a fleet of some four-dozen electric launches transported visitors around the 1893 Colombian Exposition in Chicago. But cruising sailboats are not launches, and the open sea is not a protected canal. When we’re using cruising boats as they’re meant to be used, they seldom end their day plugged into a shore-power outlet. Cruising boats comprise many devices —stove, refrigerator, freezer, windlass, winches, autopilot, radar, lights—whose power typically comes from a tank of fossil fuel. And today’s cruising sailors are accustomed to using diesel auxiliary power to motor through lulls or punch into headwinds and seas.

Starting about 15 years ago, we saw a wave of diesel-electric and hybrid propulsion systems on production and custom cruising boats ( see “Perpetuated Motion,” CW , March 2005 ). Both of those systems ultimately start with an onboard internal-combustion engine. A diesel-electric propulsion system relies on a running genset to directly power the electric motor that turns the propeller. A hybrid system relies on batteries to power the electric motor, plus an internal-combustion genset to recharge the batteries. One of the promises of a hybrid system is the ability to regenerate electrical power. Regeneration means using boatspeed under sail to turn the propeller, whose spinning shaft sends electrons from the electric motor back through an electronic controller to recharge the batteries. In such a system, the boat’s propeller is both an electrical load (when running under power) and a charging source (when sailing in regeneration mode).

The Arcona 435Z was different from both of these systems: It incorporates no onboard fossil-fuel engine at all. Instead, it has a bank of lithium batteries, several solar panels, and a proprietary propulsion leg that looks like a saildrive. “This boat,” Balch said, “has the very first production unit in the world of Oceanvolt’s newest electric propulsion system, called the ServoProp.”

For our sea trial, Balch was joined by Derek Rupe, CEO of Oceanvolt USA. “If you can sail the boat and you have some solar, you can go anywhere in the world, and you can make all your power underway while you go,” Rupe said. When we spoke in October 2020, he touted three high-profile sailors who were using the Oceanvolt electric propulsion system: Alex Thomson, for his Hugo Boss Open 60 Vendée Globe program; Jimmy Cornell, for his Elcano 500 expedition; and Riley Whitelum and Elayna Carausu, who had been teasing their new boat for months on their popular Sailing La Vagabonde YouTube channel.

The efficiency of Oceanvolt’s ServoProp and the regeneration from it is the promised game-changer in each of these boats. The ServoProp is a leg with a ­feathering propeller that can be set for optimal pitch in three modes: forward, reverse and regeneration.

“You don’t need fuel,” Rupe said. “You don’t need to dock; you can go anywhere you want to go and always have the power for living and propulsion.”

That’s the promise. But are there also pitfalls?

Innovation and Risk

Marine electric propulsion is an emerging technology. Compared with the mature and settled technology of diesel engines and lead-acid batteries, electric-propulsion systems—with their electronic controllers and lithium batteries—are in a stage of development best described as adolescent. Every sailor has his or her own tolerance for technical innovation. For the promise of fewer ­seconds per mile, grand-prix-racing sailors willingly trade a high risk of expensive damage to the sails, rig or the boat’s structure itself; cruising sailors, by contrast, tend to favor yearslong reliability in their equipment as they seek miles per day.

Folks who identify as early adopters take special joy in the first-wave discoveries of a new technology; if they’re clear-eyed about supporting an ongoing experiment, they see themselves as partners with the developers, accepting failures as opportunities for learning. Sailors motivated primarily by changing the trajectory of climate change might be especially willing to modify their behavior to limit their own output of greenhouse gases. Investing in any emerging technology asks you to start with a clear assessment of your own risk tolerance. We’ll return to this theme with one or two real-life examples.

The American Boat and Yacht Council, founded in 1954, sets recommended standards for systems installed on recreational boats. For decades, ABYC has published standards related to installations of diesel and gasoline engines, as well as electrical systems based around lead-acid batteries. By contrast, it was only three years ago that ABYC came out with its first electric-propulsion standard (revised July 2021). And only last year it published its first technical-information report on lithium batteries (a technical-information report is an early step toward a future standard). The takeaway is that if you need help servicing your diesel engine or electrical system built around lead-acid batteries, you can pull into any reasonable-size port and find competent technicians to help you. With electric propulsion and lithium batteries, that pool of skilled talent is significantly scarcer.

To say that a technology is mature simply means that we’ve learned to live with it, warts and all, but that it holds few remaining surprises. Certainly, diesel-propulsion and lead-acid-battery technologies each leave plenty of room for improvement. When a charge of fuel ignites in the combustion ­chamber of a diesel engine, some three-quarters of the energy is lost in heat and the mechanical inefficiencies of converting reciprocating motion to rotation. Lead-acid batteries become damaged if we routinely discharge more than half of their capacity. During charging, they’re slow to take the electrons we could deliver.

Lithium batteries are comparatively full of promise. Their power density is far greater than that of lead-acid batteries, meaning they’re much lighter for a given capacity. They’re capable of being deeply discharged, which means you can use far more of the bank’s capacity, not merely the first half. And they accept a charge much more quickly; compare that to several hours a day running an engine to keep the beers iced down.

But the pitfalls? Let’s start with ABYC TE-13, Lithium Ion Batteries. Some of its language is bracing. “Lithium ion batteries are unlike lead-acid batteries in two important respects,” the report says. “1) The electrolyte within most lithium ion batteries is flammable. 2) Under certain fault conditions, lithium ion batteries can enter a condition known as thermal runaway, which results in rapid internal heating. Once initiated, it is a self-perpetuating and exothermic reaction that can be difficult to halt.”

Thermal runaway? Difficult to halt? Self-perpetuating?

“Typically, the best approach is to remove heat as fast as possible, which is most effectively done by flooding the battery with water,” TE-13 continues, “although this may have serious consequences for the boat’s electrical systems, machinery, buoyancy, etc.”

If you were following the news in January 2013, you might remember the ­story of Japan Airlines Flight 008. Shortly after landing at Boston’s Logan Airport, a mechanic opened the aft ­electronic equipment bay of the Boeing 787-8 to find smoke and flames billowing from the auxiliary-power unit. The fire extinguisher he used didn’t put out the flames. Eventually Boston firefighters put out the fire with Halotron, but when removing the still-hissing batteries from the plane, one of the ­firefighters was burned through his ­professional protective gear.

Samsung Galaxy cellphones, MacBook Pro laptops, powered skateboards—in the past decade, these and other devices have been recalled after their lithium batteries burned up. In that period, several high-end custom boats were declared a total loss following failures from lithium batteries. In March 2021, a 78-foot Norwegian hybrid-powered tour boat, built in 2019 with a 790 kW capacity battery bank, experienced thermal runaway that kept firefighters on watch for several days after the crew safely abandoned the ship.

Yes, experts are learning a lot about how to mitigate the risks around lithium batteries. But we’re still on the learning curve.

ABYC’s TE-13 “System Design” section starts, “All lithium-ion battery ­systems should have a battery ­management system (BMS) installed to prevent damage to the battery and provide for battery shutoff if potentially dangerous conditions exist.” It defines a bank’s “safe operating envelope” according to such parameters as high- and low-voltage limits, charging and discharging temperature limits, and charging and ­discharging current limits.

Graham Balch takes these safety recommendations a step further: “To our knowledge, the BMS has to monitor at the cell level. With most batteries, the BMS monitors at the module level.” The difference? “Let’s say you have 24 cells inside the battery module, and three of them stop working. Well, the other 21 have to work harder to compensate for those three. And that’s where thermal events occur.”

Balch followed the story of the Norwegian tour boat this past spring. He believes that the battery installation in that case didn’t meet waterproofing standards: “The hypothesis is that due to water intrusion, there was reverse polarity in one or more of the cells, which is worse than cells simply not working. It means that they’re actively working against the other cells. But if the BMS is monitoring only at the module level, you wouldn’t know it.”

On the Green Yachts website, Graham lists five battery manufacturers whose BMS regimes monitor at the cell level. “If I were sailing on an electric boat, whether it be commercial or recreational, I would feel comfortable with having batteries from these five companies and no other,” he said.

The broader takeaway for today’s sailors is that lithium batteries bring their own sets of problems and solutions, which are different from those of conventional propulsion and power-supply technologies. A reasonably skilled sailor could be expected to change fuel filters or bleed a diesel engine if it shuts down in rough conditions. With lithium-ion batteries aboard, an operator needs to understand the causes and remedies of thermal runaway, and be ready to respond if the BMS shuts down the boat’s power.

Real-World Electric Cruising Boats

When we met Oceanvolt’s Derek Rupe a year ago, he and his wife had taken their all-electric boat to the Bahamas and back the previous season. Before that, he’d been installing electric-propulsion packages for six years on new Alerion 41s and other refit projects. “My real passion is on the technical side of things—installations, really getting that right. That’s half the picture. The technology is there, but it needs to be installed correctly.”

When talking to Rupe, I immediately encountered my first learning curve. I posed questions about the Oceanvolt system in amps and amp-hours; he responded in watts and kilowatt-hours. This was yet another example of the different mindset sailors of electric boats need to hold. Why? Because most cruising boats have just one or two electrical systems: DC and AC. The AC system might operate at 110 or 220 volts; the DC side might operate at 12 or 24 volts. On your own boat, that voltage is a given. From there we tend to think in terms of amps needed to power a load, and amp-hours of capacity in our battery banks. Going back to basics, the power formula tells us that power (watts) equals electrical potential (volts) times current (amps). If your boat’s electrical system is 12 volts and you know that your windlass is rated at 400 watts, it follows that the windlass is rated to draw 33 amps.

But an all-electric boat might comprise several systems at different voltages. A single battery bank might supply cabin lights at 12 volts DC; winches and windlasses at 24 volts DC; the propulsion motor at 48 volts DC; and an induction stove, microwave and television at 110 volts AC. A DC-to-DC power converter steps the voltage up or down, and an inverter changes DC to AC. Instead of translating through all those systems, the Oceanvolt monitor (and Derek Rupe) simply reports in watts coming in or going out of the bank.

“We keep all our thoughts in watts,” Rupe said. “Watts count in the AC induction. They count in the DC-to-DC converter. They count the solar in. They count the hydrogeneration in. And the ­power-management systems tracks it that way for shore-power in.

“On a boat like this, maybe I have 500 watts coming in the solar panels,” he continued. “So then I can think: ‘Well, my fridge is using 90 watts. My boat has an electric stove. When I cook a big meal, I can see that for every hour we cook, we lose about 10 to 12 minutes of our cruising range.’”

During his Bahamas cruising season, Rupe observed that on days that they were sailing, the combination of solar panels and hydroregeneration supplied all the power he and his wife needed. “When we weren’t sailing,” he said, “we found that we were losing 8 percent each day, in the difference from what the sun gave us to what we were using for the fridge, lights, charging our laptops, and all that stuff.”

Rupe’s solution? “Twice in Eleuthera and once outside Major’s, we went out and sailed laps for a couple of hours because the batteries were below 30 percent of capacity. It was good sailing, and the wind was coming over the shore, so we didn’t have any sea state. We did a couple of hot laps on nice beam reaches, and generated about 700 watts an hour.”

Of the three sailors Rupe touted in October 2020—Alex Thomson, Jimmy Cornell and the Sailing La Vagabonde couple—only Cornell can report back on his all-electric experiences with Oceanvolt. Alex Thomson ended his circumnavigation abruptly last November, just 20 days after the Vendée Globe start, when Hugo Boss collided with an object in the South Atlantic. And at press time in early fall 2021, Riley and Elayna had just recently announced the build of their new Rapido trimaran; keep an eye on their YouTube channel for more about their experiences with the Oceanvolt propulsion system.

As for Cornell—circumnavigator, World Cruising Routes author, creator of the transoceanic rally, and veteran of some 200,000 ocean miles—he suspended his planned Elcano 500 round-the-world expedition solely because of the Oceanvolt system in his new Outremer catamaran. His Aventura Zero Logs on the Cornell Sailing website, particularly the Electric Shock article posted on December 2, 2020, are essential reading for any sailor interested in sailing an electric boat. “Sailing around the world on an electric boat with zero emissions along the route of the first circumnavigation was such a tempting opportunity to do something meaningful and in tune with our concern for protecting the environment that my family agreed I should do it,” Cornell wrote. “What this passage has shown was that in spite of all our efforts to save energy, we were unable to regenerate sufficient electricity to cover consumption and top up the batteries.”

Cornell’s experience in that article is raw, and his tone in that moment bitterly disappointed. We recommend it as essential reading—not as a final rejection of the electric-boat concept or of Oceanvolt’s system, or even as an endorsement of Cornell’s own decision that the system didn’t work. I suspect that I may have arrived at the same conclusion. Yet given the same boat in the same conditions, one imagines that a new breed of sailor—a Graham Balch or a Derek Rupe—may have responded differently to the constraints imposed by an all-electric boat, as nearly every cruising sailor today habitually responds to the inconvenient constraints of diesel engines and lead-acid batteries.

“If you bring electric winches, electric heads and an induction stove, and then sail into a high-pressure system, you’ll set yourself up for failure,” Balch said. “You have to balance your power inputs and your power outputs.

“Sailing an electric boat is a return to the tradition of sailing that the crutch of a diesel engine has gotten us away from,” he added. “Magellan’s fleet got all the way around the world, and they didn’t have a diesel engine.”

Tim Murphy is a Cruising World editor-at-large and ­longtime Boat of the Year judge.

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Arcona 345, A New Performance Cruiser Nordic Style

Following the success of the European Yacht of the Year winning Arcona 435 in 2019, Arcona Yachts unveils a new performance cruiser model ideal for shorthanded sailing, the Arcona 345.

Torgny Jansson, Founder of Arcona Yachts, comments: “ The Arcona 345 is such an exciting project for us. She has a slightly larger sail area than the Arcona 340 to give optimised upwind performance. There is the option to have twin wheels configured which can be upgraded to carbon. With a tiller as standard, she is very responsive so we can’t wait to see her perform on the racecourse. ”

The layout provides a forward cabin with plenty of room and a good-sized clothes locker each side of the dressing area, with more stowage beneath and over the berths.

The saloon has an L-shaped galley, with lots of stowage, a gimballed twin burner gas cooker with oven and a generously-sized sink and fridge; a smoothly rounded backward-facing chart table with ample space for electronic equipment; a twin leaf saloon table, a U-shaped seating area to port and long straight settee starboard capable of seating six to dine.

The heads are spacious with separate shower facilities. One aft cabin features a large double berth, two portholes that can be opened, plenty of lockers and shelves, plus stowage under the berth.

The hull and deck employ vacuum infusion technology with a sandwich construction featuring multi-axial rovings and Vinylester resin. The core material is 20mm Divinycell. All bulkheads are bonded to the hull and deck for added strength.

Fitted with a powerful fractional rig, the  Arcona 345  sports a tapered, twin spreader, keel-stepped mast and is prepped for spinnaker equipment. For strength and stability, the bulb keel is made of antimony hardened lead.

The transom is open with an integral bathing platform. The large storage locker aft is accessible from two recessed hatches in the cockpit floor. Additional storage can be found in the aft end of the cockpit bench and a cockpit table is stowed in the starboard side locker. The cockpit coaming, aft deck and sole are in teak. The side deck can be specified either in teak or in Arcona’s iconic non-slip material.

Arcona 345 specs

Design: Stefan Qviberg Lenght overall: 10.40 m Lenght waterline: 9.80m Beam: 3.45m Draft: 1.95/1.80m Displacement: 5200hg Water capacity: 130l Main sail: 41.1m2 Jib 107%: 33.5m2 Spinnaker: 120m2 Asymmetric: 120m2 www.arconayachts.se

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Arcona 430 Performance cruiser

Here is a new Swedish boat built by Arcona Yachts and designed by Stefan Qviberg. The goal appears to be a comfortable cruising boat that has some race potential or, as the promo material says, "The perfection of beauty combined with exceptional performance and unequalled safety." That is indeed a common theme theses days so let's take a close look at how Arcona does it.

I have plenty of nice technical design drawings for this design but no hull lines, so we are going to have to use our imaginations a bit for hull shape nuances. The D/L is 146, so we can call that normal for an IRC type boat. Freeboard is high and the ends are short. Photos show the boat dragging a lot of transom at even moderate angles of heel. This may be good for volume aft but it's not fast, as those eddies cling to the transom edge and suck their way around, throwing up a nice frothy "bone in the tail." The bow is quite fine and the stern is very broad. These are just features we take for granted on modern production boats today. The L/B is 3.3, which is moderate. Max beam is well aft and fore and aft rocker is moderate with the forefoot knuckle right at the DWL. There are two keels: one drawing 7 feet, 6 inches and the other 8 feet, 4 inches. Both are lead bulbs on cast iron fins. All in all, this is a pretty normal hull.

Photos of the joinerwork look beautiful, with nicely rounded corners and a sensitive proportion to all trim details. You can have your choice of two layouts. You can have what I call the "California" layout, with the galley adjacent to the dinette running down the starboard side. This gives you a great galley; a bit spread out, but nice. The other layout has the traditional U-shaped galley aft to port and opposing dinette and settee amidships. There are no surprises in either layout but they are well proportioned and appear well detailed.

The rig is on the big side with an SA/D of 23.5. The headstay almost goes to the masthead but leaves enough room to keep the chute from jamming up. The standard jib drawn has a 106% LP but there is plenty of jib track drawn so you could carry much more overlap if you needed it. The triple spreaders are swept 16 degrees. The deck layout features halyards that run aft under covers and exit at the winches flanking the companionway. The dodger disappears down into a molded-in trough for a nice, clean look. Instead of the typical twin wheel setup we see today, the Arcona has one big wheel recessed into a well. It does obstruct movement aft in the cockpit if you want to get to the swim step, but it will be a nice way to drive the boat.

I don't see anything novel in this design but it is a well-thought-out combination that should please a lot of sailors.

LOA 43'2"; LWL 39'6"; Beam 13'1"; Draft 7'6" (shoal), 8'4" (deep); Displacement 20,282 lbs.; Ballast 8,377 lbs.; Sail area 1,128 sq. ft.; SA/D 23.5; D/L 146; L/B 3.3; Auxiliary Yanmar 40-hp; Fuel 53 gals.; Water 80 gals. Arcona Yachts, Kattholmen S-134 40 Gustavsberg, Sweden, 46-8-570-346-77, www.arconayachts.se. In the U.S., contact Gunnar's Yacht and Ship, P.O. Box 215, Oak Creek, WI 53154, (877) 442-3730, www.yachtworld.com/gys

OBE: $490,000 Our Best Estimate of the sailaway price

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Cruising Boat Designs

A blog about boats, books, voyages we've made, and yacht design. If you are a designer or builder and would like to have your boat reviewed, send drawings, photos and details to [email protected]

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Arcona 410 review.

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First Look: Arcona 50 – a different philosophy

• Rupert Holmes
• May 26, 2022

Rupert Holmes takes a look at the newly announced Arcona 50, a yacht that breaks new ground for the Swedish yard

This Swedish yard’s new flagship, the Arcona 50, represents more than just a step up in size – it’s also the outcome of a different philosophy. This is especially apparent in the choice of designer – X-Yachts’ founder Niels Jeppesen – although there are also other respects in which it breaks new ground for Arcona.

Historically the bulk of the yard’s clients were Swedish owners, most of whom kept their boats in one of the country’s many archipelagos, where the combination of light displacement and tall rig was ideal for the local conditions, as well as allowing owners to race competitively.

That picture has changed over the past few years and CEO Urban Lagnéus tells me the UK is now by far the company’s biggest market. This larger model was also conceived from the outset as a boat for longer distance sailing , while still retaining the brand’s fundamental attributes.

The Arcona 50 is designed with a view to taking on longer distance cruising

At the same time as the yard was looking to create a larger model, Arcona’s long standing de facto in house designer Stefan Qviberg passed away. “We therefore needed a new person to create this boat,” says Lagnéus. “At that time, Niels and Ariadna Pons were setting up a new design office, so we had a meeting and discovered we all speak the same boat language, so it was an easy choice.

“A 50ft boat is much more one for the ocean than our smaller boats,” he told me. “So our aim for this one was an offshore yacht that will be quick when sailing long distances – we wanted it to be one of the quickest 50-footers – but it also has many comforts.”

The yacht has been kept as light as possible, without compromising strength or stiffness. Lagnéus says the most cost effective way of doing this is with foam-cored composite furniture and bulkheads, in place of the plywood that’s more usually used. This model therefore only uses carbon in key structural areas, especially where it can help keep weight out of the ends of the boat.

A similar philosophy of saving weight was also applied to the selection of hotel systems and deck gear. A single saving of 5, 10 or 15kg may not sound important for a boat of this size, but once that’s scaled up to scores of items the cumulative reduction can be considerable. This helps keep total displacement in check and allows for a heavier keel bulb – an aspect that’s often compromised when a boat ends up being heavier than the designer originally intended.

The Arcona 50’s hull shape has proportionally much wider aft sections than previous models, with more flare above the waterline and soft chines fairly high up the topsides. It’s therefore a shape that doesn’t have a great deal of wetted surface area in light airs, but stability builds quickly as heel increases and there are twin rudders for ultimate control. These can also be positioned further aft than a single rudder, which allows more of the hull’s length to be used for both accommodation and stowage.

The Arcona 50 has space for a transverse tender garage without impacting too much on interior volume

This leaves room for a transverse tender garage, without pushing the aft cabins too far forward. Watertight composite bulkheads separate the accommodation from both the bow sail locker and the tender garage.

This is also the first Arcona to have L-shaped benches with twin tables in the forward part of the cockpit and therefore a clear passage between the transom and companionway. Below decks there’s a minimalist Scandinavian style with lots of natural light from hull windows and flush overhead hatches. Aft cabins can be converted between twin and double formats, while there’s a large forward owner’s cabin.

Construction of the first Arcona 50 is scheduled to start in September 2022, with five boats planned for launch in 2023. Pricing will be determined closer to the launch date.

Arcona 50 specifications

Hull length: 14.99m 49ft 2in Beam: 4.60m 15ft 1in Draught: 2.95m, 2.5m or 2.2m  9ft 8in, 8ft 2in or 7ft 3in Displacement (deep keel): 13,900kg 30,650lb Ballast: (deep keel) 4,600kg 10,140lb Price: TBA Builder: www.arconayachts.se

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Arcona 410 Review

The Arcona 410 is a Swedish success story, Andi Robertson revels in the simple spacious quality

Arcona is the premier marque kicking up something of a quiet storm in the UK over the last two to three years.

The 410 was introduced in the summer and four boats have been sold into the UK and another three are in the pipeline. One of the new owners is planning a modest race campaign, which may even go forwards to the 2012 Brewin Dolphin Commodores’ Cup.

Trial certificates are in at 1.094 for his boat.

Concept and layout

The 410 carries the same design ideas as the 430 and her smaller siblings but there is

notably a little more beam carried aft with more powerful quarters. Hence the twin wheels – a radical departure for Arcona. Otherwise the hull has minimal overhang, a very bluff, clean bow, but a very even, clean hull shape.

The key Arcona attributes remain firm: the substantial galvanised chassis grid to deal with all the rig and keel loads, and which is bolted to the main bulkhead, encased with vacuum-bagged sandwich construction over a Divinycell core.

The hull shape and form is updated with a slightly wider, more powerful stern profile and the maximum beam carried further back. A proportionately wider waterline beam means a steeper, bluffer sheer. The bow is straight and plumb forming minimal overhangs. The forward sections have a fine entry, hollowed with the slightly scalloped entry for the first two or three metres. One key to the 410’s undoubted speed is the maximised waterline length.

The cockpit and deck layouts are spacious and very functional. For a 41-footer the cockpit feels big and wide. We like the optional longitudinal foot brace which can be added in seconds, but there is ample secure seating for crew and the coamings are sufficiently deep with good access to and from the cockpit. Influence from the UK and elsewhere ensured the open transom wraps round partially, balancing safety and security with the advantage of a step up and through. There is an option to have drop-down slats across the opening to maximise the security. Otherwise at the back of the boat there is an excellent deep liferaft locker on the turn of the transom. Then there are two deep lockers on either quarter.

We were not overly keen on the layout of the wheel pedestals. The track controls need to fall to hand for the helmsman when sailing short-handed. Otherwise the area works really well, with a good mix of space and security.

Sail controls are good; the non-overlapping jib runs to a neat floating single-line-controlled barber-hauler, while the German A-mainsheet is run aft to the helm’s hand.

Overall we were really impressed with the sailing performance of the 410. It was long legged, very quick but very easily handled. We had perfect sea-breeze conditions of 11-13 knots out in the western Solent and the 410 was a real delight to sail, with many of the key attributes which we loved about the 430 shining through. It is a boat which is easy to push hard with finger-tip steering; throughout our test even when the puffs hit there was plenty of good grip and it was easy to translate the extra power into acceleration.

Beating out against the usual chop the boat was dry and pleasingly efficient. It was certainly easy to settle to a groove and then just keep the 410 on track with little attention to the helm. The inhaulers on the jib allow for some close angles upwind with no obvious loss in speed. Certainly what was impressive was the all-round smoothness of the performance – there were no humps or hollows.

We stuck up the fractional asymmetric for the run back and the boat really did slide downwind nicely with very little attention to the helm required. It tracked well and slid easily through the gybes. We had no working speedo but there is no arguing that the 410 is quick upwind and downwind and I am sure would even give the slippery 430 a run for her money.

Rig and sails

Ninety per cent of Arconas sold are for cruising only. The big main is on lazy jacks

and the furling headsail had a really good, adaptable shape. In fact, we only remembered that it was a rolling sail when it was time to put it away.

The A-sail sets on a short carbon prodder on the bow, which is light and easy to handle and really highlighted the ease with which you can sail the 410 relatively quickly but with the minimum of stress. Our test boat is intended to race as much as time allows and so has the full pack of two A-sails and two symmetrical kites, but a good cruising chute and snuffer would be ideal for a cruising set-up and for those who will be mainly short-handed.

The interior is lovely and ‘proper’. It carries all the aesthetic values you would expect from a premium Scandinavian builder, but with loads and loads of natural light, really good space and a nice, conservative mahogany finish. The proportions are great in the living spaces, with an excellent saloon area and a big fold-out table with a clever little drinks cabinet sliding out from inside. To starboard there is a full-length couch seat and the excellent nav station behind. The heads is also well proportioned, easily kept and simple, again with good natural light.

Opposite, the galley is also ‘proper’ with good prep areas, excellent twin sinks, and good large cupboard spaces under the sink and on the L-shape.

A pair of double aft cabins are most notable for the bed space but with good living space. As with the forecabin, the designers really have kept the cabins nice and simple. There is ample ‘living’ space but they have not gone too far with desks or dressers or trying to fit in an en-suite although this is do-able. The net result is that all the cabins feel big, especially the forecabin, which has lots of bed area and is very light and airy.

Arcona 410 Review: Verdict

Overall the Arcona 410 offers a great, easy performance at a high level of comfort and simplicity. It is the new standard bearer for the brand, at an ideal size for those moving up the size range. And in today’s times it is a great investment. Used

Arconas sell smartly even in this market and owners are getting more than they paid for them.

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• Arcona 460 Sinking Update. Builder Launches Inquiry

The short video of the Swedish yacht IdaLina sinking in the Pacific Ocean that recently went viral on social media and ran in last week’s Cruising Compass, has stirred and troubled many cruising sailors, in no small part because so many details were lacking.

Here’s a quick update gleaned from a report in Practical Boat Owner magazine. The yacht was a Swedish-built Arcona 460, a model that is no longer in production. Her Swedish crew are Ingmar Ravudd and Katarina Bääth Ravudd, who were fulfilling their long-held dream of sailing their own boat around the world.

On April 8, IdaLina was 300 miles from making landfall in the Marquesas Island of French Polynesia after making an almost 3,000-mile passage across the Pacific Ocean.

The rudder stock on the spade rudder broke in half right below the quadrant and, being unsupported, began moving violently as the rudder flailed in the waves.

Although the bilge pumps worked as they should and despite the best efforts of the crew to plug the hole in the hull caused by the moving post, the flood could not be stopped.

When there was eight inches of water above I daLina ’s floorboards, Ingmar and Katarina made the difficult decision to abandon ship and take to their life raft.

The Swedish yacht Pacific Wind was nearby and able to rescue their cruising friends just as IdaLina sank below the waves.

In the aftermath of the sinking and timely rescue, the team at Arcona Yachts extended their condolences and thanks for the crew’s safety. And, they announced that they had launched a full investigation into how their rudders are built and are making inspections of all materials involved.

Read more here.

Watch Video of IdaLina sinking here.

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• Yachting Monthly
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• January 14, 2010

The Yachting Monthly team take the Arcona 340 out for a test run...

Product Overview

Overall rating:, manufacturer:, price as reviewed:.

This is a fantastic yacht: powerful, fast, perfectly mannered and very good-looking, but we left feeling just a little disappointed. She’s the first Estonian Arcona we’ve seen and, while easily matching the quality of most production yachts, in some aspects of design and finish, she doesn’t live up to the stratospheric standards set by Swedish-built Arconas – but then the price reflects this. She’ll give her rivals a serious run for their money in the European Yacht of the Year, but she’s not as outstanding as her bigger sisters.

The New Flagship

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The First by Jeppesen & Pons

Introducing the Arcona 50, the first model designed by Jeppesen & Pons, and the new flagship of the Arcona fleet. This captivating 50ft performance cruiser marks a step change for Arcona Yachts with a new design collaboration and many new design features.

With over 6000 yachts on the water and a ¾ ton cup winning race pedigree, Principal Designer, Niels Jeppesen, and Yacht Designer & Naval Architect, Ariadna Pons, bring a wealth of experience to Arcona Yachts.

The brief for Jeppesen & Pons’ first Arcona was to design a 50-foot performance cruiser that can be easily handled by two people, while simultaneously delivering in terms of cruising comfort and sailing performance, in true Arcona style. Created to go further, this yacht forges ahead in all design aspects, setting a new standard to meet the high demands of our customers, whether it’s their ambition to go cruising the Stockholm Archipelago or to cross an ocean.

GO FURTHER WITH THE ARCONA 50

The Arcona 50 is ideal for safe and comfortable long distance performance cruising. In a first for Arcona, this new flagship has twin rudders providing more control in the water. Another first for Arcona is the addition of a dinghy garage. Watertight composite bulkheads separate the accommodation from both the bow sail locker and the dinghy garage.

Also new to Arcona are the L-shaped cockpit benches and the two cockpit tables, which improve functionality and enable guests and crew to move around the cockpit more easily under sail. Liferaft locker recessed into the cockpit floor, halyard and sheet lockers under the side decks in front of the helmsman. Aft coaming lockers to hide the yacht’s gas bottles and shorepower socket.

REAL SAILING – YOUR WAY

The Arcona 50 has twin wheels as standard, and the cockpit layout and the sail handling systems are set up for shorthanded sailing and ease of use.

She has a three-spreader mast with discontinuous rod rigging plus double hydraulic backstay cylinders with a central pumpstation. A carbon mast and furling carbon boom is available as an upgrade. There is an optional inner forestay to attach a furling heavy weather jib for ocean passages. There is also the option for a bowsprit for easily controllable use of asymmetric sails.

The central single mainsheet block is recessed below the cockpit floor. The yacht is available with an electrically operated mainsheet traveller track, also recessed below the cockpit floor, as an upgrade.

Next to the winches, there are dedicated lockers for halyards and sheets enabling the cockpit to be ‘clean’.

Under power, an standard 80hp or optional 100Hp common rail engine propels a folding propeller, keeping vibrations and noise to a minimum. Optional retractable thrusters will secure maximum manoeuvrability in narrow marinas.

SCANDINAVIAN ELEGANCE BELOW DECK

Below deck minimalist Scandinavian elegance permeates every detail. The interior is made in Khaya Mahogany and can be upgraded to Scandinavian Light Oak. As seen in superyachts, but new to Arcona, the woodwork is cored to maximise weight-saving without compromising on the aesthetics.

The galley has lots of practical stowage, a gimballed cooker with oven and a generously-sized sink and fridge. The galley layout enables easy access to the L-shaped saloon seating. There is the option to choose an alternative layout with U-shaped seating and an additional worktop space.

The saloon table has an additional seat to starboard that can be moved and locked into position.

The owners’ cabin features a Kingsize bed, lots of storage and an en-suite with a separate shower. For guests, there is an additional heads with a separate shower area. The two aft cabins have double berths as standard and can be upgraded to a convertible twin berth configuration.

Lots of natural light flows from the large hull windows and flush hatches which creates the feeling of more space. Arcona offers a broad range of cushion fabrics and colour options for you to choose from to personalise your Arcona.

SWEDISH BUILD QUALITY

Like all boats in the Arcona fleet, the Arcona 50 reflects the quality expected from Swedish boatbuilders, using the best materials, techniques and trusted handpicked suppliers. Hull, deck and internal structure will be made of vacuum infused Divinycell cored GRP with strategic important areas reinforced with carbon. This carbon reinforcements are useful for both strength and weight-saving. As with all Arcona yachts, the Arcona 50 also features a galvanised steel keel frame.

Blending Scandinavian yacht design expertise with Swedish boatbuilding craftsmanship is an exciting combination for this new Arcona flagship.

Please note: The images featured may show optional features and equipment that are not included in the standard specification.

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Magazine Tests

She is praised by journalists and sailors, won European Yacht of the Year 2024 in the luxury cruiser category and was highly commended in the British Yachting Awards – Performance Yacht 2023. Check out what the journalists say about her.

Yachting World

Minbaad.dk (DEN) Yacht.de – First Look (DE)

Nautica y Yates Page 126 – Test (ES) Voiles et Voiliers – Test (FR)

Vene – Test (FI) Vela E Motore March 2024 – Test (IT) Giornale della Vela – First Look (IT) Seilmagasinet (NOR) Praktiskt Batågände (SE) Search Magazine (SE)

Specifications

Sails & rig dimensions.

Contact us about Arcona 50

Interested in learning more about a specific Arcona yacht model? You can ask us any questions or book a visit for a test sail. Please fill in the form to the right and we will get back to you.

Prefer contacting us by phone? Please contact Arcona Yachts on +46 (0)8 519 410 40

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Sheriff identifies young siblings killed by driver who crashed into party

Officials in southeastern Michigan have identified the 8-year-old girl and her 4-year-old brother who were killed Saturday when a suspected drunk driver plowed through a child’s birthday party at a creekside boat club.

Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodnough in a statement Monday identified the children as Alanah Phillips, age 8, and Zayn Phillips, age 4. Diane Harrington, the victims’ aunt, said in a verified fundraiser for family funeral costs that the children’s mother and older brother remained hospitalized. Harrington declined to comment when reached by phone Sunday.

Monroe County Prosecuting Attorney Jeffrey A. Yorkey is expected to announced a final charging decision Tuesday against the 66-year-old driver. The woman, who has not been identified but was cooperating with police, was arrested at the scene Saturday after she slammed her SUV into the side of the Swan Boat Club about 3 p.m. and continued about 25 feet into the building before coming to a stop. The woman was taken into custody for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated and causing death.

Among the nine people hospitalized, an 11-year-old boy and a 31-year-old woman remained in critical condition Monday, three teenagers were listed in serious condition, and five other people were treated for minor injuries, Goodnough’s office said.

“The scene was described by the first responders as ‘extremely chaotic,’ with [a] high level of emotions of those directly involved and those who witnessed the horrific incident,” Goodnough said during a Saturday news conference.

Gasps rippled through the room when Goodnough, in a trembling voice, said the two young party attendees pronounced dead at the scene were siblings.

Six adults and three children were rushed to the hospital by ambulance and helicopter with serious injuries after the crash at the boat club in Berlin Township, roughly 30 miles south of Detroit.

Video of the crash captured by doorbell camera shows a black SUV speeding through the boat club’s parking lot before crashing out of the frame and sending plumes of smoke and dust into the air.

Authorities said they were investigating a local tavern several miles away, where the suspect was believed to have been served before the fatal crash.

“We went in, we shut the business down, and we executed a search warrant into the business conducted that day,” Goodnough said.

The Swan Boat Club said in a Facebook post that it would remain closed Sunday and asked the community for prayers and support for the victims’ families.