The Icon is BMW and Tyde GmbH’s first foray into the world of electric hydrofoil yachts. The Icon flies above the brine on three hydrofoils. These lift-generating appendages work in concert with the vessel’s twin rudders to balance gravity and centrifugal force while executing turns to yield what Tyde terms “coordinated curve control.”

Christoph Ballin, Tyde’s co-founder and managing director, says the toughest challenge his company faced when creating The Icon involved assembling the right team. While BMW initiated the project’s development and build, and is responsible for the yacht’s luxe interior and exterior design, Tyde’s crux involved bringing cutting-edge marine expertise—including forward-leaning companies and individuals with deep experience with hydrofoils and flight-control systems—to the design table. The magnet? “The concept was convincing,” Ballin says.

Flight control is handled by a centralized foil-control system that Tyde developed with Oceanflight Technologies. The system’s algorithm crunches incoming data from the vessel’s sensors 100 times per second, and it leverages custom-built actuators to articulate the vessel’s hydrofoils.

Power Play

The Icon is powered by dual Torqeedo Deep Blue electric motors that each spin a dedicated contra-rotating propeller. Hull and hydrofoil design was tackled by America’s Cup-winning naval architect Guillaume Verdier; as such, The Icon’s hull contributes to smooth takeoffs and landings. The Icon achieves a (ballpark) 50-nautical-mile range at its 24-knot cruising speed. Top speed is 30 knots. 

Take the next step: tyde.one

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Engineering efforts to electrify boat-propulsion systems took a sizable step in late November when ePropulsion announced an X Series of outboard engines.

The X Series includes the X12, X20 and X40, all of which are part of what company CEO Danny Tao calls “an intelligent and integrated platform” that boaters and boatbuilders can use to achieve a quieter, cleaner boating experience.

This series of engines is far from the first one that ePropulsion has produced since the company was founded in 2012. Its product range includes inboard and outboard electric motors, along with a pod-drive motor and a motor for standup paddleboards.

But the X Series is the most powerful version of an electric outboard that ePropulsion has produced to date, with its Spirit and Navy Evo models maxing out at 6 kW (equivalent to about 8 horsepower). Tom Watson, president of ePropulsion USA, said the X Series provides “incredible power.” The motors have a reported total powertrain efficiency of 88.2%. The X12 has 12-kW power, while the X20 generates 20 kW of power and the X40 delivers 40 kW of power (equivalent to almost 54 horsepower).

The research and development team at ePropulsion created an algorithm for X Series propellers, using more than 20 metrics to optimize hydrodynamic performance. The X Series also has frequency resonance isolation and vibration dampening technology, which should mean less vibration than aboard boats with comparable, traditional outboard engines.

According to ePropulsion, the X Series models also can weigh 36 percent less than traditional motors. The design places electric steering, power trim/tilt, an electric control unit and the controller within a single assembly, simplifying installation and minimizing intrusions into onboard space.

Also part of the X Series is ePropulsion’s Smart System Architecture, or eSSA. It is designed to allow for simple system configuration while supporting the integration of renewable energy systems.

And, speaking of evolving technology, the X Series has a digital helm and smart throttles that provide instantaneous feedback. The team at ePropulsion says this setup “opens the door to advanced driving assistance systems that improve safety and redefine aquatic navigation.” Features include position hold, heading hold and 360 motions to make maneuvering easier for skippers at the helm.

The ePropulsion Connectivity Service lets boaters access real-time boat and system status with monitoring, reporting and tracking.

How long will the X40 hold up? It’s built to the IP67 waterproof standard with projections of a 5,000-hour minimum service life, according to ePropulsion.

Take the next step: head over to epropulsion.com

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At the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show in October, ePropulsion premiered its X40 Electric Outboard.

ePropulsion says the X40 weighs 20 percent less than traditional motors while generating 40 kW of power, with 88.2 percent total powertrain efficiency. The design integrates electric steering, power trim and tilt, an electric control unit and a motor controller into a single unit.

The X40’s electric steering system eliminates the need for hydraulic components, and its built-in Connectivity Service offers real-time status, advanced monitoring, and reporting- and trip-tracking. Frequency resonance isolation and vibration-dampening technology are also part of the X40, for what ePropulsion says is less vibration than comparable outboards.

“We are always looking to innovate, not just to match what is available for standard internal combustion outboards but to move beyond their capabilities and provide real, enhanced performance while also providing a quiet, clean and powerful alternative for propulsion,” Danny Tao, CEO and co-founder of ePropulsion, stated in a press release.

How is the X40 built for the marine environment? It is reportedly IP67 waterproof with a minimum service life of 5,000 hours.

Take the next step: Go to epropulsion.com

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John Vo knows nil about boats. He says it’s ideal for an e-boat builder. “People ask us what experience we have, and I say, ‘Zip. Nothing. Zero,’” says Vo, whose team at Blue Innovations Group is preparing to launch its first electric boat, the R30, this autumn. “But you can’t use the same people from the same industry to revolutionize themselves.”

Vo, the former head of manufacturing for Tesla, is just one among many minds trying to bring electric-powered boats into widespread production. So many longtime boatbuilders are transitioning from internal-combustion to electric power, and so many other builders are popping up anew, that the president of the American Boat and Yacht Council says his agency’s safety experts are being “bombarded” with requests about technology that’s changing by the day. E-boat prototypes and launches are coming from long-standing marine brands such as Chris-Craft (the Launch 25 GTe) and Four Winns (the H2e) at the same time that newer brands are promising everything from an electric dayboat (the Blue Innovations R30) to a catamaran with world-cruising capability, but without generators or fuel tanks (the Zen50).

And as the boats get bigger than about 30 feet length overall, trying to understand all the different ways they can work becomes even more of a challenge.

“I expect, in the nautical industry, we will have full-electric propulsion, but we can expect hybrid energy,” says Michael Jost, founder of eD-TEC, an electric-propulsion system that will be on the Silent Speed 28 tender at the Cannes Yachting Festival this autumn. “There will be smaller boats that can run fully electric, and the bigger boats will have fully electric propulsion but hybrid energy.”

Before joining the marine community, Jost was a manager at Volkswagen, helping to lead its transition to electric power in vehicles. He says the recreational marine industry today is where automotive was decades ago: filled with ideas and trying to learn what the broader marketplace solutions will be. The difference between automotive and marine, he says, is that with marine, you can go from displacement to gliding to foiling.

That’s right: Foiling technology that lifts boats off the water’s surface is also part of e-boat thinking today—so are wing sails, which most boaters recognize as part of the high-tech builds used for America’s Cup racing. And, of course, there’s ever more ways to install solar power, which can help recharge the banks of batteries that make electric boats go.

Every possible idea is on the table, Jost says, because the way cruising boats have always been built just isn’t efficient enough for the switch to e-power, which includes heavy batteries that weigh boats down. “The boats of today are not true,” Jost says. “If you have a bad boat, you don’t see it. You put more power, more gasoline inside, and then you are happy. But if you go electric, you are not happy because you don’t get the range. The boat has to be much more efficient than an internal-combustion boat—and the boat business does not want to change the hull. That’s why we are looking to support builders working with the hydrodynamic foils.”

Vo says his team at Blue Innovations Group is also trying to think differently about boat design: Forget about the hulls that traditional molds were built to create, and wonder instead about what might be possible from scratch. “In the old days, anybody who came to Tesla with a long automotive resume, we threw it in the trash,” Vo says. “Otherwise, you’ve got these people with a lot of experience, and they can overwhelm you. Instead of building your vision, they will try to assimilate you, and you revolutionize nothing. You just add another mediocre company. It’s difficult but necessary for us not to hire anybody with boat experience until we reach a critical mass and launch the product. At that point, we’d be stupid not to incorporate their experience into our process.”

Then again, brands with marine experience are also trying to lead. At Mercury Marine, vice president of e-solutions Perissa Bailey—who previously was director of technology at Ford Motor Co.—says it’s understood that electric boats are still in the phase of early adopters, with companies trying to figure out exactly what consumers want. One thing they know for sure at Mercury Marine, she says: “They don’t want to compromise the time they spend on the water. In the early electrification days in automotive, there were a lot of questions about range anxiety. It forced consumers to think about how many miles they drive a day and what’s the cost of ownership for an electric vehicle for that many miles. We’re going through that same learning curve in marine. Customers are saying, ‘If my leisure boating activity typically consists of this many hours on the water, I don’t want to compromise that just because I go electric. And if there’s a series of activities I do, if I’m [riding on a PWC] or fishing or whatever I do, I don’t want to compromise those either if I go electric. I don’t want to have to adapt my usage pattern to a technology. I want the technology to adapt to that usage pattern.’”

The trick is that the technological solution for a boater who wants to cruise to dinner and back is likely to be far different from the solution for a boater who wants to cruise off the grid for months, says Julien Melot, CEO and designer at Zen Yachts, which is preparing to launch the Zen50 catamaran. It has solar power, along with a wingsail, with the latter adding the long-distance range that previous models lacked. “The last boat was great for coastal cruising, but I would not have sold it to a family that wants to cross the Pacific. If it gets cloudy or overcast, the laws of physics apply, and you won’t have enough power to escape the storm,” Melot says. “On the Zen50, with the addition of the wingsail, that problem is solved.”

As with some of the other brands in the e-boat space, Zen Yachts is seeing early adopters who don’t necessarily fit the profile of traditional boaters. “Our client base is not experienced sailors,” he says. “They are more attracted by the fact that you are self-reliant. If the world collapses one more time, they know they can take their boat out, and they’ll be fine.”

And some leaders in this space are already thinking past the boats. They’re focusing instead on where boaters will want to go, as more styles of e-boats take to the water. Silent-Resorts, which is affiliated with the catamaran builder Silent-Yachts, is now creating destinations to harness electric power and make recharging easy for all types of boats, no matter what comes next. The first location, in the Bahamas, is scheduled to finish construction later this year, with build-out starting on the second location, in Fiji, around that same time. “We’re talking with all the builders,” says Victor Barrett, CEO of Silent-Resorts. “We’re setting up in areas where cruising is popular, and we’re setting up the micro grid that connects the marinas, facilities and residences. If you have a house that’s not occupied, all that power is going into the central grid so the boats can plug in, charge fast and go. The boats can feed power into the island as well. We’ll be the first company in multiple locations to have Silent-Marinas ready to accept electric boats.”

All these advancements, of course, are far from inexpensive. The cost of a Blue Innovations Group R30 is about $300,000. The Silent Speed 28, Jost says, is likely to retail for about 500,000 euros (that was about $550,000 at press time). “The batteries are expensive,” Jost says. “You need new software. You have to develop it. And you have to make it lightweight. It might take about five years for the price to come down.” Until then, expect to pay as much as $440,000 to $660,000 for e-boats up to about 30 feet length overall, he adds. “It’s double what you pay for an outboard system, but the scale of combustion comes from the automotive industry, so if that industry loses scale by going electric, you will also lose that scale for the nautical industry on combustion.”

And the people buying e-boats right now often care more about innovation than prices. Melot says four Zen50 catamarans have been sold. The first and third are going to the East and West coasts in the United States; the other two are headed to Europe. Three of the four clients are Tesla shareholders. “Typically, the clients already have an electric car, they already have solar panels on their home, and the next thing they can buy is an electric boat,” he says, adding that for these folks, electric power is the top consideration. “They don’t want to hear about a yacht that has diesel on board.”

Deep Blue

Torqeedo’s Deep Blue 100i 2500 is an inboard system that provides 100 kW of continuous power for planing powerboats. It’s made with the same type of lithium batteries that are now found in some cars, but with components that are waterproof and that come with monitoring to guard against short circuits. The company offers a nine-year warranty for boats in private use, with the hope that the long guarantee will help customers feel secure about the type of power. Torqeedo also markets Deep Blue as low-maintenance and emission-free.

Taking Orders Now

Blue Innovations Group is taking reservations for the R30, which is expected to cost about $300,000. Customers who put down $5,000 can get one of the first 100 hulls. For $1,000, customers can be next in line after that. As of this writing, more than 50 reservations were in hand.

For Day Cruising

While some e-boat builders are trying to solve design challenges for long-distance cruising, Blue Innovations Group is starting with a dayboat. The 30-foot R30 will have the capacity to carry 12 people with an estimated run time of eight hours and a top hop of 39 knots.

Even Stronger

Swedish e-boat builder X Shore recently announced a partnership with the German company Bosch Engineering to improve the performance and efficiency on the drive system aboard the 21-foot X Shore 1. Bosch’s background is in passenger cars, commercial vehicles, RVs, rail, ships and other industries. This partnership marks Bosch’s first foray into the world of e-boats for leisure use. The goal of the partnership is to share series production experience as well as proven high-performance components from the automotive world.

Floating Solar Concept

The team working on creating Silent-Resorts is talking with government officials in Fiji about deploying a floating ring that collects rainwater and generates solar power as an eco-friendly way to address two of the biggest challenges that hamper island development. Eventually, a similar system may also launch in the Bahamas.

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Aqua superPower is the first company to supply AC and DC charging stations for electric yachts to select marinas at no cost. Aqua superPower manages the grid connection and the installation process, and then the company owns, operates and maintains the stations, as well as the back-end network, mostly via the cloud. Each charging station is connected to Aqua superPower’s office, and customers pay Aqua superPower directly for usage. Aqua superPower seeks installation sites that are popular with commercial or recreational marine traffic, and geographic areas with higher rates of adoption of electric-powered vessels.

Safety is always paramount when dealing with high-voltage electricity. “We explored various charging protocols and adopted the universal electric-vehicle Combined Charging System, which uses connectors to provide power up to 350 kilowatts,” says Alex Bamberg, CEO of Aqua superPower. “This plug is particularly suited for marine applications, as it doesn’t go live until it has made an electronic handshake with the battery. If it’s dropped into water prior to connection with the boat, it’s not live.”

Aqua superPower’s app can help customers find charging stations, check availability, provide real-time charging management and tackle billing. As of now, most charging stations are in the United Kingdom or other areas of Europe; however, Aqua superPower is making US inroads.

Supercharged

Aqua superPower’s charging stations deliver AC power (up to 22 kilowatts) and DC power (up to 350 kW; their typical output is 150 kW). While recharging 80 percent of a typical electric boat’s battery takes eight to 10 hours on the AC charger, the amount of time needed reportedly can be reduced to 20 to 60 minutes using the DC supercharger. Aqua superPower station equipment is IP65-rated.

Take the next step: aqua-superpower.com

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Sunreef Yachts is preparing for the debut of the 80 Sunreef Power Eco at the upcoming Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show.

The yacht, christened Sól, is built with what Sunreef says is “the industry’s biggest battery bank in the category of leisure crafts up to 24 meters.” That battery bank, in conjunction with solar panels that are built into the yacht itself (including on the hullsides), reportedly gives the 80 Sunreef Power Eco the ability to cruise for close to 300 nautical miles.

Sunreef will be displaying the 80 Sunreef Power Eco alongside the Sunreef 80, which is a sailing version of the catamaran that the yard says is one of its best-selling models.

Will the 80 Sunreef Power Eco Sól be available for charter? Yes. It’s part of the Regency fleet and will be heading to the Virgin Islands for the upcoming winter charter season, after the boat show in Fort Lauderdale.

Take the next step: Visit the Sunreef Yachts website at sunreef-yachts.com

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Feature-packed e-bikes have been around for several decades. The designs keep evolving, along with battery technology, control algorithms and construction materials, all of which help the e-bikes go faster, better, longer. Today, boaters who want to carry e-bikes on board are benefiting from advancements intended to make the cycles powerful enough to replace cars in urban areas.

That’s the goal of the company Fuell, which says it has developed the longest-range e-bike in the world. The aluminum alloy Fuell models called Flluid 2 ($5,995) and Flluid 3 ($5,495) have reported ranges from 110 to 225 miles at speeds as fast as 28 mph.

“We used the knowledge gained from our initial foray into the electric bike market with Flluid 1 to develop a superior urban-transportation solution, making sure that Flluid 2 and 3 are true and viable alternatives to cars,” said Erik Buell, Fuell’s chief technology officer.

Buell is best known as a motorbike racer who founded Buell Motorcycle Co., which later merged with Harley-Davidson. In 2019, Buell partnered with French financiers to create Fuell, focusing on e-bikes. The pandemic slowed production, but more models are now rolling out, following a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. As of early June, it had raised more than $1.1 million.

What sets these new models apart from the initial Flluid e-bike design, according to the company, is not just range (which is achieved with two removable battery packs) but also a Valeo Cyclee Mid-Drive Unit with automatic and predictive gear shifting. This system adjusts the flow of power to the bike, including on uphill climbs where other e-bikes can have trouble with the incline. Riders on Fuell e-bikes can still shift gears manually, but the technology is designed to smooth out the power use.

The tech on the new Fuell models also includes features that boaters use regularly to prevent onboard theft, such as geolocating, remote locking and an alarm. All of those features can be accessed through the e-bike’s app, which also keeps track of usage statistics and other rider information.

The post Fuell’s E-Bike Goes the Distance appeared first on Yachting.

Mercury Marine, a division of Brunswick, has introduced the Avator 20e and 35e electric propulsion systems. The new models join the lineup next to the Avator 7.5e outboard, which was unveiled in January.

The company says it expects to debut two more electric-outboard products in the coming months, as well.

Mercury Marine says the Avator 20e and 35e have many of the same features as the 7.5e, including transverse flux motor technology, a full-color intuitive display and an ambidextrous tiller handle. The new models offer more power and the ability to connect multiple Avator batteries to extend range and run time, plus full access to the Mercury Marine app with the integrated SmartCraft Connect module.

The Avator 20e and 35e outboards generate 2200W and 3700W of power, respectively, at the propeller shaft. The 20e can produce acceleration that’s similar to a 5 hp FourStroke outboard, while the 35e generates acceleration that is comparable to a Mercury 9.9 hp FourStroke outboard.

These engines are intended for small vessels such as tenders, and are offered with tiller or remote steering.

Are the Avator 20e and 35e outboards available for purchase now? Yes, they went on the market in late August.

Take the next step: Go to mercurymarine.com/avator

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Mercury is the first major manufacturer of marine internal-combustion engines to offer an electric outboard option. The Avator 7.5e delivers comparable performance metrics to Mercury’s time-tested 3.5 hp four-stroke gasoline engine, minus the locally emitted carbon dioxide. The Avator 7.5e is also the only outboard currently on the market with a transverse flux motor, a design that Andrew Przybyl, Mercury’s technical manager and engineer for the Avator line, says has high-torque-density characteristics. The Avator 7.5e comes with a 1 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery that nests inside the outboard’s flip-top cowl, and a color display with GPS that gives operators a wealth of real-time range information.

“One of the biggest challenges we had was setting up the overall architecture of the outboard,” Przybyl says. The solution involved auditioning different concepts and designs, and then choosing the right supporting technologies, including batteries, motor types and overall configurations. “In electrification, overall system efficiency is the name of the game,” he says. “The other aspect was sustainability. This outboard is highly recyclable.” Creating a recyclable design, Przybyl says, involved using componentry from nontraditional materials. “Sustainability is an important part of our culture,” Przybyl says.

While the Avator 7.5e is intended for use aboard smaller boats, Mercury plans to release the bigger Avator 20e and 35e outboards later this year. All three of these electric motors will employ similar architecture, displays and companion apps.

Charge and Go

The Mercury Marine Avator 7.5e can run for 60 minutes at full throttle off a charged-up 1 kilowatt-hour battery, or for as long as 2.8 hours at 75  percent throttle (or 6.2 hours at 50 percent throttle, or 19.4 hours at 25 percent throttle). Users can also change out batteries in seconds.

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Sunreef Yachts says its research-and-development department is working on a Zero Cat: a sustainable sailing yacht that can convert methanol to hydrogen, combining with electric propulsion to create zero emissions and what the builder promises will be “unlimited autonomy.”

The Zero Cat will “measure above 90 feet,” according to Sunreef. It will also have a solar-power system with solar cells built into the body of the yacht.

Sunreef says the fuel-cell and solar-cell systems will provide energy for propulsion as well as hotel loads.

“Our goal is to revolutionize the industry by offering discerning customers an exceptional zero-emission sailing experience,” Nicolas Lapp, chief technology officer and co-founder of Sunreef, stated in a press release. “This project represents a milestone in our ongoing commitment to protecting our oceans and preserving the natural beauty of the sea.”

What else is new at Sunreef? In the past year, the builder also unveiled the Ultima, a range of hybrid power catamarans. The first models are the 45 Ultima and 55 Ultima.

Where to learn more: visit sunreef-yachts.com

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