Electric darling of Monte-Carlo ready for her closeup
The first boat to win the recently established Clearwater Rating Gold Standard for minimal marine environmental footprint is set for commercial launch this spring.
It. Is. Beautiful.
See for yourself. The video below shows the all-electric Vita 9.5 tender skimming the water of Italy’s Lake Maggiori.
The Vita was introduced at the Monaco Yacht Show last September and promptly stole the show.
One of the highlights of the yacht show is the Monte-Carlo Gala for the Global Ocean in support of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation. Lots up for bid last year included items donated from the likes of Madonna and Mick Jagger. The Vita received the largest bid of the evening: $2M for the 10 metre masterpiece.
A news post on the Clearwater Rating site notes that “Vita Power was established in 2017 to bring the latest in automotive technology and engineering to the marine world. Its team comprises Chairman and Founder, Stewart Wilkinson, Managing Director and naval architect, David Gray, Head of Power and Performance, Peter McKinlay, and Head of Production, Adrian Gusman. They bring a wealth of experience from related fields including electric boats, the superyacht sector and F1.”
The goal of Vita is “to craft beautiful, iconic boats that improve the environment we live in. Because we believe it should be possible to enjoy the water without putting it at risk.”
They’ve succeeded.
“Iconic boats that improve the environment we live in”
Patterned after classic 30s runabouts, the engineers collaborated with high end automotive customizers Garage Italia to provide things like butter soft leather seating for eight which can be configured for high speed, lounging and relaxation, or or with a dining table that rises from the cockpit floor and front seatbacks that flip down to create additional bench area. Food and drink is stored in the keel-cooled refrigerators living in the drawers underneath the seats.
For the locomotion aspect, it is powered by two PowerPhase HD220 motor systems by UQM, the Colorado company famous for working on Neil Young’s LincVolt electric automobile project.
They are linked up with four Kreisel 58.75kWh liquid cooled lithium ion battery packs using Vita’s proprietary “Powersafe” plug and play Power Distribution Unit.
The cockpit has an electronic fly-by-wire user interface and ‘bespoke steering wheel with tactile feedback’. Presumably in case the rest of your body can’t tell if you’re moving quickly!
All of the features and luxuries of the Vita are too numerous for this post, you can check out all of the specs in this .pdf on their website.
Impeccable design and unmatched power are only half the story.
The other half of the Vita story is the Gold Clearwater Rating.
The Clearwater Rating system was created by the Blue Marine Foundation to provide an independent and unbiased evaluation of a vessel’s environmental performance. The foundation also presents the OCEAN Awards in conjunction with BOAT magazine. The Silent-Yachts Solar 65 is nominated for an award this year.
Clearwater was launched by three experts in the field of technical compliance, motiviated by their shared frustration that no objective benchmarks existed for evaluating and grading the environmental footprint of superyachts and leisure vessels.
It is a non-compulsory rating. Manufacturers submit their boats for consideration with the goal of setting apart those vessels with a certified Clearwater Rating as an example of industry best practice.
The Gold Standard rating the Viva received is awarded “only for leisure yachts and powered motor vessels at the very cutting edge of the boating industry’s environmental best practice.“
