Hybrid sets sail on San Francisco Bay

The Hornblower Hybrid travels on San Francisco Bay.

Using wind power to sail the seas is certainly nothing new, but a San Francisco-based cruise company is using turbines, not sails, to help propel one of its vessels.

Alcatraz Cruises, in spring 2009, began ferrying passengers around San Francisco Bay on a hybrid boat that runs on wind, solar and diesel engine-generated power.

The 150-passenger boat, called the Hornblower Hybrid, includes two 1.2 kilowatt (kw) wind turbines, a 1.2 kw solar photovoltaic array and two diesel-powered generators. Power from the wind and solar systems are stored in batteries to run the ship’s electrical and navigation equipment and to help propel the vessel.

One advantage of the hybrid system is that it allows the diesel engine to be shut off when the boat is docked. “A lot of passenger vessels spend upward of 60 percent of their time at the dock, burning fuel,” company engineer Keir Moorhead says, which gives the hybrid technology “potential for drastic impacts.”

Moorhead estimates the hybrid boat uses about six gallons of diesel fuel per hour, compared to about 30 gallons per hour by a conventional boat.

Alcatraz Cuises is affiliated with Hornblower Cruises, which runs day cruises from several California locations, as well to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in New York City. Most of the boat’s design was done in-house by Hornblower, which retrofitted the 64-foot vessel at a cost of about $3 million after the company contracted with the National Park Service to provide transport to passengers headed to Alcatraz and Angel Island. As part of the contract, the company plans to build another hybrid expected to carry 600 passengers in the next two years. Hornblower is also working on a zero-emission hydrogen-powered boat to take passengers to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, company spokeswoman Tegan Firth says.