Matt Trulio

A little amplification, http://speedonthewater.com/new-boats...-it-works.html.

Ted G

iTrader: (1)

Not to be negative or anything, because it is a cool concept, but is a 40 mile range really usable? Seems to me a little less power (God did I say that?) and more range would be the way to go. But I guess if they are going to set a speed record the power is where it's at.

compedgemarine

it is interesting technology and I love that but really they spent $5 mil to build a boat that in 6 months will be rerigged with piston motors because lets face it, it is useless. if I put in near my house and ran to the south end of the lake I could not make it back home. granted I would come out ahead on my Seatow membership as they would have to tow me in every time I used it but what fun is that. I know that we all need to explore new tech to power cars and boats but jumping ahead of the tech and building an unusable product is a waste of time and a turn off to the future buyers. if the next version can run for 10 hours all everyone will remember is "the Cigarette that quite after an hour". just my $.02.

PremierPOWER

Honestly I think it's pretty cool (even though a waste in a sense since the technology isn't quite their yet to make this marketable) that a performance boat company (along with MB of course) is spending money on a project like this, in the current economy, just for the hype and marketing. Seeing all the performance boats today at the show and what they are doing just makes me more upset that Donzi isn't there trying to make a comeback

pstorti

iTrader: (2)

They said you get an hour of runtime calculated as follows, 15 minutes idling, 30 min at 70, a couple of bursts to 120, 15 min idling back in. or some thing like that, it supposedly has 4 65KW battery packs.

A few pics from the booth for those who can't make it to the show








6 electric motors on each side 3 front and 3 back

J-Bonz

iTrader: (3)

I second that

HabanaJoe

I think you guys really are underestimating what PR/advertising really costs?

When you look at Cigarette say chipping in the boat, rigging & booth cost that they would spend anyway and MB doing the rest the cost to CRT is very small.

Even let's say $4.8M for AMG/MB, that is still nothing. When you look at MB sponsoring fashion week across the globe, NY, Chi, Miami, LA, Paris, London, Milan, etc with a cost of many $10's of millions.

When we do HVAC/Power for large fashion shows in NYC, a one night event can be up to $100,000 for just our part alone plus all the decorating, venue rental, food, etc, etc, etc, etc some large off site fashion shows are in excess of $750K for one night after it's all said and done.

When you look at the square inches of magazine, newspaper, in person at dealers, in person at other shows(square feet) and internet visibility that CRT, MB & AMG will get for next to nothing (only $5m) just because the pictures are plastered all over the world amounts to way over $50m globally if it was purchased.

This, in this economy is a no brainer and a smart move. It doesn't matter what any of you think about whether this boat is saleable or desirable because to the 10's of millions of people that will see it through all the media it will be in - they will all think it's great, it's cool and I wish I had one - that's what this is all about!

akaboatman

iTrader: (1)

This may be way out there but . If it had a gen. How long to charge the batterys ? As in a early run to the lake an recharge from gen. Just asking i know nothing about this. Artie

HabanaJoe

I wrote what's below on another thread about this boat, not gen to charge but how to maybe use gen to power the electric drives in a non-convential way. You could in theory have a micro turbine generator for slight charging, even to run the motors for say idle time or slow cruise? I go back to our power tests in 1990 of the 40' SH patrol boat, it took 650hp (actual Hp used) to push a 14,000 weighted performance boat to 60 mph. With that said a 40 mph cruise might be say 300hp only, you could get that from a micro turbine and use the batteries only for short bursts to 90 mph or say 70 for 30 minutes, then slow down and charge back up???

Anyway see my thoughts below:

If you wanted a hybrid performance boat, why not use a turbine generator for the electric power? As far as I know turbines with mechanical connections to the drive are still problematic, docking, slow speeds the turbines themselves don't like rpm changes, they are best run at a constant rpm with a varing load instead of varying rpm.

If you used an aircraft type generator end, 400hz, they are smaller, lighter in frame size then you could in effect run the turbine at rated speed and vary through the motor controllers the prop speed to 4, 40, 400 or 4,000 rpm whatever your shaft speed is only mechanically capped by the load you exert on it or controls you install.

I get the part that a trubine at speed is very loud which is bad, I think you can run the turbine slower say to make 60hz or 120 hz and be able to produce enough current still to run the drive motors at slow boat speeds, this would be for docking, idleing, slow speed in the IC etc while still having full output shaft RPM range output through the motor controllers. The turbine goes into full rpm mode after you push the throttles past a set point - all possible, the cost of this, yes very high but is possible.

Your thoughts on theory not practicality and be gentle

bcfountain

Nice color