Plugboats: Olympic Electric Boats and News Roundup – Paris 2024
Aug 22, 2024
Like millions of others around the world, you probably tuned in to see at least some of the Opening Ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. As many of the commentators said, it was the first time the Ceremonies had been held in a place other than a stadium.
For boaters it was very exciting to see the Parade being held on the River Seine, with 150 boats carrying athletes from 210 countries. What you may not have known is that 1/5 of the fleet – 31 of those boats – had electric propulsion.
Many of them were refitted Seine tour boats that received incentives from France’s Environmental and Energy Management Agency (ADEME), the Haropa Port (the ports of Le Havre, Rouen and Paris) and the Voies Navigables de France (VNF), one of the organizations that manages boating and navigation on the Seine.
Those tour boats will now go into active duty, the largest of them, ‘Mistinguett’ ferrying up to 248 passengers up and down the Seine in two tours every day, each of them lasting two and a half hours.
In a nice twist of history, it was on the Seine in 1881 that prolific French Inventor Gustave Trouvé was on the Seine working on his prototype electric boat ‘Le Teléphone’ when he decided it would be more productive to detach the motor and take it home each night to tinker on in his Paris apartment. Eureka! It was the invention of the outboard motor. The 2024 ‘Gussies’ international electric boat awards, which are named for Trouvé, will be starting in a few weeks.
Also at the Olympics, the sailng events in Marseille have 19 all-electric RIBs being used for the press, race committee and as marker boats for the start/finish lines.
RIB News
Speaking of RIBs, Highfield (the world’s largest manufacturer of the boats), has now started full production of their EJET 330, which has an electric jet motor with 20kW of power, equivalent to 25hp. The 3.36 metre (11 foot) boat planes at 11 knots (20 kmh) and can zip along with a top speed of 25 knots (46 kmh). Charging (20%-80%) takes about 2.5 hours with a Level 2 unit, longer with a standard household/marina outlet.
At the other end of the scale, an Italian RIB maker has worked with Chinese electric outboard maker ExploMar (explore and marine) to put twin WAVE 300+ units (220 kw / 300hp) units on an 11 metre (36 ft) boat.
In sea trials, the boat hit a speed of 38 knots (70 kmh) with 6 people aboard. With a battery pack of 125 kilowatt hours, the boat could go at that speed for about 40 minutes, and get you about 45 kilometres from where you started.
E1
The fourth race in the inaugural E1 electric speedboat racing series took place in Monaco the weekend of July 26 and 27 with Team Brady edging out Team Drogba and Team Rafa to take top spot.
For those unfamiliar with what that might mean, there are nine teams in the Series, each owned by a star from athletics, entertainment or industry. Team Brady is owned by the NFL GOAT quarterback, Team Drogba by 4-time Premier League winner Didier Drogba and Team Rafa by Rafael Nadel, winner of 22 tennis Grand Slams.
Other owners include Grammy Award-winning singer/producer Marc Anthony, actor Will Smith and Virat Kohli, all-time run-leader in the Indian Cricket Premier League.
Each team has a male and female driver, and they must each compete in every race. There are qualifying races on the first day of the event with Quarter Finals, Semis and the Finals on the second day. The team’s times are added in each leg and points awarded according to finishing place.
As in Formula 1 and Formula E car racing, where the emphasis is on the driver’s capabilities rather than throwing money at technology, each team has the same one-design boat to work with. For the E1 it is the Racebird, a 7 meter (23 ft) foiling hull, with a 150 kW (200 brake horsepower) electric outboard by Mercury Racing. Top speed is 90 kmh ( 50 knots / 55 mph).
The first four races in the six race series were in Jedda (Saudi Arabia), Venice and Puerto Banús, Spain. In Monaco the races took place just outside the marina of the Yacht Club de Monaco, the same spot where the Club hosted the world’s first international powerboat races in 1904.
The next races will be held on Italy’s Lake Como in August with the season winding up in November in Hong Kong. The top three teams going into Como are Team Brady, Team Miami (Marc Anthony) and Westbrook Racing (Will Smith).
Yanmar
Yanmar, the largest manufacturer of saildrives in the world, is launching its much anticipated first electric model, the E-Sail Drive, at the Cannes Yachting Festival, September 10 to 15 in Cannes, France.
With hundreds of thousands of Yanmar diesel motors installed in sailboats all over the world, the company’s philosophy in offering an electric option is to have a ‘plug and play’ E-Sail Drive range. The motors are designed to fit perfectly into the spot where a Yanmar ICE motor is being replaced, to give boaters an easy and simple transition to electric power.
The company says in their news release that “emissions-free saildrive is built on an integrated system with all the components on one platform. It is fitted on existing footprints or as a drop-in replacement for combustion engines, making the switch to 100% electric boating easier and quicker. The E-Sail Drive is offered in three models – the SDe7 kW, the SDe10 kW and the SDe15 kW.”
Jeff Butler is based in Toronto and is the Editor/Publisher of plugboats.com, the international website covering everything electric boats and boating. He is also President of the Electric Boat Association of Canada and is busy preparing to bring electric motor boat racing and exhibitions to Toronto Harbour.
