I I’ve run many different electric-powered boats over the last 30 years. Some were hybrids—combining a diesel engine, a battery bank and an electric motor for a 6-knot speed. Others were fully electric boats—most of them 20- to 30-foot launches. The more I ran these boats, the more I grew to dislike them. Their all-electric ranges were unpredictable and underwhelming, the switching systems for the hybrids felt like clunky high-school science projects, and the general idea of moving along at 6 to 8 knots was something I’d personally rather do in a salty, diesel-powered displacement trawler that sips fuel. My distaste became so acute that one of my colleagues at Soundings began calling me the “fossil fuel curmudgeon.”
My sour taste for electric boats was going to change, though.
I was at the 2021 Newport International Boat Show when a text popped up from Patrick DeSocio, head of North American sales for X Shore, a Swedish boatbuilder and technology startup based in
