While the much lower fuel cost has to be a bit of a shocker (we all know EVs are more efficient and cheaper to operate, but not 95% cheaper), the bigger surprise has to be how much more convenient the electric boat was in a certain key way. “We actually had range anxiety, but not for the Candela. The irony is that the photographer’s gasoline-powered chase boat had to refuel six times during the trip, while we only charged three times,” said Gustav Hasselskog.
Big part of this would be that its a foiling boat and that massively reduces drag from the water. Keeping weight and drag down are the secret to improving efficiency for EVs be they boats or cars. Any decent marina its easy to get multiple 22kw shore supply as well, it can be expensive and metered but you aren’t going to be waiting that long to recharge your boat.
Electric makes the most sense on sail boats as they already have a green source of energy, and thanks to hydro they can convert some of that motion generated by the wind into charge for the batteries. Couple with solar and you start to look at a decent amount of energy generation.
Sail boats also tend to have far less powerful ICE than your average motor yacht, so you need less powerful EV motors to achieve the same speed, and in the right conditions you only really need the motor getting in and out of the harbor so your battery bank is smaller and lighter. Plus you could make the batteries do double duty as the house batteries as well.
The trick will be to get the super rich out of their shitty super yachts that burn a couple of thousand dollars of fuel per hour, they could already have sail boats but choose not to for the increased living space that they can get out of the same length of boat due to being able to build much higher due to no masts.
Admittedly it’s WAY easier to operate a motor boat than a sail boat, so depending on how you like to recreationally bleed your unlimited money I can see reasons for that choice.
But I fully agree that we’ve had renewable energy-based ships with unlimited range for millenia. The claim that “The aim was to demonstrate that zero-emission sea travel [is possible today]” broke my brain a little.
Super rich all have crewed boats, so its mostly to do with living space per foot of boat length or them as they just pay their way around the skill issue. Those who do like to occasionally pilot or race their own boat tend to have sailing boats as they are much more rewarding to sail.
The bits that are different between a motor and sail yacht is really just the sails, that part is actually pretty simple to learn (mastering is something else). In mast/boom mains, electric furling head sails, hydraulic or electric winches, all make operating the sails push button.
The navigation and marina skills are the same, if you have bow thrusters. As everything else is at a slower pace, sail boats are easier to get to grips with when under way and new to sailing.
I completely get that not everybody wants to tack their way upwind, but its the pleasure in actually sailing in silence rather than a noisy and smelly motor that is the reward here. That, and the cost saving. I can do two weeks sailing covering hundreds of nautical miles for £50 in fuel for a 40 foot sail boat and that’s with having to run the motor as a generator to charge the batteries (charter boats suck for house electrics and solar), vs. £500 ish for a motor yacht.
The trick will be to get the super rich out of their shitty super yachts
…and into the bottom of the ocean.
The dream
Isn’t this massively misleading? Comparing the fuel consumption to a chase boat that is not a hydrofoil, and blaming the efficiency on the fact that it is an EV?
A sail boat does the same distance for free
Exactly. Hydrofoils have a bunch of downsides (more expensive to buy and maintain, don’t work in shallow water, don’t work with big waves, etc), so it’s not like the average boat owner can simply switch to a hydrofoil boat. It’s a cool solution if it works in your particular area, but they’re not a drop-in replacement.
Finally someone addressing the absurbd cost and emissions of illegally immigrating
Sanest Lemmy user.
Silja Serenade, hell yeah, been on that ship a bunch of times
I like the idea of this match, but I’m cautious about the article. All they say about the gas-powered boat is that it’s a similar size; they don’t mention the actual type of boat the chase boat was, and I didn’t see it in a brief skim of the video. I suspect that a notable percentage of the electric boat’s efficiency is due to its being a hydrofoil. If the gas boat is the standard hull-in-the-water, it would naturally be less efficient.
213kWh feels like quite a lot of juice. Admittedly, I usually don’t go at planing speeds.
I have an 80Ah lead-acid battery to power the electric trolling motor on my inflatable dinghy. That’s 80A*12V = 0.96kWh. That gives me 5-10Nm range depending on speed. My dinghy would sink with 213kWh on board.
My 7 tonne sailboat uses ~2l/h of diesel at twice the speed. 213kWh of lead-acid would double the weight.
I’ve dealt with storing energy from solar for a long time now, and from the deepest part of my heart: fuck lead acid batteries. The only thing they have going for them is being able to charge below freezing. But they’re shit in every other way, especially weight.
They have one other advantage: unit price. But Lithium is rapidly catching up, and is already better if you calculate price per lifetime charge cycle.
Oh, flying ferry is a nick name for hydrofoil, not an actual aircraft.
Removed by mod
What would happen if the boat sank from its weight and you’re in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery is now underwater, and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there?
Imagine tanks full of highly volatile combustible fluids on fire in the middle of the ocean 🫨
That’s why most boat power systems use LiFePo4 (aka LFP) batteries instead of LiCoO2 like you phone battery. LFP is immune to thermal runaway, and can’t burn even if it did overheat.
Something something sharks?
Not mermaids? I feel tricked.
