At last count, there were more than 40 boat building companies offering electric-powered craft to the day-boat and cruising market and innovation in this field seems to double every year with battery technology advancements and efficient new hull designs.
At the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show last month I got a chance to inspect the new Sialia 59, a next-generation design that has a top speed of 25 knots, a cruising speed of 16 knots and a range at cruising speed of over 80 miles. Check out our review of the 59 here.
Fun running speeds and expanded ranges are the keys to success in this market. This week, I want to introduce you to another new company’s first electric-powered boat that has similar qualities to the Sialia, the new Optima e10, designed and built in England.
The Optima e10, which is 34 feet long, was introduced at the Southampton, England, boat show in September by co-founders Chloe and David Kendall. The Kendall’s vision and purpose in the founding of Optima is to offer power boats that are entirely sustainable but also a lot of fun to own and cruise.
The e10 is their prototype and is a thoroughly modern and quite luxurious day boat with a cuddy cabin. The innovation the Kendall’s developed for the e10 is the hull design, which is a modified trimaran concept. The center hull is narrow with a fine entry and thus is easily and efficiently driven, while the side hulls or amas give the hull a lot of stability and expand the size of the cockpit and cabin.
Since buyers of a boat like the 10e have different needs and will be boating in different climates, the e10’s cockpit layout is completely modular, with options for large sun beds, or dinettes or facing benches.
The e10’s real claim to fame is its speed and range. It has a cruising speed of 13 knots, a bit slower than the Sialia, but it has over 150-miles of range on one battery charge. This means that you can explore almost as far and as freely as you would with a diesel of gas-powered engine, as long as you can recharge the battery at the end of your cruise.
Boats like the Sialia and the new Optima hold a lot of promise for the future of electric-powered boating. With this in mind, the Kendalls recently introduced the design of a new e14 model that at 46-feet has a full sleeping cabin, head and shower, plus a galley and dinette in the cockpit. The cockpit has a hard top for solar panels that can be enclosed with isinglass and canvass. A fully enclosed salon is also in the design’s future.
Read more about Optima electric boats here.
