Silent Yachts just announced that it’s creating a new line of electric-powered performance boats, starting with a 60-knot Speed 28 RIB. The new 28 will be powered by two 200kW electric motors that provide a range of 70 nm at 30 knots.
Silent made the announcement at the Cannes Yachting Festival this week. The first hull of the Speed 28 is scheduled to be launched in October. The new RIB has futuristic looks, embedded solar cells, and foils for performance. It can be used as a superyacht tender, or it can be trailered anywhere to function as a high-performance, all-around fun boat. It has flexible seating for ten people.
“With 18 years of experience in designing and building solar-powered catamarans, we were hungry to push the boundaries again,” said Michael Köhler, Silent’s founder and CEO.
Silent said the idea behind the new boat came from eD-TEC, which developed the twin eD-QDrive motors and the drivetrain. It includes three foils to reduce drag and increase range and comfort. All the boat’s systems are driven by artificial intelligence through an AI box that constantly makes precise adjustments to reduce the boat’s pitch and roll.
An interface puts all the boat’s performance and functions at the driver’s fingertips. Meanwhile, an uplink to the cloud relays data that can be used to generate driving profiles to maximize efficiency.
Underway, the boat is built to be almost silent, and the layup uses a lot of carbon fiber for light weight and strength. The RIB’s hull shape resembles a catamaran, with two narrow hulls in the water and a broad, blunt bow. The design provides buoyancy, and deflects spray. A rigid hard top provides shade for everyone on board, while the finish is up to Silent’s superyacht standards.
Lithium-ion batteries store about 100kWh of energy. Solar cells on the upper surface of the hard top generate up to 70kW of power, more than enough to maintain the batteries and run all the onboard systems.
An onboard charger can handle 150kW DC to recharge the battery fully in about 40 minutes. AC recharging is possible at up to 22kW. Read more:
