Last week I read an article about hesitation with electric boats.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/phase-most-electric-boat-companies-arent-prepared-andrew-sell-bl1te/
This triggered me to write about my experience after owning an electric boat for almost a year now. But lets start from the beginning. Boating was not really on my radar for a long time. I am a flying guy. When I was a kid, I wanted to become a helicopter pilot. Paragliding has been my favorite hobby since I started in 2002.
How it started
A couple of years ago, my wive approached me with an idea. She said paragliding was my egoist hobby. Even if I flew tandem sometimes with our older son, it was time mostly away from the family. She proposed sailing as a new family hobby. I told her that I would probably like sailing, as I had a little experience with wind surfing, but I would never stop flying. So we went on a couple of short sailboat trips. As expected, I quite liked it. I was already familiar with wind and weather, it is in the nature, fairly technical, and can be demanding or even competitive. But my wive didn’t like it too much, as the boat was always inclined and one has to do something most of the time. She was looking more for a chill experience. She wouldn’t admit, but that’s how I interpreted her dislike. So I made the motorboat license. My condition was that, since it is a family hobby, she and later the kids would make the license as well. But I soon realized that I was the only one learning.
Already during the education I realized that I didn’t like going to the clean lake with a combustion engine, after driving electric on the road for so many years.
Rent or maybe buying
With renting boats it was the same, there weren’t any electric boats for rent. For sail boats there are sharing organizations and it seemed to be easy to hire a boat. But I soon found out that if I wanted to rent a motor boat on a nice sunny day, they were all occupied already.
So I was reminded of an article I read some time ago on electrek.co about electric boats that used hydrofoils to enhance range. As a flying guy and a techie, of course I liked the idea of flying over the water. Pushing a boat hull through the water needs lots more energy than pushing a car over a road. You can easily see the wasted energy by the wake and waves that are created. The more obvious energy saving comes from the electric motor as compared to a traditional combustion engine. Some people claim that such an electric hydrofoil boat uses only 10 to 20 percent of the energy of a traditional boat. But buying a boat was never the plan.
Towards the end of the Corona pandemic Candela introduced a second version whith an enclosed space for sleeping. Wow was that cool. We had a small camper for many years, and I always enjoyed the adventures. How cool must the adventures be with a camper boat?
For a while we tried to rent a boat when the weather was good, but often none were available, and when they were, we didn’t like to pollute the environment with the combustion engine. Still no electric boats for rent.
Stockholm
Out of the blue I received an invitation to the 10 year anniversary of Candela in Stockholm. That’s the company who builds those cool boats. At first I dismissed it. They are super cool, but I still preferred if somebody else bought an electric boat, and I could rent it. The thought stuck in the back of my head that if nobody else did it, I could be that person. I talked to friends who have experience with boats, and they all told me that it would not be profitable renting out such a boat, as it cost much more than a traditional boat, and you couldn’t charge that much more, and that there weren’t that many days where you would rent it out and not that many people looking for this electric experience. But the thought didn’t leave my mind. If not profitable, renting it out could at least help covering the running costs. So I signed up to go to Stockholm for the party and the factory tour.
The factory tour was super interesting. So was the test ride. And the party was a blast. But I still needed one more month to decide and to convince my wive.
Bitcoin
The real challenge was yet to come. As with all things that are not everyday expenses, I want to pay with Bitcoin. I contacted many shipyards before we finally found a solution. Most said no straight away, or didn’t even answer. One closest to my home, wanted to try, but his bank representative told him some bullshit. Also most BTC payment providers were set up only for smaller amounts, and not for the additional KYC/AML in this price range. In the end all the effort payed out, and I could pay my boat with Bitcoin.
Road tripping
The experience with an electric boat is different han with an electric car. They both have a similar battery, and similar charging capabilities. On the road, there was a sufficient network of fast chargers already ten years ago. But on the water, these are still a novelty. I am still hoping for some to arrive at lake Lucerne. But we also use the boat differently than the car. Road trips were possible and even great already when we bought our first electric car in early 2017. If you charge the car while eating, coffe or ice cream stops and when somebody needs to go to the toilet, there is barely any waiting involved. I am currently planning our first road trip with the boat this summer on the Rhine river. All I found so far are blue camping plugs with 3.6 kW. My experience tells me that at the boat ramps the voltage is lower than usual, so the charging power is even less. That means we will drive one time the range of the battery each day, and the rest of the day the boat needs to recharge. The boat would be ready for faster road tripping, but the infrastructure is not there yet. But that is not a problem. We will select harbors close to interesting areas and we will use the time to explore those areas. I read that between Genua and the Cote Azure there is a long stretch with fast chargers. I am curious how road tripping along that route would work out. But all my questions regarding this remain unanswered.
Regular use on the lake
Some statistics say that the avearage pleasure boat day trip is about 20 km. I wold say on average that is pretty accurate. Like with cars, you don’t buy the vehicle for the average trips, but for the longest one you want to be able to perform without too much trouble. The 100 km range of my boat mean, I can go to any point on the lake and back without recharging. That’s great. The low energy cost means that we use the boat more, as we don’t have to think how much each trip costs. I knew before ordering that this boat is not built for wakeboarding, but we still use it for tow surfing and wakeboarding. This summer we want to also explore water skiing and tow foiling.
So far I know two places on the lake where I could charge with 11kW, but even though it can be nice at times, the 3.6kW at the regular berths are really enough almost all the time. As far as you don’t use your boat for wakeboarding all day long, there is not much reason to just drive around without end. Either we go some place for dinner, a lakefront concert, a walk, we anchor and take a swim or just chill.
What I like most about it is that going to Lucerne takes about the same amount of time as with the car and uses a comparable amount of electricity. That’s because the water route is more direct, has no traffic jams and the search for a parking place is much easier.