What’s the best folding boat design for an electric outboard?

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These days, everyone wants to use an electric outboard. My how fast things change!

 

Even 5 or 10 years ago, electric motors were nothing but a low-power trolling option for fishing “experts” wanting to “sneak up” on their fish.  Fish finders in hand, they trolled around the water, looking for the right place to drop the hook.

 

Nobody was thinking that an electric motor would be anything but a novelty.

 

And then there came Tesla. The electric car was a novelty too, now you can’t drive for more than 5 minutes without meeting one on the road.

 

And, just like every car manufacturer has come out with an electric car, so too, have the numbers of makes & models of electric outboards exploded.

 

But in this case, the motor manufacturers are missing the big part – the wheels & chassis parts – because none of them are selling a boat!  That means that as the eco-conscious boater (which are most of us these days!), we are left to pair their choice of electric outboard with a boat designed for old-school gasoline engines! 

 

Not quite a match made in heaven! Here’s why…

 

The main design criteria for old school boats is how fast & easily they can get up on plane, not for how efficiently they cut through the water.

 

That means that almost the entire fleet of boats to choose from is designed like a box with a triangle up front. Get the thing up on plane, they say!

 

For us electric outboard types, plane is what we use to go to far-away places and not anything to do with boats. We prefer our time on the water to be quiet, smooth, stable and environmentally responsible. We’re not interested in scaring off the fish or bumping over the manatee – we want to cruise next to them, to enjoy them and yes, to do fishing in our favorite spots also.

 

But we don’t need a trolling motor for that – we’re already electric.

 

What does the right boat for the electric outboard look like? The right boat for electric looks more like a knife (or set of knives) cutting through the water, and not a box with a triangle up front.

 

And that’s the story behind the AquaNaut folding boat – designed for electric with minimum resistance.