Chandler Kemp, owner of Kempy Energetics of Dillingham, Alaska, has been experimenting with hybrid electric boats – primarily salmon trollers in Southeast Alaska – for several years. With grants from various sources, he worked with the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA), hybrid gear manufacturer Transfluid, and others. Kempy, formerly of Sitka, is now located in Dillingham, Alaska.
“We worked on the hybrid propulsion,” says Kemp. “But we also started looking for ways to save energy on board and started talking about how we could use electric power for the gurdies.”
Most salmon trollers use two or three hydraulic gurdies, small winches, on each side of the boat for reeling in fish. With the number of options growing for electronic deck gear, it’s surprising that just one company, EZ Puller, appears to be making electronic salmon gurdies. EZ Puller markets 12-volt electric salmon downriggers with high amp 12v up/off/down switch assembly.
“We wanted more power than that,” says Kemp. “And we wanted variable speed control rather than the on/off switch.”
Working with ALFA, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory through the Energy Transitions Initiative Project Partnership, Kemp and Kent Barkhau designed and built a prototype electric salmon gurdy for Barkhau’s troller, the Woodstock, which he operates with his wife Linda Behnken, ALFA’s executive director.
“The Woodstock has a positive displacement hydraulic pump that’s always pumping when it’s clutched in whether the gurdies are turning or not. So going electric would save energy,” says Kemp. “We took off the hydraulic motor and found a 48-volt motor and gearbox and used a DC-to-DC converter to bring the voltage up from 12 volts. We coupled that to an electric dynamic speed control so you could set the hauling speed just right and take the gear on and off the line without stopping it.”
read more at nationalfisherman.com.
