The Boat

Our boat, called Electra, was a 6.5m RIB with a fully electric propulsion system and two people on board. The boat was built in the Netherlands and coded to CE Category C and was carrying two 63kWh liquid-cooled lithium-ion batteries with a 6.6 kW onboard AC charger and a fast DC charger.

Electra

Electra is a modified 6.5m aluminium Galaxy RIB built by Ukrainian company GALA.

She was modified for electric propulsion as a 'one off' by Dutch company The Greenwave and the deck was raised to install the two 63kWh batteries. The powertrain was supplied by Norwegian company EVOY and the system is managed by a Battery Management System which can be remotely monitored.

Sponsors provided additional equipment specifically for the Challenge, such as suspension seats, radar reflector and AIS.

Charging Accessories

The boat can charge using AC or DC power. It is faster and more efficient to charge with DC and recently the marine industry has seen a growth in availability, especially along the South Coast. Our DC charging capacity is limited to 0.7C, which means for a 63kWh battery the max DC charge it can accept is around 44kW. Even with a 75kW fast charger the charge rate will remain at 44kW.

Our AC charging capacity is controlled by the On Board Charger (OBC) which is 6.6kW. For a 32A 240V single phase supply offering just over 7kW we would be limited to charging at 6.6kW.

For our Challenge to be viable we needed to be able to fast charge at as many locations as possible, including unplanned stops!

Where a fast DC charger was available along the South Coast or elsewhere we hooked up to that and were charged in a jiffy!

Where a 63A or 32A 415V 3 phase red commando or CEE socket was available we charged using the Kempower AC-DC inverter giving us a 40kW or 20kW DC charging speed respectively. These connections made up around 35 or our planned charges.

Where an EV Type 2 charger was available close enough to a wharf wall we were able to charge at 6.6kW AC using a standard Type 2 cable.

Where a 32A 240V blue commando or CEE socket was available we were able to charging at 6.6kW AC as above.

Where we had to stop unexpectedly and top up the charge then we generally recovered the vessel and took it to a fast car charger... but we needed to park across all the charging bays to ensure the DC cable could reach so this was always done in the middle of the night!