This is your SolarWakeup for September 28th, 2023

My World’s Collide. Some ten years ago a friend of mine took me to a boat auction, where dealers were buying repossessed boats and I was hooked. Living in South Florida, it’s hard to separate water from everyday life so I made a small investment that built one of the largest boat dealers in Fort Lauderdale. As a side effect, I tend to go to the boat show every year and while most of it is about the newest (read bigger) model that the same manufacturers put out, there’s always some new thing including some boats that had an electric/solar component. Mostly those were gondolas, or a solar powered dinghy with a 5hp trolling motor. But reading this article about an electric wakeboarding boat makes me long for the quieter lake days, wakesurfing until the sun goes down. We’re not going to electrify the marine industry but this thing could actually work and I love to see it. My electrification/battery/boat worlds colliding in 2023, that’s pretty damn cool. P.S. don’t worry about charging infrastructure for boats, shore power has been a thing for a very long time.

Opinion

Best, Yann