The first thing that catches my eye as I walk into the Zin Boats production facility in Seattle is the Z11, a 36-foot all-electric tender the company built for Feadship’s Project 821. The Z11’s carbon-fiber lines are distinctive, and its trim looks sophisticated. Piotr Zin, the company’s founder and CEO, opens a hatch in the cockpit sole to reveal a machined-aluminum case with labeled orange cables extending from its port and starboard flanks.

“That’s the Magic Box,” Zin says, smiling.

Zin Boats—which builds high-end tenders and vessels—aims to sell its electric-drive technologies to third parties to help the boating world transition from internal-combustion engines to electric propulsion. Many of these technologies are showcased aboard the Z11, which Zin says is the world’s fastest electric tender with the world’s leading range.

According to the builder, the boat exceeds 52 knots and has a range exceeding 100 nautical miles under normal operating conditions.

To power the Z11, Zin Boats worked with Xerotech, an Irish company that builds lithium-ion batteries considered so safe, they are being used aboard the International Space Station. “There’s no cell-to-cell heat propagation,” Zin says.

Additionally, Zin created a multilayer safety approach, including a material that lines the Z11’s steel battery case, liquid cooling, and software that monitors and manages the batteries.

Controlling DC power is another critical aspect of any electric vehicle, and Zin says this is where the Magic Box shines. While electric vehicles typically have multiple control boxes that govern and distribute power, Zin Boats created a single box that sits between the battery and the motors, and tackles everything from power control to charging.

It will push anything from 48 volts to 1,000 volts, Zin says. Currently, the highest power that can run through it is 1,000 kilowatts, or 1 megawatt.

While 1 megawatt is a lot of juice, the key is safety. Zin says the Magic Box talks to every high-voltage component before it allows high-voltage power to flow from the batteries. “There’s a very sophisticated communication and handshake between all of the parts and pieces inside the boat that basically confirms that the boat is safe and ready to go,” Zin says.

This same safety focus also applies to charging the batteries.

“The Magic Box has multiple high-voltage inputs and outputs,” Zin says. “On the one end, it talks to and takes energy from the battery. On the other end, it talks to and takes energy from a DC-to-DC charger. The Magic Box also has the capability of talking to the AC-to-DC chargers and controlling those.”

The Z11’s Magic Box has about 40 temperature sensors, controls cooling, and has a centralized vehicle control unit that allows the Magic Box to communicate with upstream and downstream systems, ranging from chargers to joystick steering.

Zin Boats markets two versions of the Magic Box: a 400-volt system and an 800-volt system. These work with single and dual motors, respectively. The 400-volt system liquid-cools its batteries, while the 800-volt system liquid-cools its Magic Box and batteries.

“It’s the heart behind this whole thing,” Zin says of the Magic Box. “Our engineers designed and developed the circuit board that is inside it.”

While it’s easy to think that the Feadship owner who ordered the Z11 funded the development of these technologies, Zin says the order simply sped up the development. “We would have done this regardless,” Zin says, noting that the company began creating these technologies years before the Z11 project.

Zin describes the tech as a universal propulsion system, which he equated to a 1950s-style outboard engine and fuel canister. The propulsion system is intended to be plug-and-play.

Zin Boats already has agreements in place with well-known third-party builders. Zin says: “We want to keep pushing the electrification, not just on our boats, but on everybody else’s boats.”

Under the Keel

The Z11’s hull, by designer Patrick Banfield, is also innovative. Rather than having long strakes, the Z11’s hull form is shaped more like a high-performance sailboat. Piotr Zin, the founder and CEO of Zin Boats, says this design reduces wetted surface area and drag, increasing the boat’s range.

The UI Factor

Zin Boats worked with Raymarine, in part to provide the Magic Box’s user interface. The interface resides on a Raymarine module, which can plug-and-play with any Raymarine display.

What’s Next?

Zin Boats plans to build more models that use the company’s technologies, and it plans to sell those technologies to other manufacturers in the marine market and possibly others as well.

Take the next step: zinboats.com

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Raymarine has collaborated with Zin Boats to create what they are describing as “the world’s most advanced electric superyacht tender.”

The Z11, as the tender is called, is associated with Feadship’s Project 821, a 389-foot superyacht designed to run on compressed liquid hydrogen. The tender combines marine navigation and vessel automation, performance and design in a way that Raymarine says “will set a new standard in the marine industry.”

The custom navigation and vessel automation system is powered by Raymarine Axiom 2 XL 19-inch and Axiom+ 9-inch chartplotter displays with YachtSense digital switching and vessel monitoring. The displays have intuitive touchscreen control and Raymarine’s remote keypads, the RMK-6 and RMK-10, for tactile command of the Z11’s navigation and digital switching functions. A Ray90 modular VHF radio system and CP100 Chirp DownVision sonar add communications and echo-sounding functionality.

“Collaborating with Zin Boats allowed us to push the boundaries of marine interface design, creating a custom software experience that perfectly complements the Z11’s innovative approach to electric boating,” Jamie Dery, vice president of Raymarine Americas, stated in a press release. “This collaboration exemplifies Raymarine’s unique ability to work hand-in-hand with visionary builders, delivering tailored solutions that set the standard in marine-electronics innovation.”

David Donovick, president and COO of Zin Boats, added: “We have been heads down working on the world’s most advanced electric tender and electric propulsion technology, which will scale across multiple boat platforms.”

More about Zin Boats: The company, which is based in Seattle, specializes in high-performance electric marine propulsion systems, luxury electric boats and custom yacht tenders. Zin Boats advertises electric tenders that can top 50 knots with a range of more than 100 nautical miles under normal operating conditions.

Where to learn more: go to raymarine.com or zinboats.com

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eD-TEC’s ed 32 c-ultra RIB is a carbon-fiber boat built by Sven Ackermann Yachts and powered by dual eD-TEC eD-QDrive 1 electric drives. These motors each deliver 200 watts—about 270 hp—of peak power to surface-piercing propellers. The all-electric RIB comes standard with 22-kilowatt AC-DC charging and 150 kW DC-DC fast charging. The latter can charge the batteries to 80 percent in 40 minutes. Owners can add an optional, range-extending foil-assist system, choose between eD-TEC’s cruising and performance batteries, and add jet thrusters for easier close-quarters maneuvering.

Whom It’s For: This boat is an option for performance-minded owners seeking a fast, nearly silent and hydrofoil-ready yacht tender.

Picture This: It’s a slow morning on Martha’s Vineyard off the Massachusetts mainland when word arrives that some humpback whales are patrolling nearby Nantucket Sound. You load the crew into your eD-TEC eD 32 c-ultra RIB and quickly and quietly zip over, arriving in time to witness breaches, slaps and rolls, without some noisy engine scaring off the charismatic megafauna.  

Take the next step: ed-tec.de

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The Stephens Waring 8.5m Electric Commuter is a lightweight, performance-minded wood-composite runabout. Its hull is built from fiberglass-clad cedar strips, while its deck and cockpit are constructed from a plywood-and-foam sandwich. The boat’s eye-pleasing aesthetics are reminiscent of 1950s Rivas, but the Stephens Waring 8.5m Electric Commuter is propelled by a thoroughly modern 40-kilowatt RAD Propulsion electric motor and a 55-kilowatt-hour Fellten battery. The boat has a range of around 22 nautical miles at top pace.

Whom It’s For: Boaters looking for a silent, snappy and emissions-free ride that will turn heads.

Picture This: It’s July in Camden, Maine, and the wooden sailboats are contesting the Camden Classics Cup. You and your kids jump in your Stephens Waring 8.5m Electric Commuter and cruise out to West Penobscot Bay to watch the racing. Then it’s a quick, quiet ride back for scoops at Camden Cone.  

Take the next step: stephenswaring.com

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Most sailors will tell you how marvelous it is not to hear an engine. There’s only the sound of the hull carving through the water, and no whiffs of exhaust fumes. Electric-powered boating has similar appeal, which is what Italy’s Ferretti Group hopes to capture with the label E-Luxury. The first model under this banner is Riva’s El-Iseo.

The original, traditionally powered 27-foot Iseo was shown at the Cannes Yachting Festival back in 2011. Around 70 of them have been built since then. The first production El-Iseo splashed in late 2023 and was at Boot Dusseldorf in January. I got aboard a few months later to play with it on Lago d’Iseo, Riva’s home lake in northern Italy.

The El-Iseo has sky-blue metallic paint, a gorgeous sheerline, light-blue and off-white upholstery, gleaming stainless steel, and the deep gloss of the mahogany foredeck and cockpit detailing. All of it is pure class.

While the El-Iseo’s deep-V hull form is the same as the Iseo’s, the windshield and cockpit seating are a little different. Two bolster-cushioned bucket seats are abaft a wraparound windshield. Farther aft, a C-booth seats four people comfortably. Also on the El-Iseo is cuddy stowage forward beneath the foredeck. Abaft the cockpit, there’s an inset sun pad and a swim platform.

What’s missing in the engine bay of the El-Iseo is a typical engine. Instead, there’s a Parker GVM310 AC motor rated for continuous 250 kW power and 300 kW peak power, two sealed and liquid-cooled 800V battery banks providing a total of 150 kWh, a couple of heat exchangers that are part of a two-stage battery-cooling system, and plenty of chunky cables and hoses, fire-retardant insulation, gas detection and extinguishing systems. Thrust comes from a modified Mercury Racing Bravo X3R sterndrive leg.

There are three cruising modes: adagio, which limits speed to 5 knots, suppresses acceleration and allows a working range of 10 hours or 50 nautical miles; andante, with normal acceleration, a top speed of 25 knots and a range of 25 nm; and allegro, for gloves-off acceleration and 40 knots. When battery reserves drop to 20 percent, the boat switches automatically from allegro into andante mode. At 5 percent, it will trip into adagio mode, allowing for 1,000 rpm and 5 knots with a remaining range of 2 to 3 nautical miles.

Handling is well-mannered throughout the speed range. The boat accelerates much faster than a conventionally propelled runabout of this size, and it heels reassuringly into turns. I’m a big fan of the fully digital Böning custom dashboard, which presents all the essential system information. Owners can choose a 9- or 12-inch Simrad display amidships. A conventional-style gear shift/throttle, Xenta steering and Zipwake trim tabs integrate well in auto-trim mode, although skippers can trim manually too.

We went out with batteries at the recommended 80 percent and came back after 30 minutes showing 34 percent. We plugged into a fast charger, and the boat’s instruments informed us that it would take 90 minutes to restore to 100 percent. Riva quotes 75 minutes for a 20 percent to 80 percent fast charge, and eight hours for a normal charge.

Riva doesn’t publicize prices, but it says this level of technology does not come cheap. Running costs should be relatively low, and environmental consciences should feel eased.  

If the Skies Change…

Riva’s El-Iseo is the only electric boat in Europe rated Cat B, with the help of Italian certification body RINA. Cat B boats can cope with F8 (gale-force) winds and 13-foot seas.

Take the next step: riva-yacht.com

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The Colombo 25 Super Indios E is an electrified version of the builder’s elegant 25-foot offering. It has a protected cockpit, a C-shaped settee and a sun-worshiping deck. The boat is propelled by two 35-kilowatt electric motors powered by a 72-kilowatt-hour battery; this combination yields 20 to 90 miles of range, depending on the skipper’s throttle-control habits.

Whom It’s For: Anyone who values near-silent and emissions-free boating.

Picture This: You’re entertaining friends at your summer place in Bar Harbor, Maine, and they’ve never seen Mount Desert Island. So, you load up your Colombo 25 Super Indios E and quietly cruise Somes Sound, stopping at Beal’s Lobster Pier in Southwest Harbor for lobstah rolls. You show off Otter Cliffs on the way home before delivering a safe and memorable view of Thunder Hole.    

Take the next step: colomboboats.it

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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

The post Meet The Icon Foiling Yacht appeared first on Yachting.

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.

The post The Rise of E-Boat Technology appeared first on Yachting.

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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