SPEED@SEAWORK
BOATS @ SPEED @ SEAWORK Jake Frith dusts off his post-Covid seaboots and experiences a range of high-speed craft in their natural environment
8 Tideman Boats RBB700 EO 150
Eight boats were available at this year’s Speed@Seawork sea trials day, ranging from 50 knot+ military interdiction and troop insertion craft to one of the world’s most usable electric workboats. As usual, a small but high-level set of delegates from all corners of the globe were there to take advantage of what is a rare opportunity – to see how boats from different manufacturers perform in open water with no speed limits. Speed@Seawork, based out of Cowes Yacht Haven, has run three times now, I’ve attended them all, and I’ve never once managed to get out on all the boats in the course of the day. This year was no exception, but every boat I did sample in its own way represented an important milestone in commercial small craft. Tideman Boats RBB700 EO 150 These tough HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) workboats are already well known to Seawork visitors. When Bruno Tideman takes a long-handled sledgehammer to the gunwale of one of his boats in Mayflower Park, all the exhibitors wake up, but there can be few more memorable ways to show how work-aday and tough a boat’s construction is. While this electric version can push up to 35 knots, its range at that speed is best not discussed in polite company. It is powered by the EVOY 150hp (equivalent) electric outboard, which is an expensive but clever bit of kit with its permanent magnet synchronous motor providing 90kW continuous and 137kW peak power. The liquid-cooled 63kWh battery allows for a five-hour range at ‘cruising speeds’ and it’s really intended for the Dutch canals, where they are serious about their speed limits and full compulsory electrification is due to come in by 2025 at the latest. It is a planing hull though and it got up and going nicely
through the Solent chop, but that capability will not be regularly utilised. It’s well suited to roles such as harbourmasters, who spend most of the time at a slow cruise, but might occasionally need a burst of speed to apprehend a miscreant or attend an emergency. It can charge at up to 60kW, so about 1 hour with DC. AC charging is a more involved affair at 3.3 kW. Fully electric boats are not cheap when it comes to CAPEX, but reduced OPEX claws it back. Tideman says that typical return on Investment break-even arrives within 2-5 years for commercial users. SEAir FT80 I don’t think the other exhibitors would argue with my saying that the longest queues of the day were for a sea trial aboard SEAir’s hydrofoiling RIB. In fact, the queues were mainly made up of the other boat manufacturers, deadly keen to experience this unicorn. Making hydrofoiling work at the scale of an 850kg 8m RIB, and achieving it with a reliability that allowed this boat to stay
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8 SEAir FT80
JULY 2022 | 11
