The Royal Thames Mansura Trophy

by Richard Bundy on 10 Apr 2011 The Royal Thames Mansura Trophy 2010, in association with Bosch Engineering GmbH, received ten international entries by the extended closing date of 8th March 2011. The judging panel got down to studying the comprehensive details of craft and their voyages set out in the submissions.

Established by the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 2007 and supported by RYA and the Green-Blue, the Mansura Trophy is a most prestigious international maritime award to encourage marine companies in developing new forms of hybrid power. Eligible vessels must use at least two independent sources of propulsive power, and the final drive system must be electrical. For full details of the award and the rules for entry visit the official website.

Full submissions for the 2010 competition include two craft of different sizes from Mermaid Cruises and Shipping Co. Ltd in Thailand, built by Electric Boats Thailand Ltd; another, from Hybrid Marine of Sandown, Isle of Wight is Chelonian which incorporates Hybrid Marine’s well proven propulsion system, while the same system is also found in the joint entry by Jeremy Rogers Ltd and Hybrid Marine of the 'Green Contessa' Calypso which had received a lot of attention in the British yachting press in 2010. Salterns Brokerage in Poole, Dorset has entered the hybrid motor yacht Greenline 33 that was seen at the 2010 Southampton Show.

The remarkable Green eMotion was built in Durban, South Africa by African Cats BV and with her lightweight construction and novel propulsion system has completed a long and successful maiden voyage to Ijmuiden in the Netherlands via Cape Town, St Helena and the Azores. Gideon Goudsmit says they have two more exciting boats in development. Ian Rutter, by contrast, has entered his immaculate River Thames pleasure launch Irene.

Monte Gisborne the Chief Executive of Tamarack Lake Electric Boat Company of Brechin, Ontario, Canada, has entered two of their craft. Recent developments leading to establishing a facility at Rome in New York State, USA for the series manufacture of their 'Loon' design have not overshadowed 'Osprey', the ecology observation platform they built for a small lake in Canada. The long distance exploits of a series of Loon designs showed off the Tamarack Lake technology to great advantage and they attracted a lot of attention in the USA.

Sadly, Solar Sailor Holdings of Chatswood, New South Wales, who were the runners-up in the 2007 competition with Sydney Solar Sailor and were planning a single entry covering the fleet of Hong Kong Jockey Club ferries that ply from Hong Kong Island to the Jockey Club’s private island across the harbour, have withdrawn from the 2010 competition citing heavy business pressures, but Charly Teuscher from Vevey on Lake Geneva has entered his hybrid launch SOLARLY.CH which, as reported in Electric Boat News for Autumn 2010, completed a record-breaking full circuit of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) using only solar power.

Jack Edwards, Chairman of Trustees for the Mansura Trophy, says 'We have been excited by the development and use of hybrid power in the marine industry since we inaugurated the competition and nowhere is this illustrated better than in this year’s broad technical and geographical spread of entries, that [will] provide a great overview of current developments. The generous support of Bosch Engineering GmbH, part of the Bosch Group, has raised our profile in the marine industry to a new level and has enabled us to reach new competitors. While encouraging prototype development, this award recognises the real achievement of entrants whose vessels were in commission before the 31st December 2010. Full details of the entry criteria can be found on the official website. It is interesting that we have no entries in the prototype category this time and it seems the contestants have developed reliable designs that have now gone into production'

The 2010 Royal Thames Mansura Trophy, in association with Bosch Engineering GmbH, will be presented at the Royal Thames Yacht Club’s prestigious London Clubhouse on 12th May 2011. As well as the Trophy itself, divisional awards will be made for the best Inland, and Offshore Craft and the Trustees will again award the Royal Thames Mansura Medal to the organization deemed to have made the greatest contribution to the cause of Hybrid Propulsion in 2010.

Previous winners of the Trophy include the French-manufactured Lagoon 420 Hybrid sailing catamaran and Coniston Launches from the UK and the Mansura Medal was awarded in 2008 to the British Electric Boat Association. Mansura Trophy website