Pure Watercraft adds 3 new electric boat packages

Three new electric boat packages from innovative Seattle electric outboard manufacturer Pure Watercraft expand the company’s range to five motor and hull combinations for different uses.

While the Pure motors can be purchased alone, the company is also pursuing a strategy of partnering with well known and respected hull manufacturers to attract boaters who are thinking of electric propulsion but maybe not yet convinced to ‘make the plunge’.

Pure Watercraft founder and CEO Andy Rebele said “We’re making it easier than ever before for people to enjoy a best-in-class electric boating experience at a price competitive with similar gas models.”

Now 5 electric boat packages

The company’s first two packages – the Pure electric motor married with Highfield solid RIB boats (Rigid Inflatable Hull) – were showcased at the Seattle Boat Show in January.

To make up the line of 5 they are adding 3 packages for distinctly different boaters and boating experiences:

• A bass fishing boat with hull by TRACKER
• A pontoon boat ‘party barge’ by Sun Tracker
• A rowing coach boat in conjunction with Stillwater

The rowing coach boat hearkens back to how PureWatercraft came to be. Founder Andy Rebele was a collegiate rower and coached the freshman team at Boston College when he was at MIT. He says “Rowing is an aesthetic sport—you’re out on the water, the scenery is beautiful, the rowing is beautiful. The only ugly thing about the day is the obnoxiously loud motor behind you.”

It was 9 years ago, in 2011 that he set out to correct that and create an electric boat motor that would be truly competitive, in performance and price.

To get what they wanted they had to build it themselves

The more he and the development team he built looked into how to achieve that, the more it became evident that they needed to develop all of the pieces – including the battery – themselves.

There is a great blog post on the Pure Watercraft site that details the journey of achieving the goal, with a detailed section on the battery story.

To keep it short: the big EV battery manufacturers had bigger fish to fry than developing something for a start-up electric boat motor company…if PW purchased ‘off the shelf’ components the price to consumers would be too high because they would have to mark up something they were already paying top dollar for…and Pure Watercraft’s name would be on the line if there were problems, not the supplier’s.

So to get exactly what they wanted, they had to build it exactly the way they wanted it. The story was much the same with the motor, especially when the goal was to build one that would “weigh about half as much as those we had found, have about 1/3 smaller diameter, and cost 2/3 less per unit.”

So it was with every link in the chain, even the smaller ones that are still immensely important, like the propeller. Instead of accessing generic props, they designed their own and tested them with computer simulations. As Andy told Seattle Business magazine:“We had nothing until we had everything.”

All the work paid off, though. It forced them to look at different ways to achieve their goals, like integrating components they had previously imagined as separate, and the end result was the Pure Outboard, a 25kW all electric outboard with the propulsive power of a 50HP fossil fuel motor. The motor weighs in at 118 lbs / 53 kg and their lithium-ion battery has 8.8kWh capacity with energy density of 165wH/kg.

One of the first tests for the Pure outboard was putting it on a rowing coach boat piloted by Bob Ernst, four-time coach of the U.S. women’s Olympic team. Ernst said when he experienced the silence and smooth ride “It was the most exciting boat ride I’ve ever had.”

Proven results in many different uses

Next up, Pure Watercraft put their boat in the US Electric Boat Association’s annual Wye Island competition and won. Then they put the Pure Outboard on a bass fishing boat and entered it in a tournament, sparking the BBZ (Big Bass Zone) website to say: “History has been made, an all-electric powered craft takes first place and big bass honours in a field featuring high caliber anglers and modern day gas powered fishing vessels.”

Now, with the two Highfield RIBS, the TRACKER fishing boat, the SunTracker party barge and Stillwater coach boat, the Pure outboard is linked with industry-leading hulls known for their durability and efficient design and provide something for everybody.

Prices and specs are below. Pure Watercraft is now accepting pre-orders on these electric boat packages with a $500 fully refundable deposit on their website. First shipments are anticipated to begin in early 2021.