It’s not a strange sight to see silent flying boats zipping around the Stockholm Archipelago, where Swedish boatmaker Candela produces its C-7 hydrofoil electric speedboats.
That popular model has already spread across Europe and the US as well, but is soon to have its position as the company’s flagship model usurped by Candela’s next-generation C-8. The new model will be formally launched a week from today at the Salone di Nautico Boat Show in Venice, Italy.
The Candela C-8’s groundbreaking design was officially unveiled last August ahead of its production, showing off the planned engineering and design of the flying electric speedboat.
Gliding above the waves, the C-8 flies on a pair of computer-controlled hydrofoils that automatically raise, lower and make fine tune adjustments over 100 times per second to create an ultra smooth ride.
Candela’s engineers, many of whom hail from the aircraft and drone industry, designed the boat to significantly reduce the energy required to cruise at speed while spending a day on the water.
A typical 28-foot boat of similar size to the C-8 uses around 15 times more energy than a family car. That should make sense, as shoving heavy water out of the way at high speed isn’t a job for the weary. That’s also one of the reasons that electric boats have often had either notoriously short ranges or exceedingly high prices from massive battery packs required to provide decent range.
But to avoid that problem altogether, Candela’s boats simply remove water from the equation, or at least fly directly above it. Once reaching a few knots of speed, the boats automatically “takeoff,” lifting themselves out of the water and significantly reducing the amount of energy required to cruise at a constant speed. The boat uses around 25% of the energy required by a typical speedboat, allowing it to achieve “longer range than any other fast battery-powered boat on the market – despite having a smaller battery pack.”
The design has proven so popular locally that the C-8 has outsold most other gas-powered speedboats in its size class. electrek - link - Micah Toll- link - more like this (Sweden) - link - more like this (electric shipping) - link
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