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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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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The Capoforte SQ240i is a silent, electrically powered dayboat that provides a lot of lounging space and a sizable swim platform. The boat’s plumb bow flares widely as it rises to meet the deck, and these lines carry aft to create additional beam. The center-console’s open layout includes a V-shaped settee that converts to a dining area once the table is slipped into place. There’s walk-around space from the console to the stern, and the boat can accommodate up to 10 people.

Whom It’s For: Boaters who want a silent, DC-powered dayboat that doubles as a swimming, lounging and socializing platform.

Picture This: It’s a perfect day in Miami. You load up your Capoforte SQ240i, silently spin your family over to Nixon Sandbar, and throw the hook for an afternoon of swimming, reading, picnicking and unapologetic sun-worshiping.  

Take the next step: capoforteboats.com

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Silent-Yachts, which is based in Mallorca, Spain, started building its fleet of solar-powered electric catamarans in 2016. The Silent Tender 400 is the company’s first tender, and another, larger version is already on the drawing board. The DNA is obvious: The ST400 employs lightweight carbon fiber and an efficient hull shape to deliver a sporty-looking ride. 

The tender can be ordered with an owner’s choice of an electric outboard or an electric jet drive; customers can also choose a 16-kilowatt-hour lithium battery or upgrade to a 20 kWh battery for longer reach. The boat purportedly allows for two hours of run time at 10 knots, and it can be fast-charged in two and a half hours. 

The 13-foot ST400 accommodates up to six passengers but weighs only 198 pounds, excluding propulsion. The boat is a center-console that borrows aesthetic choices from the company’s 60- and 80-foot catamarans, including angular lines, a distinctive black-and-white finish and stem-to-stern chines. The ST400 also carries a practical yet stylish rubber stripe that helps protect its carbon-fiber topsides from docks, davits and poor docking decisions.

Whom It’s For: Boaters who want a high-tech, lightweight and performance-minded tender that can do 20-plus knots sans a traditional internal-combustion engine.

Picture This: You and your family are cruising Cape Cod, Massachusetts, aboard the solar-powered Silent 60 catamaran. You tuck into Provincetown for the evening. The mooring lines are secured, and you and the troops cruise over to Long Point Light Station in your ST400 before making a harbor tour and then heading to the Lobster Pot for dinner and drinks.  

Take the next step: silent-yachts.com

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Swedish boatbuilder Candela announced in January that it had achieved an expected 65-mile range with its C-8, a nearly 28-foot-long carbon-fiber foiling powerboat that runs on electric power.

The technological advancement in extending the boat’s range—a task that has long bedeviled makers of electric boats worldwide—was achieved in collaboration with the Swedish company Polestar, which is Volvo’s electric-vehicle subsidiary. Candela and Polestar first announced their collaboration this past August. According to Candela, the 65-mile range announced less than six months later makes the C-8 the world’s longest-range electric boat available today.

The Candela C-8 will use the same 69 kWh battery pack and DC charging technology as the Polestar 2, a vehicle that has a reported 300-mile range on the roadways. The boat’s 65-mile range will be achievable on a single charge at a cruising speed of 22 knots.

“This collaboration means that C-8 can travel to destinations previously only reachable by combustion-engine boats,”  Gustav Hasselskog, the CEO and founder of Candela, announced. “The Candela C-8 powered by Polestar marks a significant breakthrough for electrification at sea.”

The boatbuilder says the C-8’s hydrofoil technology is also a key element in the range extension. As shown in the photograph, the C-8 can “fly” above the waves on computer-guided underwater wings that reduce water friction. Candela says the C-8 uses 80 percent less energy than conventional boats at high speed. Its pod motor, the Candela C-POD, outputs 75 kW (the equivalent of 100 hp) for takeoff. Once foil-borne, the C-8 draws around 23 kW (about 30 hp) continuously from its Polestar battery pack. A similar-size conventional powerboat would use around 120 kW (160 hp), according to the Candela team.

Another thing that makes the boat notable, the company says, is the way the collaboration with Polestar enables DC charging on board. The installation of standardized charging stations for electric boats is a chicken-and-egg situation, with many marina owners holding off on adding higher-speed charging stations until more electric boats are on the waterways to use them. “With access to DC fast chargers, which are now starting to pop up in several places around the globe, you can cover totally new routes with Candela C-8,” Hasselskog says. “You can go from Sweden to Finland in one day, or along the entire French Riviera in a few hours.”

The C-8 is not the builder’s first model; the company, founded in 2014, previously launched the C-7 bowrider, without an enclosed cabin. That boat, which was announced in 2019, was suitable for six people. It’s now only available on the brokerage market.

All new-order Candela C-8s going forward will be equipped with the Polestar batteries, the company says. The boat can be ordered in three versions: day cruiser (with an open top), hardtop and T-top. The interior layout is designed for overnights with two adults and two children, with a marine head, dimmable lights and an optional premium sound system.

Deliveries on the boats are expected to take place starting in 2024. According to Candela, the company has already received more than 150 orders for the C-8.  

High Tech Meets Scandinavian Style

The Candela C-8 foiling electric powerboat comes from Sweden. Its interior styling is based on the basics, with a marine head and room for two adults and two children to sleep overnight. The sex appeal of this boat is in its technology, including the foils and the battery-powered propulsion. The foils can be fully retracted out of the water when the boat is at the dock, which should cut down on marine growth that could increase drag and reduce range. Using them is reportedly easy; some reporters with no boating experience say they can have the boat flying within about two minutes.

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Riva’s El-Iseo is based on the company’s Iseo runabout but with an all-electric drivetrain that reportedly allows up to 10 hours of quiet running time in economy mode. Notch things up a few clicks, and the El-Iseo’s Parker Hannifin-built GMV310 electric motor can generate 25-knot cruising speeds and 40-knot top speeds. Run time is provided by the boat’s lithium-ion battery banks, while onboard styling comes courtesy of Riva’s DNA.

Whom It’s For: Boaters who want to cruise stylishly at 25 knots and have the ability to tickle 40 knots without emitting carbon dioxide.

Picture This: It’s a nice spring evening in Annapolis, Maryland, so you and your first mate cruise guilt-free up the Severn River. From your El-Iseo, you take in the sprawling view of the U.S. Naval Academy before running over to Cantler’s Riverside Inn for dinner ashore.  

Take the next step: riva-yacht.com

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French-based builder Fountaine Pajot has teamed up with the charter firm Dream Yacht Worldwide to launch the Aura 51 Smart Electric as the first model in a collection of electric-powered catamarans.

The Aura 51 Smart Electric is a zero-emissions design that stores energy in two lithium battery banks. It will become available for charter in Italy starting in April, with about two dozen electric yachts expected to join the Dream fleet by spring 2024. Ten of them will be sailing catamarans, and a dozen will be monohull sailing yachts from Dufour, which is part of the Fountaine Pajot Group.

“By partnering and supporting the research and development of electric yachts, we can continue to make sailing accessible to people around the world but with a lower impact on our seas and environment,” Loïc Bonnet, CEO and founder of Dream Yacht Group, stated in a press release. “Being environmentally conscious is central to our mission to protect our planet and oceans, and we are confident that our charter clients will support this endeavor.”

How big of an eco-difference can these types of boats make? Fountaine Pajot says only 20 percent of the carbon footprint comes from producing the boats. Some 80 percent comes from the use of the boats.

Where to learn more: go to fountaine-pajot.com or dreamyachtcharter.com

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The X Shore 1 is being called the first affordable, performance-minded electric runabout. The 21-footer reportedly has 20-knot cruising speeds and a maximum speed of 30 knots, with a price starting at $139,000 (excluding VAT and other fees). The boat is built with epoxy-prepreg fiberglass and carbon fiber using a female mold, and X Shore is assessing bio-based resins to further lower the boat’s environmental impact.

“Some of the challenges faced were maintaining performance with just one battery, designing a hull that’s efficient and light, and bringing more of the production in-house,” says Jenny Keisu, X Shore’s CEO. She says X Shore overcame these headwinds by using batteries that deliver 3,000 charging cycles, leveraging lightweight construction materials and building a new factory in Nyköping, Sweden. Once online, this new facility could initially produce 400-plus boats per year, a construction rate that would produce further economies of scale.

Under the Hood

The X Shore 1 is powered by a 125 kW electric motor and a 63 kWh lithium-ion battery. The latter can be fast-charged to 80 percent capacity in 50 minutes, or it can be standard-charged (via a three-phase socket) in three hours. At lower speeds, a charge can yield 50 nautical miles of range. Boaters can access vessel information and control onboard systems from a networked multifunction display or from X Shore’s app. While both work for checking the boat’s remaining charge, the app is key for setting and controlling geofences and issuing other high-level commands. 

Take the next step: xshore.com

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