On a recent Wednesday, with the thermometer heading toward 90 degrees and the sun blasting, James Worden pulled up to a dock on the Charles River in Boston in a one-of-a-kind boat.
Designed and built in North Andover, the TruSolar boat resembles the kind of pontoon boat that would make for a fun summer afternoon on a lake. But its flat roof is made up of dual-sided solar panels, so that it can collect light from above and below, reflected off the water and the bright white boat itself.
Worden believes the technologies of lithium ion batteries, electric outboard motors, lightweight carbon fiber and solar panels have advanced enough — and come down in cost enough — that this prototype boat could be attractive to purchasers who operate water taxi or ferry services on busy harbors, lakes or rivers, where its top speed (today about 10 miles per hour) is plenty fast.
I hopped on board to check it out.
While the company that makes the boat, Worden Marine, was founded in 2022, Worden himself has a long history in solar technology. (And he says that an ancestor, Rear Admiral John L. Worden, was part of the famed Civil War battle between two “ironclad” vessels in Virginia, in command of the Monitor.)
As an undergraduate at MIT, he started a team to build solar-powered race cars, and by the time he was 21, Worden had been involved in building six of the 10 working solar-powered cars in the U.S.
A later startup he founded with his late wife, Anita, a fellow MIT alum, produced power inverters to convert the direct current electricity generated by solar panels into alternating current. That company was sold to Yaskawa Electric Corp. of Japan in 2014.
Anita and James co-founded Worden Marine, but she died of ovarian cancer at 54 in April 2023. James Worden said that in continuing to move forward with the company, he aims to keep her vision alive. Anita’s name is emblazoned on the side of the prototype vessel.
When the boat pulls away from the dock, it’s smooth and swishy like a rowing shell; there’s no rumble from the twin electric outboards in the back. Each one produces 10 horsepower.
The boat has a battery array that can store electricity from either a “shore power” connection — basically a plug at the dock — or the solar panels on the roof. A digital display at the helm has a map of the area, as well as info about how much charge is left in the batteries, and how much voltage is being generated by six Chinese-made solar panels on the roof. (Worden said he is looking for a domestic supplier for the company’s next vessel.)
Front Street Shipyard made the boat’s carbon fiber hull in Belfast, Maine.
Worden is not a speed demon. He’s happiest when the boat is cruising along entirely on solar power. On that day, with a cloudless sky, that was about 6 miles per hour. At this speed, the boat could run all day without pulling a single watt of power out of the batteries.
When I take the wheel, I push the throttle all the way up to find out the boat’s true top speed. We headed toward the Longfellow Bridge with the Museum of Science behind us, there’s a light headwind, and the TruSolar boat gets up to a bit over nine miles per hour, now sucking power from the batteries along with the solar panels. (The speed limit in this part of the river for motorboats is 10 miles per hour, and elsewhere on the Charles, it drops to six miles per hour.)
As we return to the dock in Cambridge, a trio of Coast Guardsmen is waiting for their test ride.
The company’s initial market will be ferries and water taxis that don’t need to carry dozens or hundreds of passengers, or go fast, Worden said. But he says that others may like the idea of a boat that doesn’t need to be fueled up for hundreds of dollars. That includes lobster fishermen, he said, who spend a lot of time just idling, “pulling up the traps and dealing with them.”
The TruSolar boat could also be interesting to dive boat operators in environmentally sensitive areas, he said.
Don Symington is a Boston charter boat operator who has been exploring different electric boats for use in the harbor, including as ferries. While he hadn’t yet been on the TruSolar boat, he said that the company may find “a terrific niche” for activities like “harbor tours, eco-cruises, resort shuttles, lake and river services — where uptime, low operating cost, minimal wake, and a calm onboard experience matter more than speed.”
Symington also said some potential buyers would find the “strong sustainability story” and Massachusetts-based manufacturing a plus. While some companies rent electric boats on Boston Harbor, he has yet to see a solar-powered vessel operating there, he said.
Worden said that his company’s next move is building a larger 40-foot version of the TruSolar boat, capable of carrying 16 passengers and two crew members at a top speed of 18 miles per hour. The design work is already underway, he said. Depending on the specific options, he expects that boat to sell for between $500,000 and $1 million.
Under the Trump administration, federal support for electric vehicles and charging networks has been dramatically cut, including incentives for buying electric cars and support for building charging stations.
“Electric vehicles are toast right now,” Worden said. “We’re going to fall behind China and Europe big-time.”
I asked Worden whether he thought that an apparent lack of interest at the federal level would make it harder to build and sell electric boats over the next few years.
His response? Stiff headwinds don’t discourage intrepid entrepreneurs.
“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy,” Worden said. “But maybe we can lead with electric boats.”
Stories by Scott Kirsner
Read the original article on MassLive.
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