Attempt at fastest production e-boat record all set
Evoy Marine, one of Norway’s most promising and awarded green start-ups, has just successfully tested what the company is hoping will be the world’s fastest serial production electric boat. The record is currently held by SAY Carbon’s 29E and was set in June of 2018: 89 kilometres per hour / 55mph / 48 knots.
The Norwegian boat – named Evoy 1 – is a 8.6m / 28ft Polarcircle 860 workboat from Helgeland Plast, which seats 12 and is popular for industrial use in Arctic and near Arctic waters.
900 horsepower driving a 12 person workboat
It is essentially the standard edition 860, but with 14 Clean Marine battery packs below deck. And those packs drive an electric inboard motor that is 670 kilowatts, the equivalent of 900 horsepower. Yes, you read that correctly, not nine horsepower, not ninety horsepower – nine hundred horsepower!
Look at it go.
Evoy has been working since late 2018 with Helgeland (a subsidiary of AKVA group – Norge) and Clean Marine Switchboards with the shared goal of a first test run in June 2019. Inevitably in a project with this ambition and scope, there were a couple of delays. July 9 is not far off the mark, though!
The Evoy facebook page has a number of posts and videos that tell the story of the past few weeks leading up to the test. You can also read our story on some of the background behind Evoy founder Lief Stavøstrand’s dream of producing the world’s fastest serial production electric boat.
A few delays, but they made it
Lief wrote on the Evoy facebook page last Friday that “We had a hope to show you Evoy 1 at sea today, but a little hickup led to us to wait until over the weekend” but obviously the hiccup was overcome.
The first charging cycle took place on Saturday, July 6 and July 8 the boat is shown going down the launching ramp into the the ocean, and a post went up on facebook July 9 with the video above and the note “ Woohoo! 100 % Electric baby!”
Indeed!
Huge milestone for electric boats and motors
For all of the people one meets who are doubtful about the future of electric boats, this is a milestone example of what can be done when intelligent, creative and determined visionaries get to work.
Read about 6 other World 1sts in electric boats and ships
Congratulations to the entire Evoy, AKVA/Helgeland Plast and Clean Marine Switchboard teams. It also has to be noted that Evoy has received tremendous support from the Norwegian government’s Innovation Norway program for entrepreneurs as well as SSF, the largest bank in Evoy’s home county of Sogn og Fjordane.
Next steps are optimizing and testing of the motor through July, to see what speeds this amazing machine can achieve, and then Evoy 1 will be available for viewing and test driving at Aqua-Nor, the world’s largest aquaculture conference August 20th – 23rd. A promotional tour of Florø to Trondheim is also in the works for the first two weeks of August.
