I had the pleasure of motoring the Canadian Electric Boat Company’s Torqeedo electric motor powered Fantail to the Fort Lauderdale Jazz Brunch in December. It was my first experience captaining an electric boat for an extended cruise and a very enjoyable experience it was!  My journey started early morning in Dania motoring west on the Dania Cut-off canal taking the scenic route to the South Fork of the New River. Cruising in silence on a cool morning with a warm sun on my back, sipping a hot coffee made a great start to the day. 

This is a wonderful nature boat. While transiting the Pond Apple Slough, the restored wetlands which connects the Dania Cut-off to the New River, I was able pass within feet of herons on the bank without spooking them. A cormorant surfaced in front of the boat and didn't flinch as I passed close abeam, even an osprey nearly landed on the foredeck with a fish in its talons and only flew away when it spotted me. Not a single creature was disturbed by my presence as I followed a young manatee in the canal for about 100 yards and only over took it when the canal widened enough for me to pass without spooking the beautiful creature.

I picked up a colleague from the yacht he is living on and tied a 12’ Hobie Eclipse stand up paddle board on top of the bimini top. The bimini top was plenty strong to support the 50 lb. SUP and gave the boat a cool VW bus vintage feel!  During the Jazz Brunch I had a constant stream of inquiries about this unique, cute boat while tied up to the sea wall at Esplanade Park.  After the brunch was over, I gave a couple of demonstration rides to the curious. One ride having 8 people on the boat without being cramped in the perimeter seating which also made for a great social conversational boat as everyone can see everyone, even the captain can take part in the conversation or be a tour guide! 

I performed a couple of high speed runs at 7 mph with passengers which is plenty of speed to navigate the tidal currents in southeast Florida canals while still creating a minimal wake.  Optimum cruise speed is 5.5 mph and the boat leaves zero wake at that speed, this may be the fastest “no wake” boat on the water!

I embarked on my journey back to Dania down the New River, south on the intracoastal and motored up the 15^th Street canal for an early dinner.  The boat ran wonderful in the wider, busier intracoastal and keeping up with the power boats was a non-issue.  Crossing the mouth of Port Everglades there was a small craft advisory so I kept the boat in-shore but I still wanted to test the seakeeping ability so I motored down the inlet a bit to experience 1’ to 1.5’ waves. The Fantail handled the waves nicely, like any 22’ mono-hull sailboat would and we took no water or spray in the boat.

I arrived at my house in Dania at sunset with 52% of battery power left after 5 hours of cruising, running against currents for half of the trip, giving demo rides, and multiple short high speed runs.  My concern about battery range was unfounded and that was with lead acid batteries.  An owner can extend the range with gel or lithium batteries and/or solar panels if you wanted to motor beyond 10 hours. 

Highlights from the cruise: the Fantail is extremely comfortable, very easy to wash (no motor flushing, just spray the outdrive), and with my rough math, it only cost me $2 of electricity to recharge the batteries from my 110 V dock power!   Couple that with no expensive 100 hour service (required on all 4 stroke engines) and elegant simple design makes this one of the easiest to maintain boats on the water!

This ride has changed my mind about the functionalities of E-boating and I look forward to doing it some more!

Cheers,

Scott Mulvania

Nautical Ventures Marine