Yanmar’s recreational marine brands continue to advance.
Yanmar Marine Recreational Business Unit has been busy with innovations and upgrades for a number of their subsidiaries, starting with the E-Saildrive engine winning the Innovation Award in the Alternative Propulsion category at the 2025 Discover Boating Miami International Boat Show. The E-Saildrive SDe 48V series also won two DAME Design Awards at the 2024 METSTRADE show in Amsterdam in the Propulsion & Dynamics and Environmental categories.
The E-Saildrive range is Yanmar Marine’s first electric propulsion product and includes three models, the SDe7 kW, SDe10 kW, and SDe15 kW, that deliver power outputs of up to 15kW for sailboats up to 40 feet (depending on application and displacement). The system operates on a 48V electrical platform, ensuring seamless integration and a reliable power source for emission-free sailing. The plug-n-play platform eliminates the need for hull modifications and is a direct drop-in replacement for traditional combustion engines due to its integrated gear, motor, motor controller, and cooling system. yanmar.com
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VETUS
Keeping with electric propulsion, Yanmar’s group company VETUS has an impressive electric propulsion range. They feature VETUS’ Active Electronic Braking, guaranteeing full control without the requirement of a gearbox and clutch. The high torque of the electric motor is used to change the direction of rotation quickly and actively, enabling the boat to be stopped within one boat length if necessary.
VETUS offers the E-LINE AIR Cooled series with three models—EAIR05024, EAIR050, and EAIR070—delivering 5kW at 24 volts, 5kW at 48 volts, and 7kW at 48 volts, respectively. Additionally, the E-LINE Liquid Cooled series includes models such as ELINE060, ELINE080, and ELINE110, offering 6kW, 8kW, and 11kW at 48 volts.
The E-LINE can be used in conjunction with a VETUS BOW PRO proportional bow or stern thruster and can be supplied as a complete system including thrusters and steering components to fully outfit a vessel.
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The BOW PRO series offers a range of thrusters and outputs from 30kgf to 420kgf. One example is the BOW PRO Boosted 400 series, including the BOWB385 and BOWB420 models (B for boosted), which delivers up to 420 kgf (kilogram-force) of thrust at 48VDC and provides excellent efficiency for larger vessels from 82 feet to 131 feet. The 420 model is equipped with a maintenance-free brushless induction motor with an exclusive built-in DC-to-DC smart charger. The charger allows an existing 12 VDC power supply to charge the 24 VDC thruster battery bank. The 48 VDC BOWB uses a 24 VDC power supply. The thrusters utilize a third charge connection that is constantly monitored and only activated once the voltage level of the charging source reaches a suitable level. This feature prevents the charging source from being depleted, such as the engine starting bank. The built-in smart three-stage charging process ensures that the thruster batteries are kept at their optimum level. vetus.com
Smartgyro
Smartgyro has accepted the challenge to enhance the stability of Bluegame’s new luxury BGM75 catamaran. While multihulls are naturally stable, Bluegame decided to find a solution to the growing demand for increased comfort and stability by equipping the BGM75 with advanced Smartgyro SG80 stabilizers.
BGM75, the first model of the BGM range, does not fit into an existing segment but creates a new one: It is a significant departure from the catamarans on the market thanks to its reduced length-to-width ratio.
The collaboration between Bluegame and Smartgyro to investigate the potential of this innovative project began in 2023. For both companies, this was a groundbreaking endeavor because stabilizing multihulled vessels is notoriously complex due to their shape and the physics involved. The project was highly specialized as no specific mathematical model existed for catamarans on whether the concept would work.
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Smartgyro’s research and development team had to first investigate the technical aspects of how two gyroscopes could be installed and effectively operate in parallel within the two hulls of the catamaran. Several adjustments of the control systems alongside software modifications had to be made in this unique project specification. Smartgyro provided Bluegame with the maximum forces generated by the stabilizer so the team at Bluegame could determine the necessary modifications to the hull.
Testing the theories and tuning the algorithms of the gyroscopes to achieve an optimal parallel operation in different sea conditions, when one hull was experiencing different forces to the other, was a big part of the challenge. Sea trials were crucial to the project where several adjustments and modifications were made to fine tune the system and achieve the maximum roll reduction.
The results achieved after the numerous sea trials were excellent, granting significant roll reduction compared to a non-stabilized multihulled vessel. Now, the stabilized catamaran’s comfort is comparable to a stabilized monohull vessel.
Carla Demaria, CEO of Bluegame, said, “Understanding the high standards of our expert and sophisticated clientele, we were resolute in pursuing this project, confident that it would surpass their expectations for comfort. We recognized the complexity of stabilizing two hulls in parallel, a challenge no one had tackled before.”
Bluegame and Smartgyro continue to collaborate closely on future projects following the success of this ground-breaking development in stabilization for multihulls.
smartgyro.com
-by Jeremy Peters
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