13 ms·

Foiling Electric Boat

194 points by punnerud 6y ago

ebbflowgo 6y ago
Looks awesome
- topspin 6y ago
  Certainly looks smoother than smashing into waves.
fock 6y ago
so, what's the purpose of this thing. Because taking out "fossil fuels" of a senseless activity just to use up 20% less of our liveable environment, seems -ehm- idiotic?
- kgilpin 6y ago
  People need to enjoy the outdoors in order to care about preserving it.
  - fock 6y ago
    do you really "enjoy outdoors" with a speedboat"? A simple sailing boat has a fraction of the foodprint and you probably can see a lot more of the outdoors. Will you spot wildlife at the coast riding this: probably not.
    - jschwartzi 6y ago
      Sure, if you can catch any wind.
      - fock 6y ago
        maybe that's also an important lesson for some people to learn. man is not almighty and part of a complex ecosystem.
- punnerud 6y ago
  Tesla started with Tesla Roadster (old version)
  - fock 6y ago
    and now they have their 2 metric tonnes driving batteries consuming coal. Whew. Maybe we should think about systemic change.
- Candelaboat 6y ago
  That's a great question. Purpose. Even though some might consider boating a senseless activity, people around the world enjoy it dearly. Boating is simply one of the world's biggest outdoor activities. We could have gone for trying to make people quit buying, using and spending on boats, but that seemed a lot harder than creating a better alternative to regular boats. 5 years of R&D, sweat, tears and big load of broken foils later, we are in full production with a boat that reduces local emissions by 99%, compared to fossil boats.
  - fock 6y ago
    so in what wonderland are you charging your boat with this 99%-less CO2-grid? And guess what, boating could arguably also be done with a 100% reduced emission footprint. It's called sailing. Btw: what did I miss that owning and operating a boat is one of the biggest outdoor activities (especially small motorboats?)? As far as the tech goes: it looks interesting, but safe the "we are making the world a better place" part.
    - Candelaboat 6y ago
      Gasoline when burned emits 2.3kgs of CO2 One can confidently assume 1.5 liters per nautical mile for an 8 meter petrol boat at speeds above 20 knots. That's 3450 grams per NM. Our boats consume roughly 1 kwh per NM, from the grid. Swedish electricity generation emits about 15g of CO2 per kWh. That's even better than 99%. Even in the US, in 2013, with 500g of CO2 per kWh, the emissions from a Candela are still 85% lower. And at least 99% lower locally in the water where the boat is being used. It would be fantastic if all boating was done by sails, but saying that's the solution is like saying Tesla shouldn't have innovated on the automobile because there is already a technology for moving around on roads: bikes. Do you suggest that nothing should be done about emissions on the water?
      - fock 6y ago
        > at speeds above 20knots maybe speed is a problem here. and if you are slow, it's a lot less. Also burning at least 50€ (I'm not sure about tax exemptions for nautical fuel, but in Europe 1.5€/l is very likely) for a short trip of ~30km back and forth (which you could hike in a day - though not on water) underlines that whatever you consider "boating, the mass hobby" is something done (to great environmental cost) by a very, very small minority. And yes I'm all for taxing the people with enough money to burn today so that they won't have to do that tomorrow - and reducing emissions of global sea trade as well.
- mcguire 6y ago
  There is nothing half so much worth doing as messing about in boats. Mostly, that's throwing money into a hole in the water, but...
mtw 6y ago
How much is this ?
- robfitz 6y ago
  There's one for sale in Florida for 295 grand. I can't imagine it's supposed to cost that much, so I'm assuming that either it's someone scalping one of the first 12 due to scarcity, or they'll be dropping prices significantly as they increase production quantities. A super nice diesel boat like this would cost 20-50k. And 50 nautical miles range is... not much. I love boats, but it's hard for me to imagine the use case here. Hopefully it's like Tesla and all improves very rapidly (price, range, etc) after the early batches.
  - JacobDotVI 6y ago
    >And 50 nautical miles range is... not much This is plenty of range for day trips throughout the Spanish, US, and British Virgin Islands. You could do multi-day trips if you planned your overnights at the various marinas with power hookups (e.g. Scrub Island, Cooper, etc.)
    - Ichthypresbyter 6y ago
      >This is plenty of range for day trips throughout the Spanish, US, and British Virgin Islands. Or indeed the Stockholm Archipelago, which I imagine is what this is designed for.
      - mstade 6y ago
        For sure it's enough for the Stockholm archipelago, and pretty much everywhere else along the Swedish east or west coast. As a day cruiser 50 nautical miles is more than enough.
    - MikaelCandela 6y ago
      Yes! Mikael at Candela here. Our customers in Stockholm often do overnight trips to the arcipelago, changing overnight. Even with 230V/16 amps, which is common in the archipelago, the 40 kWh battery will charge up overnight. That’s an added advantage of having a very energy efficient boat - you don’t need a oversized and heavy battery.
JacobDotVI 6y ago
Does anyone know what their current status is? Their FAQs haven't been updated in over a year: >How many boats have you delivered? >As of March 2019, we have delivered 10 boats to customers in Sweden, Finland, Austria, the US and the British Virgin Islands. >When can you deliver? >We still have a few production slots available for deliveries for the summer of 2020. Scroll down and go to the order page to reserve one.
- zackkatz 6y ago
  The video reports they have delivered 12. Not exactly producing at scale!
  - TheTruth321 6y ago
    This is the boating industry ... not google ads.
  - gpapilion 6y ago
    There are very few boats that’s hit high scale production numbers. They are often custom, and the market is much smaller for higher priced boats. 12 is lower than I would have thought, sub 100 a year isn’t surprising.
    - cptaj 6y ago
      Yeah, most boat manufacturers in the world don't hit mass production numbers. Fiberglass is relatively easy to work with requiring very little tooling investment. You can also easily "clone" other boats by taking a mold of the hull. This means there are A LOT of mom and pop shops making amazing boats all over the world. 12 boats for these guys seems pretty good to me. Its very unproven technology and boaters don't like that. The sea is a rough environment and most wil prefer tried and true solutions with long supply chains for parts and service.
      - sandworm101 6y ago
        >> You can also easily "clone" other boats by taking a mold of the hull. Be careful about this. In a truly strange exception, american boat hulls are protected by US copyright law... the dreaded DMCA. "Title V of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act, provides sui generis protection for an “original design of a useful article” (where “useful article” is limited to boat hulls)." https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/vessel_hull_design_protection_act https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/vessel_hull_design_protectio...
sandworm101 6y ago
Ok. They put an electric motor on a hydrofoil. Where is the innovation? This isn't new stuff. Anyone can buy a hydrofoil hull and install an electric motor. The limitation always was, and remains, the wild impracticality inherent to hydrofoils regardless of power source.
- willvarfar 6y ago
  Why are hydrofoils inherently impractical? The homepage claims superior ride and comfort in bad sea states. Although hydrofoils are limited to about 400 tons, apparently, there have been several successful naval missile boats used by both sides in the Cold War. Wings in ground effect is another thing that’s cool.
  - CrazyStat 6y ago
    > The homepage claims superior ride and comfort in bad sea states. For a limited definition of bad sea states--the FAQ says the limit before you might unexpectedly land is about 1m wave height, which wouldn't be a serious issue for an ordinary boat almost 8m in length [1]. That said, I do think there's a place for hydrofoils on sheltered bodies of water. There is (or was, 10 years ago) a regular hydrofoil ferry service that runs between Petrozavodsk and the island of Kizhi [2], which cuts travel time dramatically compared to a traditional ferry. [1] https://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/maritime/safety-rules/before-boating/wave-heights.html https://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/maritime/safety-rules/before-boat... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizhi_Pogost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizhi_Pogost
    - wazoox 6y ago
      Unless it changed recently, there is a regular hydrofoil line linking Vienna to Bratislava on the Danube. I rode it in 2015, it's a wonderfully kitsch piece of Soviet era kit, but does this beast fly!
      - 83457 6y ago
        I rode one 20 years ago to islands off the coast of Greece. One of the trips was rough though due to choppy seas. I recall seatbelts were required and barf bags were utilized by a few passengers.
deleted 6y ago
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thatcherc 6y ago
This looks like a lot of fun, but I'm wary of its safety. Foiling boats (at least the sailboats) have a tendency to come down hard off the foils if not sailed exactly right. That's why you'll see helmets worn by sailors both on big foiling AC72s and F50s as well as a the single-handed Wazsps, Moths, and UFOs. The deep V profile the Candela's bow looks like it would handle dropping off the foil or hitting a big wave pretty well, and the 100 Hz foil control loop is reassuring, but my experience on little foiling sailboats would keep me cautious on one of these for a while. However, getting a boat to pop out above the waves is such an amazing feeling that I'd take a ride on one of these in a heartbeat (just maybe with a helmet!). Some foiling sailboat crashes for reference - - https://youtu.be/875yq0-ogwo?t=20 https://youtu.be/875yq0-ogwo?t=20 - https://youtu.be/frAkDEszgZc?t=26 https://youtu.be/frAkDEszgZc?t=26
- darksaints 6y ago
  I have some experience with foiling sailboats, and I would never expect the problems that foiling sailboats have to impact motorboats at all. Control problems are all well solved for motorboats, but the moment of a sail that is perpendicular to the direction of travel puts a huge kink in the picture that has been hard to tame. Even then, there have been huge strides lately...like the iFly 15, which uses a mechanical active controller which basically relies on two small rods with a float on the ends to measure foiling height and heeling, and mechanically adjust the coils to maintain stability. It works marvellously.
  - mechhacker 6y ago
    I recently picked up a foil board to go with my other windsurf gear, and the sail is absolutely a confounding effect I've read some on the subject, and got a book by a famous boat designer, Kotaro Horiuchi, which describes the actions of the float controllers you are talking about as well as other aspects. Foil boats have to be fairly lightweight at the moment, which is why the america's cup boats are designed the way they are. I've also seen those e-foil surfboards but have never tried them as the price point seems absurd. My board (and all the foils I see on surf gear) just have enhanced static stability based on some combination of dihedral, a fuselage, and a negative lift rear wing, very similar to an airplane. That's because it's down to a shift of body weight, sailing forces, etc. It's become all the rage in the last 2-3 years with things still not quite standardized. I had to drill out my foil-approved board to get larger M10 bolts in there.
regularfry 6y ago
I want to strap wings to the side and make a foil/ground-effect crossbreed.
- cagenut 6y ago
  and then coat the wings with triple-junction GaAs solar panels for a 5kw "wind" at your back.
  - tantalor 6y ago
    Strap one these babies on there for a real "solar wind" at your back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail
stevespang 6y ago
Price must be outrageous.
dharma1 6y ago
http://q-yachts.com/ http://q-yachts.com/ is also worth checking - not a hydrofoil but a beautiful (though expensive) electric boat
- mstade 6y ago
  Any idea how expensive? Asking for a friend.. :o)
  - imustbeevil 6y ago
    Says EUR 183,000 here: https://yachtemoceans.com/q30-electric-boat https://yachtemoceans.com/q30-electric-boat
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - trillic 6y ago
    If you have to ask...
  - munificent 6y ago
    Keep in mind that purchase price is a smaller fraction of the total cost of ownership for a boat than for other kinds of vehicles. Marina, maintenance, etc. are much higher recurring expenses compared to, say, having a weekend sports car that just sits in the garage most of the time. Just because you can buy a boat, that doesn't mean you can afford a boat.
    - mstade 6y ago
      Oh believe my I know, I've been a boat owner for the past few years. Boats are money pits, no doubt, but also a lot of fun. The feeling of going out early in the morning in calm seas, as the sun is rising – it's hard to beat and makes you forget all the work and money involved in having those moments. Obviously it depends on what you're going to use the boat for, but for me personally it's all recreational. Boating makes me happy, and as much as I'll cuss and swear every time I have to do maintenance and upkeep I still think it's worth it. I'm sure you know the old adage of the two happiest days in a boat owner's life: the day you buy the boat, and the day you sell the boat. Still, we never learn. :o)
phebijohn 6y ago
NIce information
jfengel 6y ago
And here I was wondering what it was they had against Electric Boat[1]. Maybe they want to disrupt the submarine-builder market? [1] http://www.gdeb.com/ http://www.gdeb.com/
- SkyMarshal 6y ago
  That was my first interpretation too. Was relieved to find Electric Boat isn't being foiled by anything.
bullen 6y ago
To move 1.300kg of vehicle to transport 100-500kg of meat is not a prospect that makes sense. I also doubt the boat will handle well with 5 adults. Show me an electric (or dead-trees powered for that matter) boat made for one person that can foil or at least plane and maybe I'll be interested. For reference I made this bike which weighs the same as the person it transports and has batteries that last 10 years for $300 at almost the same range/speed, the bike including everything is $3.000 so 100x cheaper: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Felhjul.se https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=auto&tl=en&u=h...
- mstade 6y ago
  I can give you a first hand account of riding along in this boat in the next couple of weeks or so, a buddy of mine is getting his delivered tomorrow.
- eMSF 6y ago
  Can you sail with it? Exactly how are bikes relevant on a boat thread?
- Candelaboat 6y ago
  Hey Bullen, we do fine with 10 people on board. Check this video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1149405105441917 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1149405105441917 Do you also think that a Tesla Model 3, transporting 5 adults, but weighing in at above 1500kg is a bad idea?
  - bullen 6y ago
    Yes, to produce enough electricity that everyone can have their tesla/candela is impossible because we are running out of cheap dead trees. Electricity is not an energy source. EROEI is already below 10 on the dead trees we use today (down from 100 a century ago, that's 10x or 1000% down). And you need dead-trees to build nuclear and hydro. Solar and wind are useless. A weight ratio of equal between transport (including energy storage) and transported is the only solution. Personally I find the half weight of lithium to not compensate for the complexity/price, so I recommend lead-acid.
LittleNemoInS 6y ago
Hardly the first... The SeaBubbles were tested on the Geneva lake (the one in Switzerland) three years ago... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeaBubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeaBubble
- polack 6y ago
  The Candela Seven is a finished product while the SeaBubble haven't made its way to production yet. With that in mind it's not unreasonable to think Candela had a prototype done before the Bubble...
sjburt 6y ago
I don't understand the point at all. At least in my area, most boats of this size are used for fishing, wake sports, or as a sailboat tender. Larger boats with a cabin and accommodations are common as party boats but this seems a bit too small.
- Candelaboat 6y ago
  There are plenty of markets & brands around the world that see lots of 8 meter sized day cruiser boats. Remember that boating is very locally adapted, with many boat models from Sweden never being exported to other regions, due to regional preferences and sea conditions.
  - mcguire 6y ago
    Have you considered the bass-fishing market? Your boats are a little expensive but not terribly so. Speed might be a bigger problem.
quanticle 6y ago
How does one get one of these onto a trailer and down a boat ramp? It seems like the hydrofoil adds enough draft that it would scrape the bottom on a lot of public access ramps.
- treeform 6y ago
  On the website they show the foils retract into the boat.
kumarvvr 6y ago
Would this work if there are weeds or big fishes in the water? The foil would get damaged pretty quickly, before actually killing most of the fish it comes into contact with. The concept is very very old and well known. So there must be practical reasons why this was not commercialized.
- Candelaboat 6y ago
  Weeds can be an issue, unless the foils just cut through them. Taking off in a weed heavy water can be tricky, just like operating a jetski, a jet boat or a regular prop boat. It is true that a fish wouldn't fare too well either when hitting the leading edge of the foil, which is submerged to about 0.7 meters. However, the foil can take quite a beating. Regarding commercialization, which is a great question in itself, our experience tells us that it's due to: 1. It's hard to build controllable foils, especially in a "miniaturized" size like a 8 meter boat. 2. the technology to enable sufficient speed of electronic foil control hasn't been cheap nor good enough prior to the advent of consumer drones & smartphones.
  - kumarvvr 6y ago
    As an electrical engineer, I'm intrigued. Do you actually control the angle of the foils during travel? Is it to maintain a set height or change height too. I know that too high, and the boat becomes unstable. I know that retracting the foils is a simple thing, relatively speaking. However, if you are actually controlling the foil angle, isn't the technology available for decades? I mean there are cooling water pumps that change the impeller vane angles during operation at 400 - 700 RPM, there are helicopter blades that change angles, ship propellers can also change angle during operation, etc. There are many examples. What technical problem have you specifically overcome in this case?
    - Candelaboat 6y ago
      Great question. What's different in our case is that the flight controller captures the boat’s movements from 7 sensors. Then it establishes the full-state 3×6 state matrix (position, velocity and acceleration with regards to position in x, y and x and rotation around the same axis). This is partly done using sensor fusion algorithms. We then use the outputs to control the angle of attack, along the longitudinal axis of the foil, essentially twisting it. The R&D that has gone into making this work reliably enough for a consumer product is our secret sauce.
tedhallez 6y ago
Imagine going through a NO WAKE zone at 35 mph
- spurgu 6y ago
  Generally wake size isn't a factor in "No wake" zones, they're instead enforced through speed limits. :( At least in Europe.
- bob_theslob646 6y ago
  This would be incredibly cool as well as a tremendous time saver because going through port or to a dock is at this speed due to wake.
generatorguy 6y ago
After seeing the foils finally catch on in water sports I have been wondering why there are no foil boats. Great to see someone has made it happen! I don’t do enough miles a year boating to care about the minor amount of fossil fuels I burn. I would be really interested in the foil tech with gas powered outboard. The foil boat must be must much more fuel efficient with a gas motor?
dzhiurgis 6y ago
Wonder if you can somehow combine foils with sea legs to walk that thing on the beach :)
fred_is_fred 6y ago
Thanks to our wonderful English language and the use of title case, I thought this headline was about countering or circumventing (foiling) the Electric Boat company - a manufacturer of submarines. The boat is cool, but I was hoping to see some anti-submarine warfare stuff here.
- fsckboy 6y ago
  same, but I thought it must be about underbidding Electric Boat on a contract, and at a glance I thought the story was about Canada. Depends on your perception of the most likely threat models :)
kiteloop 6y ago
Is there a good solution for removing sea grass that got tangled on the foil?
cjlars 6y ago
Do these things need to be drydocked? We have very fast and aggressive bottom growth where I live, race boats get cleaned every few weeks, cruisers develop a bit of sludge that turns into a full on boat bottom salad pretty quick.
Bubbadoo 6y ago
Does look like fun, but let's face it, 50 nautical miles is nothing on the water. I guess if you're on a lake the just under 60 mile range is enough to water ski but it's definitely not suited to deep water. And all carbon fiber, must cost a pretty penny. Great idea, hopefully battery technology innovates to give products such as this one a more practical use case.
- jcampbell1 6y ago
  I’ve done plenty of fishing 40 miles offshore in NC on a boat this sized. I can’t imagine anyone riding 80 miles in the ocean for “fun”. It is 5 hours of suck to catch fish. 60 miles seems like more than enough for day cruising. That being said, this boat is a total no go in NC due to draft... day cruisers have skiffs and sandbar parties.
jack_riminton 6y ago
Very smart solution. Looks like it could be the ideal candidate for some solar panels too
cwkoss 6y ago
How do foils affect the turning characteristics of boats?
dmitrygr 6y ago
> Always connected to the cloud via 3G network > High frequency data logging for enhanced > support and fleet learning When will manufacturers finally learn that these are NOT pros, they are very serious cons‽‽‽ I do not want my data sold, and unless you plan to pay me a rate I set, my data is not an asset you can use in developing your business.
- valuearb 6y ago
  Pretty sure anyone who can afford this boat isn’t concerned about Candela selling their data. Likely far more concerned that Candela uses the data to improve their experience.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  You're not in the target market.
kbenson 6y ago
So, if my napkin calculations on minimal Google searching are any indication, you get about half the range as you'd get in the 240 Bowrider (50 vs 100 nautical miles), which honestly seems pretty good. I'm not sure how much worse the efficiency is at lower speeds though, and there's almost always lower speeds involved for extended periods as you move through no wake zones. Additionally, emergency capacity might be an issue (an extra fuel can isn't really possible), and if you do run out of power, it's not like someone could offer one or bring one, you're really looking at a tow, from what I can see. Very cool though. Note: I used this[1] for some quick info on what kind of fuel efficiency the bowrider got at different speeds, and used fuel tank size to estimate range. 1: https://betterboat.com/average-boat-speed/ https://betterboat.com/average-boat-speed/

194 points by punnerud 6y ago

ebbflowgo 6y ago

Looks awesome

topspin 6y ago
Certainly looks smoother than smashing into waves.

fock 6y ago

so, what's the purpose of this thing. Because taking out "fossil fuels" of a senseless activity just to use up 20% less of our liveable environment, seems -ehm- idiotic?

kgilpin 6y ago
People need to enjoy the outdoors in order to care about preserving it.
- fock 6y ago
  do you really "enjoy outdoors" with a speedboat"? A simple sailing boat has a fraction of the foodprint and you probably can see a lot more of the outdoors. Will you spot wildlife at the coast riding this: probably not.
  - jschwartzi 6y ago
    Sure, if you can catch any wind.
    - fock 6y ago
      maybe that's also an important lesson for some people to learn. man is not almighty and part of a complex ecosystem.
punnerud 6y ago
Tesla started with Tesla Roadster (old version)
- fock 6y ago
  and now they have their 2 metric tonnes driving batteries consuming coal. Whew. Maybe we should think about systemic change.
Candelaboat 6y ago
That's a great question. Purpose. Even though some might consider boating a senseless activity, people around the world enjoy it dearly. Boating is simply one of the world's biggest outdoor activities. We could have gone for trying to make people quit buying, using and spending on boats, but that seemed a lot harder than creating a better alternative to regular boats. 5 years of R&D, sweat, tears and big load of broken foils later, we are in full production with a boat that reduces local emissions by 99%, compared to fossil boats.
- fock 6y ago
  so in what wonderland are you charging your boat with this 99%-less CO2-grid? And guess what, boating could arguably also be done with a 100% reduced emission footprint. It's called sailing. Btw: what did I miss that owning and operating a boat is one of the biggest outdoor activities (especially small motorboats?)? As far as the tech goes: it looks interesting, but safe the "we are making the world a better place" part.
  - Candelaboat 6y ago
    Gasoline when burned emits 2.3kgs of CO2 One can confidently assume 1.5 liters per nautical mile for an 8 meter petrol boat at speeds above 20 knots. That's 3450 grams per NM. Our boats consume roughly 1 kwh per NM, from the grid. Swedish electricity generation emits about 15g of CO2 per kWh. That's even better than 99%. Even in the US, in 2013, with 500g of CO2 per kWh, the emissions from a Candela are still 85% lower. And at least 99% lower locally in the water where the boat is being used. It would be fantastic if all boating was done by sails, but saying that's the solution is like saying Tesla shouldn't have innovated on the automobile because there is already a technology for moving around on roads: bikes. Do you suggest that nothing should be done about emissions on the water?
    - fock 6y ago
      > at speeds above 20knots maybe speed is a problem here. and if you are slow, it's a lot less. Also burning at least 50€ (I'm not sure about tax exemptions for nautical fuel, but in Europe 1.5€/l is very likely) for a short trip of ~30km back and forth (which you could hike in a day - though not on water) underlines that whatever you consider "boating, the mass hobby" is something done (to great environmental cost) by a very, very small minority. And yes I'm all for taxing the people with enough money to burn today so that they won't have to do that tomorrow - and reducing emissions of global sea trade as well.
mcguire 6y ago
There is nothing half so much worth doing as messing about in boats. Mostly, that's throwing money into a hole in the water, but...

mtw 6y ago

How much is this ?

robfitz 6y ago
There's one for sale in Florida for 295 grand. I can't imagine it's supposed to cost that much, so I'm assuming that either it's someone scalping one of the first 12 due to scarcity, or they'll be dropping prices significantly as they increase production quantities. A super nice diesel boat like this would cost 20-50k. And 50 nautical miles range is... not much. I love boats, but it's hard for me to imagine the use case here. Hopefully it's like Tesla and all improves very rapidly (price, range, etc) after the early batches.
- JacobDotVI 6y ago
  >And 50 nautical miles range is... not much This is plenty of range for day trips throughout the Spanish, US, and British Virgin Islands. You could do multi-day trips if you planned your overnights at the various marinas with power hookups (e.g. Scrub Island, Cooper, etc.)
  - Ichthypresbyter 6y ago
    >This is plenty of range for day trips throughout the Spanish, US, and British Virgin Islands. Or indeed the Stockholm Archipelago, which I imagine is what this is designed for.
    - mstade 6y ago
      For sure it's enough for the Stockholm archipelago, and pretty much everywhere else along the Swedish east or west coast. As a day cruiser 50 nautical miles is more than enough.
  - MikaelCandela 6y ago
    Yes! Mikael at Candela here. Our customers in Stockholm often do overnight trips to the arcipelago, changing overnight. Even with 230V/16 amps, which is common in the archipelago, the 40 kWh battery will charge up overnight. That’s an added advantage of having a very energy efficient boat - you don’t need a oversized and heavy battery.

JacobDotVI 6y ago

Does anyone know what their current status is? Their FAQs haven't been updated in over a year: >How many boats have you delivered? >As of March 2019, we have delivered 10 boats to customers in Sweden, Finland, Austria, the US and the British Virgin Islands. >When can you deliver? >We still have a few production slots available for deliveries for the summer of 2020. Scroll down and go to the order page to reserve one.

zackkatz 6y ago
The video reports they have delivered 12. Not exactly producing at scale!
- TheTruth321 6y ago
  This is the boating industry ... not google ads.
- gpapilion 6y ago
  There are very few boats that’s hit high scale production numbers. They are often custom, and the market is much smaller for higher priced boats. 12 is lower than I would have thought, sub 100 a year isn’t surprising.
  - cptaj 6y ago
    Yeah, most boat manufacturers in the world don't hit mass production numbers. Fiberglass is relatively easy to work with requiring very little tooling investment. You can also easily "clone" other boats by taking a mold of the hull. This means there are A LOT of mom and pop shops making amazing boats all over the world. 12 boats for these guys seems pretty good to me. Its very unproven technology and boaters don't like that. The sea is a rough environment and most wil prefer tried and true solutions with long supply chains for parts and service.
    - sandworm101 6y ago
      >> You can also easily "clone" other boats by taking a mold of the hull. Be careful about this. In a truly strange exception, american boat hulls are protected by US copyright law... the dreaded DMCA. "Title V of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act, provides sui generis protection for an “original design of a useful article” (where “useful article” is limited to boat hulls)." https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/vessel_hull_design_protection_act https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/vessel_hull_design_protectio...

sandworm101 6y ago

Ok. They put an electric motor on a hydrofoil. Where is the innovation? This isn't new stuff. Anyone can buy a hydrofoil hull and install an electric motor. The limitation always was, and remains, the wild impracticality inherent to hydrofoils regardless of power source.

willvarfar 6y ago
Why are hydrofoils inherently impractical? The homepage claims superior ride and comfort in bad sea states. Although hydrofoils are limited to about 400 tons, apparently, there have been several successful naval missile boats used by both sides in the Cold War. Wings in ground effect is another thing that’s cool.
- CrazyStat 6y ago
  > The homepage claims superior ride and comfort in bad sea states. For a limited definition of bad sea states--the FAQ says the limit before you might unexpectedly land is about 1m wave height, which wouldn't be a serious issue for an ordinary boat almost 8m in length [1]. That said, I do think there's a place for hydrofoils on sheltered bodies of water. There is (or was, 10 years ago) a regular hydrofoil ferry service that runs between Petrozavodsk and the island of Kizhi [2], which cuts travel time dramatically compared to a traditional ferry. [1] https://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/maritime/safety-rules/before-boating/wave-heights.html https://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/maritime/safety-rules/before-boat... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizhi_Pogost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizhi_Pogost
  - wazoox 6y ago
    Unless it changed recently, there is a regular hydrofoil line linking Vienna to Bratislava on the Danube. I rode it in 2015, it's a wonderfully kitsch piece of Soviet era kit, but does this beast fly!
    - 83457 6y ago
      I rode one 20 years ago to islands off the coast of Greece. One of the trips was rough though due to choppy seas. I recall seatbelts were required and barf bags were utilized by a few passengers.

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thatcherc 6y ago

This looks like a lot of fun, but I'm wary of its safety. Foiling boats (at least the sailboats) have a tendency to come down hard off the foils if not sailed exactly right. That's why you'll see helmets worn by sailors both on big foiling AC72s and F50s as well as a the single-handed Wazsps, Moths, and UFOs. The deep V profile the Candela's bow looks like it would handle dropping off the foil or hitting a big wave pretty well, and the 100 Hz foil control loop is reassuring, but my experience on little foiling sailboats would keep me cautious on one of these for a while. However, getting a boat to pop out above the waves is such an amazing feeling that I'd take a ride on one of these in a heartbeat (just maybe with a helmet!). Some foiling sailboat crashes for reference - - https://youtu.be/875yq0-ogwo?t=20 https://youtu.be/875yq0-ogwo?t=20 - https://youtu.be/frAkDEszgZc?t=26 https://youtu.be/frAkDEszgZc?t=26

darksaints 6y ago
I have some experience with foiling sailboats, and I would never expect the problems that foiling sailboats have to impact motorboats at all. Control problems are all well solved for motorboats, but the moment of a sail that is perpendicular to the direction of travel puts a huge kink in the picture that has been hard to tame. Even then, there have been huge strides lately...like the iFly 15, which uses a mechanical active controller which basically relies on two small rods with a float on the ends to measure foiling height and heeling, and mechanically adjust the coils to maintain stability. It works marvellously.
- mechhacker 6y ago
  I recently picked up a foil board to go with my other windsurf gear, and the sail is absolutely a confounding effect I've read some on the subject, and got a book by a famous boat designer, Kotaro Horiuchi, which describes the actions of the float controllers you are talking about as well as other aspects. Foil boats have to be fairly lightweight at the moment, which is why the america's cup boats are designed the way they are. I've also seen those e-foil surfboards but have never tried them as the price point seems absurd. My board (and all the foils I see on surf gear) just have enhanced static stability based on some combination of dihedral, a fuselage, and a negative lift rear wing, very similar to an airplane. That's because it's down to a shift of body weight, sailing forces, etc. It's become all the rage in the last 2-3 years with things still not quite standardized. I had to drill out my foil-approved board to get larger M10 bolts in there.

regularfry 6y ago

I want to strap wings to the side and make a foil/ground-effect crossbreed.

cagenut 6y ago
and then coat the wings with triple-junction GaAs solar panels for a 5kw "wind" at your back.
- tantalor 6y ago
  Strap one these babies on there for a real "solar wind" at your back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail

stevespang 6y ago

Price must be outrageous.

dharma1 6y ago

http://q-yachts.com/ http://q-yachts.com/ is also worth checking - not a hydrofoil but a beautiful (though expensive) electric boat

mstade 6y ago
Any idea how expensive? Asking for a friend.. :o)
- imustbeevil 6y ago
  Says EUR 183,000 here: https://yachtemoceans.com/q30-electric-boat https://yachtemoceans.com/q30-electric-boat
  - deleted 6y ago
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- trillic 6y ago
  If you have to ask...
- munificent 6y ago
  Keep in mind that purchase price is a smaller fraction of the total cost of ownership for a boat than for other kinds of vehicles. Marina, maintenance, etc. are much higher recurring expenses compared to, say, having a weekend sports car that just sits in the garage most of the time. Just because you can buy a boat, that doesn't mean you can afford a boat.
  - mstade 6y ago
    Oh believe my I know, I've been a boat owner for the past few years. Boats are money pits, no doubt, but also a lot of fun. The feeling of going out early in the morning in calm seas, as the sun is rising – it's hard to beat and makes you forget all the work and money involved in having those moments. Obviously it depends on what you're going to use the boat for, but for me personally it's all recreational. Boating makes me happy, and as much as I'll cuss and swear every time I have to do maintenance and upkeep I still think it's worth it. I'm sure you know the old adage of the two happiest days in a boat owner's life: the day you buy the boat, and the day you sell the boat. Still, we never learn. :o)

phebijohn 6y ago

NIce information

jfengel 6y ago

And here I was wondering what it was they had against Electric Boat[1]. Maybe they want to disrupt the submarine-builder market? [1] http://www.gdeb.com/ http://www.gdeb.com/

SkyMarshal 6y ago
That was my first interpretation too. Was relieved to find Electric Boat isn't being foiled by anything.

bullen 6y ago

To move 1.300kg of vehicle to transport 100-500kg of meat is not a prospect that makes sense. I also doubt the boat will handle well with 5 adults. Show me an electric (or dead-trees powered for that matter) boat made for one person that can foil or at least plane and maybe I'll be interested. For reference I made this bike which weighs the same as the person it transports and has batteries that last 10 years for $300 at almost the same range/speed, the bike including everything is $3.000 so 100x cheaper: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Felhjul.se https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=auto&tl=en&u=h...

mstade 6y ago
I can give you a first hand account of riding along in this boat in the next couple of weeks or so, a buddy of mine is getting his delivered tomorrow.
eMSF 6y ago
Can you sail with it? Exactly how are bikes relevant on a boat thread?
Candelaboat 6y ago
Hey Bullen, we do fine with 10 people on board. Check this video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1149405105441917 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1149405105441917 Do you also think that a Tesla Model 3, transporting 5 adults, but weighing in at above 1500kg is a bad idea?
- bullen 6y ago
  Yes, to produce enough electricity that everyone can have their tesla/candela is impossible because we are running out of cheap dead trees. Electricity is not an energy source. EROEI is already below 10 on the dead trees we use today (down from 100 a century ago, that's 10x or 1000% down). And you need dead-trees to build nuclear and hydro. Solar and wind are useless. A weight ratio of equal between transport (including energy storage) and transported is the only solution. Personally I find the half weight of lithium to not compensate for the complexity/price, so I recommend lead-acid.

LittleNemoInS 6y ago

Hardly the first... The SeaBubbles were tested on the Geneva lake (the one in Switzerland) three years ago... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeaBubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeaBubble

polack 6y ago
The Candela Seven is a finished product while the SeaBubble haven't made its way to production yet. With that in mind it's not unreasonable to think Candela had a prototype done before the Bubble...

sjburt 6y ago

I don't understand the point at all. At least in my area, most boats of this size are used for fishing, wake sports, or as a sailboat tender. Larger boats with a cabin and accommodations are common as party boats but this seems a bit too small.

Candelaboat 6y ago
There are plenty of markets & brands around the world that see lots of 8 meter sized day cruiser boats. Remember that boating is very locally adapted, with many boat models from Sweden never being exported to other regions, due to regional preferences and sea conditions.
- mcguire 6y ago
  Have you considered the bass-fishing market? Your boats are a little expensive but not terribly so. Speed might be a bigger problem.

quanticle 6y ago

How does one get one of these onto a trailer and down a boat ramp? It seems like the hydrofoil adds enough draft that it would scrape the bottom on a lot of public access ramps.

treeform 6y ago
On the website they show the foils retract into the boat.

kumarvvr 6y ago

Would this work if there are weeds or big fishes in the water? The foil would get damaged pretty quickly, before actually killing most of the fish it comes into contact with. The concept is very very old and well known. So there must be practical reasons why this was not commercialized.

Candelaboat 6y ago
Weeds can be an issue, unless the foils just cut through them. Taking off in a weed heavy water can be tricky, just like operating a jetski, a jet boat or a regular prop boat. It is true that a fish wouldn't fare too well either when hitting the leading edge of the foil, which is submerged to about 0.7 meters. However, the foil can take quite a beating. Regarding commercialization, which is a great question in itself, our experience tells us that it's due to: 1. It's hard to build controllable foils, especially in a "miniaturized" size like a 8 meter boat. 2. the technology to enable sufficient speed of electronic foil control hasn't been cheap nor good enough prior to the advent of consumer drones & smartphones.
- kumarvvr 6y ago
  As an electrical engineer, I'm intrigued. Do you actually control the angle of the foils during travel? Is it to maintain a set height or change height too. I know that too high, and the boat becomes unstable. I know that retracting the foils is a simple thing, relatively speaking. However, if you are actually controlling the foil angle, isn't the technology available for decades? I mean there are cooling water pumps that change the impeller vane angles during operation at 400 - 700 RPM, there are helicopter blades that change angles, ship propellers can also change angle during operation, etc. There are many examples. What technical problem have you specifically overcome in this case?
  - Candelaboat 6y ago
    Great question. What's different in our case is that the flight controller captures the boat’s movements from 7 sensors. Then it establishes the full-state 3×6 state matrix (position, velocity and acceleration with regards to position in x, y and x and rotation around the same axis). This is partly done using sensor fusion algorithms. We then use the outputs to control the angle of attack, along the longitudinal axis of the foil, essentially twisting it. The R&D that has gone into making this work reliably enough for a consumer product is our secret sauce.

tedhallez 6y ago

Imagine going through a NO WAKE zone at 35 mph

spurgu 6y ago
Generally wake size isn't a factor in "No wake" zones, they're instead enforced through speed limits. :( At least in Europe.
bob_theslob646 6y ago
This would be incredibly cool as well as a tremendous time saver because going through port or to a dock is at this speed due to wake.

generatorguy 6y ago

After seeing the foils finally catch on in water sports I have been wondering why there are no foil boats. Great to see someone has made it happen! I don’t do enough miles a year boating to care about the minor amount of fossil fuels I burn. I would be really interested in the foil tech with gas powered outboard. The foil boat must be must much more fuel efficient with a gas motor?

dzhiurgis 6y ago

Wonder if you can somehow combine foils with sea legs to walk that thing on the beach :)

fred_is_fred 6y ago

Thanks to our wonderful English language and the use of title case, I thought this headline was about countering or circumventing (foiling) the Electric Boat company - a manufacturer of submarines. The boat is cool, but I was hoping to see some anti-submarine warfare stuff here.

fsckboy 6y ago
same, but I thought it must be about underbidding Electric Boat on a contract, and at a glance I thought the story was about Canada. Depends on your perception of the most likely threat models :)

kiteloop 6y ago

Is there a good solution for removing sea grass that got tangled on the foil?

cjlars 6y ago

Do these things need to be drydocked? We have very fast and aggressive bottom growth where I live, race boats get cleaned every few weeks, cruisers develop a bit of sludge that turns into a full on boat bottom salad pretty quick.

Bubbadoo 6y ago

Does look like fun, but let's face it, 50 nautical miles is nothing on the water. I guess if you're on a lake the just under 60 mile range is enough to water ski but it's definitely not suited to deep water. And all carbon fiber, must cost a pretty penny. Great idea, hopefully battery technology innovates to give products such as this one a more practical use case.

jcampbell1 6y ago
I’ve done plenty of fishing 40 miles offshore in NC on a boat this sized. I can’t imagine anyone riding 80 miles in the ocean for “fun”. It is 5 hours of suck to catch fish. 60 miles seems like more than enough for day cruising. That being said, this boat is a total no go in NC due to draft... day cruisers have skiffs and sandbar parties.

jack_riminton 6y ago

Very smart solution. Looks like it could be the ideal candidate for some solar panels too

cwkoss 6y ago

How do foils affect the turning characteristics of boats?

dmitrygr 6y ago

> Always connected to the cloud via 3G network > High frequency data logging for enhanced > support and fleet learning When will manufacturers finally learn that these are NOT pros, they are very serious cons‽‽‽ I do not want my data sold, and unless you plan to pay me a rate I set, my data is not an asset you can use in developing your business.

valuearb 6y ago
Pretty sure anyone who can afford this boat isn’t concerned about Candela selling their data. Likely far more concerned that Candela uses the data to improve their experience.
renewiltord 6y ago
You're not in the target market.

kbenson 6y ago

So, if my napkin calculations on minimal Google searching are any indication, you get about half the range as you'd get in the 240 Bowrider (50 vs 100 nautical miles), which honestly seems pretty good. I'm not sure how much worse the efficiency is at lower speeds though, and there's almost always lower speeds involved for extended periods as you move through no wake zones. Additionally, emergency capacity might be an issue (an extra fuel can isn't really possible), and if you do run out of power, it's not like someone could offer one or bring one, you're really looking at a tow, from what I can see. Very cool though. Note: I used this[1] for some quick info on what kind of fuel efficiency the bowrider got at different speeds, and used fuel tank size to estimate range. 1: https://betterboat.com/average-boat-speed/ https://betterboat.com/average-boat-speed/