Ferrari has long ruled the racetrack, but now the Italian marque is setting its sights on a very different arena: the open ocean. In a shift from asphalt to swell, Ferrari has unveiled its first sailing yacht project—a 100-foot foiling monohull called Hypersail. And unlike the sleek machines that made the company famous, this one flies across the water with zero emissions.

Currently under development in Italy, Hypersail is the result of a collaboration between Ferrari and veteran ocean racer Giovanni Soldini, who leads the effort as team principal. Soldini, best known for his offshore racing achievements, brings the kind of real-world experience needed to translate new ideas into seaworthy reality.

But the boat’s ambitions go beyond competition. Designed to operate entirely without fossil fuels, Hypersail harnesses a mix of wind, solar, and kinetic energy to power all onboard systems. That includes the advanced foil actuators and navigation electronics, systems typically reliant on generators. The yacht’s trimaran-style flight dynamics—relying on a canting keel foil, rudder foil, and a lateral foil depending on tack—allow it to lift out of the water and reduce drag to a bare minimum. When fully airborne, it’s not so much sailing as soaring.

The project brings together top-tier design and engineering talent. Naval architect Guillaume Verdier, whose resume includes America’s Cup and Vendée Globe boats, drew up the radical hull form and foil layout. His mandate: build a boat that can achieve speed with maximum efficiency and stability, without a drop of fuel. The engineering challenge is immense, and Ferrari has filed at least nine patents so far in connection with the vessel’s systems and structure.

Though Hypersail won’t compete in traditional sailing events like the America’s Cup due to its custom configuration, the design is being treated as a technological test bed. Like Ferrari’s endurance hypercars at Le Mans, the boat exists to push limits—structural, aerodynamic, and ecological.

Still in construction, the yacht is scheduled to launch in 2026. Sea trials will follow, with a tight-knit core of 8 to 12 sailors backed by a larger support team. Despite the extreme engineering and futuristic concept, the guiding principle remains old-school: make a boat that goes fast, handles well and doesn’t break offshore.

For a company built on horsepower, wind power might seem an unlikely new frontier. But if the oceans are the next great proving ground, Hypersail is Ferrari’s boldest attempt yet to shape the future of motion.

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SeaNXT’s Elite is the world’s first carbon-fiber underwater scooter. Elite scooters ($13,000) come in black, blue, green, gold or red, and are driven by twin 4.4-kilowatt electric motors with enclosed propellers. The motors offer four operating modes—Shark, Sport, Cruise and Eco—that deliver top speeds of 11.3 knots. Depending on the mode, the 24-amp-hour lithium-ion battery yields run times of 27 minutes to two-plus hours. The scooters have a 5.5-inch LCD screen for offline navigation and LED bow lights; they also have 6.6 pounds of positive buoyancy, and the modular design allows them to be serviced out in the field.

The biggest challenges faced when creating the Elite scooters were finding the balance among weight, speed and autonomy, as well as blending in technology. The solution required repeated sea trials to ensure that the scooters performed up to expectations.

The Specs

SeaNXT Elite scooters weigh about 50 pounds and can operate at depths down to 130 feet. Elite scooters ship with a 10-amp charger, which has a recharge time of about two hours. However, users can add SeaNXT’s Elite Variable Charger ($845), which has an adjustable output of 1 to 15 amps. For safety, the scooters come with fireproof aluminum cases.

Take the next step: sea-nxt.com

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There’s an African proverb that says, “Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.” It’s often the difficult experiences at sea which offer the most valuable lessons, especially when the weather takes a turn for the nautical.

Maritime safety hinges on continuous advancements, particularly as vessels operate in increasingly busy waters and in unpredictable weather conditions. Sea.AI, an innovator in AI for maritime vision, is enhancing its capabilities by integrating Tocaro Blue’s radar perception software, ProteusCore, into its navigation platform.

Integrating ProteusCore with Sea.AI’s system marks a major step in maritime safety technology, introducing a comprehensive multi-sensor approach to navigation. This process merges ProteusCore’s radar capabilities with Sea.AI’s platform, enabling the visualization of filtered radar targets within the Sea.AI interface.

This integration merges data from optical, thermal, AIS, and radar systems into one interface, simplifying operator decision-making and improving detection accuracy. It enhances the differentiation between true targets and noise, boosting situational awareness and reducing false alarms that could disrupt operations.

By combining radar with visual technologies, this collaboration sets new safety benchmarks for various maritime applications. The integrated radar perception technology is applicable across diverse maritime environments.

Since 2018, Sea.AI has led maritime technology innovation with onboard safety systems utilizing machine vision. These systems enhance operators’ ability to navigate by relying on a vast database of annotated marine objects for precise recognition. Using advanced camera technology and AI, it detects and classifies objects that conventional systems like radar or AIS might miss.

ProteusCore transforms marine radar into a sophisticated perception tool by leveraging machine learning. It addresses the limitations of traditional radar technology, such as slow scanning speeds and excess noise, by using over two million labeled radar images for training.

Radar is excellent at detecting objects at great distances and in challenging conditions, but it has not been extensively used for advanced navigation assistance due to its inherent limitations. ProteusCore overcomes these with machine learning models that enhance detection, eliminate noise, and track objects precisely.

Marcus Warellmann, Sea.AI’s CEO, states, “Merging radar with optical and thermal vision enables us to deliver an AI-enhanced safety system, transforming instruments into intelligent tools.” John Minor, CEO of Tocaro Blue, adds, “This collaboration brings powerful sensor fusion to enhance maritime situational awareness, supporting Sea.AI’s mission of sea safety.”

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Volvo Penta’s hybrid-electric package is a drive system that spans from helm to propeller, harnessing multiple inline diesel engines and electric motors plus battery banks to transition between three propulsion modes: electric, hybrid and hybrid boost. The system is designed for 56- to 98-foot yachts. It can be spec’d to spin contra-rotating propellers of two, three or four IPS drives. In crossover mode, one engine propels two drives. The system is expected to be available in late 2025.

“Each step of the [development] process presents unique challenges, from optimizing performance and efficiency to ensuring reliability and safety in diverse marine environments,” says Johan Inden, president of marine business, about the challenges Volvo Penta faced when designing this system. The solution, he says, “involves rigorous testing across various phases to ensure the product meets the highest standards.”  

Mission Control

Yacht owners access the helm-to-propeller hybrid-electric package via Volvo Penta’s electronic vessel control system, which runs on a Volvo Penta Glass Cockpit multifunction display. Skippers can enable assisted docking, joystick docking, joystick driving, low-speed operations and the Dynamic Positioning System while operating in electric or hybrid modes. 

Take the next step: volvopenta.com

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Timezero and Sea.AI have partnered to integrate data from Sea.AI with Timezero’s navigational software. The result for boaters is a boost to situational awareness on the waterways.

This partnership allows mariners who cruise with Timezero software and a Sea.AI Sentry system to display Sea.AI data and alarms atop TZ Professional’s cartography.

The Sentry system uses a combination of daylight and thermal-imaging cameras along with AI to detect, identify and track floating objects. TZ Professional software combines Sea.AI’s target information with radar and automatic identification system data.

While this integration can help to keep mariners safer, it required aligning Sea.AI and Timezero’s data formats. “We tested a specific workspace within a newly developed HTML environment tailored for third-party applications to seamlessly incorporate the full Sea.AI app,” says Frederic Algalarrondo, Timezero’s sales and marketing director. “We also revamped the interface with new icons and visual cues to ensure users could easily distinguish Sea.AI targets from radar and AIS targets. These efforts were crucial in delivering a user-friendly experience.”  

Going Pro

TZ Professional gives access to Sea.AI’s features, settings and alarm controls. When users click on a target, a text box shows classification information. Timezero presents Sea.AI’s live daylight and thermal-imaging camera feeds of the target next to a chart-plotter screen. Symbols show if a target has been detected by AIS (empty triangle), radar (empty green circle) or the Sea.AI system (solid green triangle). 

Take the next step: mytimezero.com

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Use the right acoustics, and familiar waters reveal their secrets. Just ask Dave DeVos, who’s been fishing the same waters off Port Canaveral, Florida, for years aboard his Contender 28. DeVos thought he knew all the honey holes separating his marina from the offshore depths; after all, he’s long run similar tracks with chirp on his traditional sonar.

DeVos works as Garmin’s senior manager for marine sales and support. That’s why he got to test one of Garmin’s first Panoptix PS70 transducers—and that’s when his game changed.

“The PS70’s got such a wide sonar cone, I saw a half-dozen spots I didn’t know existed,” he says.

His reward? Big catch-and-release red snapper and newfound local knowledge.

The PS70 isn’t Garmin’s first foray into live sonar, but the Olathe, Kansas-based company’s newest transducer is smaller than its predecessors, and it sends far more power and more-frequent transmissions through the water. The result is video-style onscreen presentations across four operating modes.

The PS70 is a multibeam phased-array sonar transducer broadcasting on the 190-to-210-kilohertz frequencies and transmitting at 800 watts. It has a 120-degree (port to starboard) by 8-degree (bow to stern) sonar cone that yields live imagery down to 1,000 feet in salt water. The PS70 ($4,800) comes potted in a stainless-steel through-hull transducer that can be purchased with an optional fairing block ($200). The combined transducer and fairing displaces 10.12 pounds and measures 8.5-by-4.5-by-9.6 inches, ostensibly making it an easy refit.

The PS70 has an embedded altitude heading reference system sensor, which stabilizes live sonar imagery on rough waters. It works at all speeds, so long as there’s clean water below the transducer.

“If you’re reef- or wreck-fishing, you can pull up and see if there are any fish before you throw your gear over,” says Dave Dunn, Garmin’s senior director of marine and RV sales. “You can look for pelagic fish with traditional sonar, but that’s historical imagery, so the fish might not still be under you.”

The PS70 sports Garmin’s proprietary RapidReturn feature, which Dunn says is like chirp sonar on steroids. While chirp sonars transmit across a sweep of frequencies, they only send out a single sweeping pulse with each transmission. “RapidReturn sends out multiple pings at the same time across its frequencies,” Dunn says. “It’s six to eight times faster than chirp. It makes a big difference in deep water.”

The PS70’s four modes each have RapidReturn. The modes start with Traditional Sonar, which provides similar imagery to other 50/200 kHz chirp-enabled sonars. Triple-Beam Sonar bifurcates the PS70’s 120-degree sonar cone into three 40-degree segments (port, center and starboard), allowing users to view all three simultaneously or focus on one 40-degree swath. LiveVu Down provides a single 120-degree real-time view of everything below the transducer, while RealVu 3D Historical uses recent sonar returns to paint a 3D image of the grounds that were just covered, from the bottom structure to the water’s surface.

“With RealVu 3D Historical, if you want to see the bottom structure, it will draw a representation of the bottom,” Dunn says. “You can survey the entire area so that you can see where you want to cast, and you can also see anomalies.”

Combined, the PS70’s modes provide a great deal of underkeel awareness; however, the transducer’s imagery focuses downward, not forward. “Our PS51 transducer provides forward-looking sonar,” Dunn says. “Users could pair a PS70 and a PS51 and see everything.”

Another interesting pairing, he says, involves Furuno’s line of Omni sonars, which provide 360-degree scanning sonar returns. This combination joins Furuno’s scanning-sonar technology and Garmin’s live sonar, either on separate screens or in a split-screen presentation.

“We work with Furuno,” Dunn says. “PS70 and Omni systems are complementary. It’s not necessarily one or the other. It can be both.” Tournament fishermen were the first users to create this pairing, but the combination is also useful for surveying seafloor structure.

While Garmin designed the PS70 for serious anglers, Dunn says its RealVu 3D Historical returns are also useful for divers. “If there’s a wreck, you can clearly see the bow and stern,” he says, adding that this capability can help users plan their dives, especially if it’s their first visit to the site.

Additionally, the PS70 supports Garmin’s QuickDraw Contours feature, part of Garmin’s ActiveCaptain ecosystem. “It’s user-generated bathymetry,” Dunn says, adding that users can save bathymetry data for up to 50,000 acres on their Garmin multifunction display’s microSD card. “If you have a Navionics subscription, you get daily cartography updates, but some areas aren’t updated. You need local knowledge to run these waters. But with QuickDraw, if you’ve been there before, you know where the shallows are, which is useful if you have to do this in the dark or in bad weather.”

Users can anonymously share their bathymetric data with Garmin, allowing Garmin to incorporate the data into Navionics updates, or the data can remain private.

While the PS70 offers a lot, it’s not without its downsides. The PS70 is Garmin’s second-most-expensive transducer, and while its RapidReturn feature yields much faster return rates than standard chirp transducers, its onscreen frame rate ultimately hinges on how fast the paired screen redraws imagery. That means anyone cruising or fishing with older glass might need to refresh the display for real-time returns.

But for anyone who casts, cruises or dives with a Garmin MFD and is interested in real-time sonar imagery, the PS70 delivers a lot of underkeel knowledge. It can help skippers find hidden honey holes or interesting dive areas along commonly cruised routes.  

Selective Stalking

The PS70 provides live imagery down to 1,000 feet, and it’s often helpful for finding the baitfish that pelagic species hunt. A smart trick, the experts say, is to adjust the gain and depth to target the upper third of the water column.

Take the next step: garmin.com

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Mercury’s Avator 75e and 110e are the company’s biggest electric outboards to date. Both have transverse-flux motors, three-blade aluminum propellers and recycled materials. The 75e can be ordered with a tiller or digital remote controls, while the 110e has digital controls. Both come in different shaft lengths. Owners can spec Avator 75e and 110e outboards with two to four external 5,400-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion batteries; these are paired to Mercury’s 5400 Power Center, merging power from the batteries and distributing it to the motor.

“Replacing a 6-gallon gas tank with at least two 5,400 kWh batteries isn’t the easiest task,” says Dan Ryks, Mercury’s senior category manager for electrification. “You have to find space for the batteries, and you need to consider their weight in order to deliver the best overall vessel performance.” The solution is flexible design. “The modularity of the 5,400 kWh batteries and the smaller 5400 Power Center provides boatbuilders and dealers with multiple configuration options for vessel installations,” Ryks says. The batteries can be installed horizontally or vertically.

While range and speed are vessel-dependent, Ryks says Mercury reached 16.8 knots aboard a 12-foot RIB powered by an Avator 110e.

System Ops

Mercury Marine’s Avator 75e and 110e outboards deliver 10 hp and 15 hp, respectively. SmartCraft Connect modules facilitate communication with the Mercury Marine app, which displays the available range and other data. The 5,400 kWh lithium-ion batteries recharge using AC power and a 520-watt or 1,050-watt Avator charger. The 520W charger replenishes two batteries in 20 hours; the 1,050W takes less than 10 hours to recharge.

Take the next step: mercurymarine.com

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Raymarine has announced a collaboration with Watchit that will see anti-collision technology combined with top-of-the-line chartplotters to help boaters improve situational awareness through display systems at the helm.

In a separate agreement, the companies announced that Raymarine LightHouse Charts are now designated as the official map supplier for Watchit, a change that is expected to enhance the Watchit system’s accuracy and reliability.

Watchit uses algorithms and sensors in a way that’s inspired by automotive safety technology. It analyzes a boat’s data to provide warnings before a collision occurs, helping to avoid collisions as well as groundings.  

“At Raymarine, we’re committed to making boaters’ time on the water safer and more enjoyable,” Michelle Hildyard, vice president of operations at Raymarine, stated in a press release. “Our collaboration with Watchit aligns perfectly with our mission to deliver seamless and open integration with new products and technology, ultimately simplifying the boating experience for our Axiom users.”

The announcement comes at a time when systems integration continues to be a major trend in the recreational marine industry, and as technology continues to be used in new ways to help make boating easier and safer for the skipper and guests. 

When will systems be available with the Watchit-Raymarine integration? They’re available now for compatible Raymarine Axiom chartplotters.

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In an effort to meet the nearly insatiable demand from all kinds of boaters for faster, more reliable onboard connectivity that includes the kind of content streaming that people can do on land, KVH has introduced TracNet Coastal and TracNet Coastal Pro 5G/Wi-Fi terminals and cellular data plans.

TracNet Coastal uses KVH Fusion eSIM technology to create a high-performance, single-cable, marine-grade cellular/Wi-Fi option with connectivity in 135 countries. TracNet Coastal can serve as a standalone hybrid communication system or be coupled with VSAT and low earth orbit (LEO) services, such as Starlink.

“TracNet Coastal delivers cellular speeds as fast as 300 Mbps down, and data costs as low as $1 per gigabyte,” Chad Impey, KVH’s senior vice president of sales and global support, stated in a press release. “In addition, TracNet Coastal’s high-gain Wi-Fi bridge in the antenna enables vessels to benefit from the speed and often zero cost of Wi-Fi in port or the marina. As a result, TracNet Coastal is an easy upgrade or backup to current onboard LEO solutions and a powerful standalone alternative.”

TracNet Coastal has intelligent hybrid switching. That means boaters can save data with the system automatically switching to a marina’s Wi-Fi network when the vessel is in port. TracNet Coastal can also integrate with Starlink, OneWeb, the KVH One global HTS network and other systems, using the TracNet Coastal Pro Hub or KVH CommBox Edge Communications Gateway.

The DC-powered marinized TracNet Coastal system comes with a single cable and optional mounting brackets, with the idea of making installation quick and straightforward for boaters and shipyards.

TracNet Coastal Pro is a more advanced system that has extra features to support standalone use and operate as the hybrid hub for additional Wide Area Networks.

“TracNet Coastal and TracNet Coastal Pro offer powerful solutions for marinas and coastal waters,” Impey stated in the release. “They are designed for those looking to enhance their current connectivity solutions or to upgrade to a faster, more reliable experience on coastal waters and in port.”

How long has KVH Industries been in the maritime and mobile connectivity business? The company was founded in 1982. Today, it’s one of the best-known brands in the world for marine connectivity, with more than a dozen offices around the globe. KVH offers products for commercial maritime, leisure marine, military and government, and land mobile applications on vessels and vehicles.

Where to learn more: head over to kvh.com

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Arkema’s Elium is a liquid thermoplastic resin that can be used for building recyclable composite structures, including hulls, decks and spars. Conventional resins use styrenes that evaporate during curing, releasing volatile organic compounds and yielding long cross-linked chains, which makes them hard to recycle. Elium resin uses an acrylic monomer that releases small amounts of VOCs and doesn’t cross-link, making it recyclable multiple times.

“When you are talking about recycling, you have to prove it, so providing the resin is [one] thing, but identifying how you will recycle it is another challenge,” says Nicolas Valloir, Arkema’s business manager. The solution, he says, will likely involve government regulations enforcing recycling; however, Arkema is already creating case studies. Valloir cited a high-performance sailboat that Arkema built using recycled Elium resin. “This boat won a transatlantic race between Europe and Brazil,” he says, adding that—following chemical extraction—the recycled monomer was 99 percent pure.

Structures built using Elium can be recycled via a chemical-extraction process that removes the resin from its composite structure, or through a mechanical process where the chopped-up structure is turned into a thermoplastic that can be used for thermocompression bonding, injection molding or 3D printing.

Elium Upsides

Elium resin works with most boatbuilding materials—including fiberglass, carbon fiber and wood—and most gelcoats. Arkema doesn’t offer Elium resin for hand lay-up builds, but it can be used for infusion and light-resin transfer-molding processes. It reduces volatile organic compound emissions, increases recyclability, and lowers  each build project’s overall carbon dioxide footprint.

Take the next step: arkema.com

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