Bruce Roberts 34 for sale in Swansea United Kingdom

Remarks :

This is a unique opportunity to own a FULLY ELECTRIC Bruce Roberts 34. Converted to run from a Mars Electric 5kw motor the owner reports that it will offer up to 9 miles of range.  

Originally built in 1983 as a Bruce Roberts 34 'Athene' is a round bilge GRP built boat and is in good condition with regular maintenance and upgrades undertaken over the last few years.  

Remarks :

This is a unique opportunity to own a FULLY ELECTRIC Bruce Roberts 34. Converted to run from a Mars Electric 5kw motor the owner reports that it will offer up to 9 miles of range.  

Originally built in 1983 as a Bruce Roberts 34 'Athene' is a round bilge GRP built boat and is in good condition with regular maintenance and upgrades undertaken over the last few years.  

The type is well known for being a go anywhere cruiser with good pedigree in long distance passage making particularly on the transatlantic circuit and having made some well documented trips around the Southern Ocean during the early years of the design.  

Thanks to her electric drive this boat will offer peaceful, low impact, distance cruising for anyone looking to enjoy the tranquillity of sailing exclusively on sun and wind power. 

Antifouled Spring 2021
Anodes 2021 

Accommodation :
Headroom 6’ in galley, saloon and heads. 
Galley

• 2 burner electric induction hob
• Electric oven
• Twin sinks with pressurised water and hand pump, plus separate filtered water tap
• Insulated icebox
• Note that the oven and hob currently operate only from shore power, however they could easily be run from the batteries by adding a 48V pure-sine inverter

Saloon

• 2 settees
• Clock and barometer
• FM radio with Bluetooth
• Cabin lights

Heads

• Composting head

• 1 full-length berth in saloon, double berth in forecabin, and one quarter berth.

Inventory :
Misc

• Stern arch with 2x 400W bifacial solar panels
• MPPT solar charge controller
• Battery monitor
• 48V to 12V DC/DC converter 240W
• All nav lights replaced with LEDs in 2020/21
• Tiller steering
• Cockpit displays for navigation instruments

 

Inventory Navigation

• Simrad fixed VHF radio with DSC
• Furuno GPS
• Compass
• Depth sounder
• Raymarine autopilot
• Wind instrument
• Chart table

 

On-deck

• 16kg CQR anchor with 45m of rode (30m chain, 15m warp). 12kg CQR and Danforth (weight unknown) in locker
• Fenders and warps
• Swim ladder
• Self-draining cockpit

 

Safety equipment

• Fire extinguishers and fire blanket, automatic extinguisher in motor bay
• Horseshoe lifebuoy
• Danbuoy (not currently installed)
• Bilge pumps (1 manual and 1 electric, plus portable pumps)
• Foghorn
• Jackstays
• Radar reflector

Mechanical :
Mechanical and Rigging Hull

• GRP hull and deck
• Antifouled in spring 2021, anode and cutless bearing replaced at the same time
• Through-hulls for engine inlet/exhaust/sea toilet removed and patched

 

Motor

• Mars Electric 5kw with Sevcon controller
• Brushless, 24-48V, air-cooled
• Powered by 4x 100Ah AGM batteries (new November 2021) and 800W of solar panels
• Range varies depending on cruising speed. Recommended speed when using the motor is about 3 knots which will give approximately 3 hours of run time (9 miles of range). Power use is exponentially more at higher speeds which means shorter range: at 4 knots the run time is about 1.5 hours (6 miles range) and at 5 knots it’s only about 40 minutes (3 miles range). It’s interesting to note that if you’re not in a rush, on a sunny day the motor can push along at about 1.5 knots from the solar panels alone without draining the batteries at all.
• The solar panels will recharge the batteries while sailing, providing extra range. Will recharge from flat (80% discharged) to full in about 6-8 hours on a sunny day.
• There’s plenty of room to add more batteries if desired, increasing the motor range.

 

Sails & Rigging

• Masthead sloop
• Keel-stepped aluminium mast
• Stainless steel standing rigging
• Slab-reefing mainsail with cover
• Roller-furling genoa (sail is in good shape but UV cover has a tear and could use replacing. The UV cover is white, so it doesn’t look like it’s there but it is)
• Asymmetric spinnaker + aluminium spinnaker pole
• 3 out of 4 halyards replaced in spring 2021
• 2 self-tailing winches and 2 regular
• Spray hood - windows replaced in 2020