Electric boat maker Candela is approaching cruising speed with $25 million in new funding and the first commercial deployment of its new P-12 ferry, in New Zealand.
The P-12, a ferry design that can handle up to 30 passengers, made its debut late last year.
Like any other industry, you have to know when to buy and when to build, and big boating companies are happy to buy — or invest.
Candela’s boats use hydrofoils with electric engines mounted on the bottom to effectively fly above the surface of the water once they get past a certain speed, vastly reducing energy consumption — historically and understandably a sticking point for electric boating.
Theh $25 million round was led, as mentioned, by Beneteau, with participation from EQT Ventures, Ocean Zero LLC, and Kan DelaAB.
Ocean intelligence company Saildrone has just put the first of a new generation of Surveyor autonomous vessels in the water: an aluminum version that the Navy is keen to take advantage of.
Founder and CEO Richard Jenkins told TechCrunch that the demand for vessels like SailDrone’s is only growing.
So far, no one has suggested weaponizing the Saildrone vessels, though.
The Austal line is expected to be able to put out one Surveyor every six weeks to start with.
SD-3000 and a few of its in-progress aluminum kin will be detailed to Navy testing of its capability of producing “surface and undersea intelligence for a range of high-priority applications, including anti-submarine warfare.”
Electric boat startup Navier has landed the first official pilot program for its hydrofoiling watercraft, partnering with Stripe to bring passengers from San Francisco’s outskirts to the downtown area.
Stripe will pay Navier to shuttle employees from Larkspur, where a number of them are concentrated, to its office near Oyster Point.
But as a pilot program, the intent is not to operate at scale but to identify the means of and barriers to that scale.
Other coastal cities with commute problems may take notice if the pilot program goes well.
“We’re introducing a water shuttle service equipped with amenities that enhance on-the-go productivity, such as desks and Wi-Fi.
Satellite imagery and machine learning offer a new, far more detailed look at the maritime industry, specifically the number and activities of fishing and transport ships at sea.
Satellite imagery offers a new perspective on this conundrum: you can’t hide from an eye in the sky.
The dark fishing industry is huge — perhaps as big again as the publicly documented one.
“Fish are an important dynamic resource that move around, so openly tracking fishing vessels is fundamental for monitoring fish stocks.
The global community only hears second-hand, and one of the study’s findings was that the Asian fishing industry is systematically under-represented.
