The revolutionary all-electric Candela C-8 hydrofoil boat has already been tested in its home waters in Sweden, but it will make its public debut May 27 at the Venice boat show. It also will enter the show’s grand finale E Regatta, an endurance test for the electric boats there.
Gustav Hasselskog, Candela’s founder and CEO, says he’s looking forward to the Venice outing. “The floating city, which is dependent on motorboats but also suffers from their impact, is the perfect place to show off how Candela’s craft can contribute to a better world, while offering new levels of performance,” he said.
The 28-foot Candela C-8 uses no fossil fuel, has no engine noise and, when its foiling, leaves just two inches of wake, about the same wake that follows behind Venice’s famed gondolas.
The hull is totally made of carbon fiber, and the boat is powered by two 50kW permanent magnet electric motors that require maintenance once every ten years. They’re mounted in Candela’s creative C-POD drives with counterrotating props.
The boat starts to fly, or foil, after just a few knots of speed. Then the computer-driven hydrofoils raise or lower automatically; they are fine-tuned to react more than 100 times a second to provide a smooth ride.
The C-8 has a top speed of 30 knots, and it can have a range of 50 nm at 20 knots. It also has a range of more than 3 nm in its “limp-home mode” of 4 knots. You can recharge the batteries in 2 ½ hours.
The C-8 is a larger version of the C-7, and can hold 8 people, with room for four to sleep in the cabin below. It also has a marine head and a shower.
Specs.: LOA: 27’8”; Beam: 8’2”; Draft: (foils retracted) 1’6”, (foiling) 2’6”; Disp.: 3,538 lbs.; Fuel: NA; Water: NA; Power: 2x50kW Candela C-POD drives. Read more at http://candela.com and see the video below:
