Getty Image / JOSH EDELSON / AFP
Candela Boats has successfully set a new world record for the longest distance traveled in 24 hours by an electric boat and they’ve quadrupled the previous record.
Prior to their record-setting achievement with the Candela C-8 Polestar Powered boat, the previous record for the furthest distance traveled in 24 hours was 79 nautical miles in 20 hours. Candela’s C-8 hydrofoil boat, powered by an electric car battery from Polestar, made it 420 nautical miles in 24 hours.
They had an average cruising speed of 17 knots (19.5 MPH) during the record-setting trip and that included charging breaks to juice the Polestar battery back up. The team also captured portions of their incredible feat on video and released a 4 minute video of the highlights.
World Record: Longest Distance Traveled In 24 Hours By An Electric Boat
Their journey was roughly the (land) equivalent of traveling from Amsterdam to London and back by car. And according to Candela Boats, they “could have driven the 240 nm from Stockholm to Helsinki in 13 hours, 3 hours faster than the Finland ferry.”
As a testament to how cost-effective this method of travel is, they shared that this cost approximately €120 euros worth of electricity. The same trip would cost approximately €1400 in fossil fuels.
They also shared that a boat running on fossil fuels would emit an average of 1785 kg of carbon dioxide over a 420 nautical mile journey. With the electric boat, they only emitted 174 kg of CO2 during the record-setting journey.
Incredibly, the electric boat was able to reach a top speed of 27 knots (31 mph) and still make incredible time on its record-setting voyage. All of this bodes incredibly well for the future of electric boat travel in various corridors around the world, Europe included.