boats

This sub could make even Philippe Cousteau, with so many water toys at his disposal, a little jealous.

The Ego "compact semi-submarine" from Raonhaje--showcased at the Miami Boat Show last week--functions as both a motor boat and as a sub that seats two just below the water's surface.

Instead of using a rudder and outboard motor, both the Ego LE (luxury edition) and the Ego SE (standard edition) are run by electric podded propulsion with a battery-powered BLDC (Brushless DC electric motor).

The completely battery-powered sub uses a Trojan T-890 battery pack--a golf-cart battery--that allows the … Read more

International Battery and Electric Marine Propulsion have partnered to build a yacht that runs on wind energy even when its sails are lowered, both companies announced on Tuesday.

The Tang is a 60-foot hybrid-electric Tag Yachts catamaran with twin E motion 18-kilowatt permanent-magnet motors powered by a 144-volt lithium ion battery pack. The batteries charge onboard from wind-generated electricity of sorts, though this boat isn't exactly sporting small-wind turbines.

"The main renewable energy input to the large-format battery pack is electricity regenerated by wind power as the boat's propellers spin in the wake, under sail. The propellers turn the 18-kilowatt propulsion motors, which automatically become generators and send electricity back to the batteries," according to International Battery.

… Read more

Crave's on fire this week with plenty of pseudo-inappropriate comments that may make you think you're listening to that other CNET podcast. But don't fret: We keep things just this side of decent with a hand-crank car driven by a beatnik (to new age dance music, no less), a super awesome garbage can made from repurposed trash, and an adorably annoying alarm clock that is will provide endless drunken entertainment at your next party. Things start to go a little off the deep end when we take a look at a flash drive preloaded with porn and wax poetic about a unique boat that--as Eric so aptly notes--"unzips the pants of the ocean." Finally, this week's fat-inducing food mashup disgusts Jasmine so much that she almost drops an F-bomb.

As far as we know, the zipper boat is a one-off project by Japanese artist Yasuhiro Suzuki, making its relevance to a consumer technology blog marginally suspect. Problem is, this thing is too creative not to share, especially on a Friday afternoon.

You can read more about the zipper boat on InventorSpot, which includes more details and video. You can also check out the artist's own page here.

Pirates Lite is a fun three-level preview of Pirates: Sea Battle 2, a nautical-combat arcade game in which you fight enemy ships with cannons and boarding parties.

The game has an easy-to-learn, two-thumb touch-screen interface: you move and steer your ship with a spinning steering wheel under your right thumb, while firing cannons with your left thumb. To fire on an enemy ship, you want to turn around to broadsides (so the side of your ship is facing your target), then press the cannon button to fire some or all of your guns. Status meters on each ship--including your own--show … Read more

Titanic Rescue is a simple, cartoonish, quick-to-play arcade game in which you rescue dapper little gentlemen from a sinking ship.

The touch-based interface is both fun and challenging: you can touch and "flick" passengers off the ship (hopefully in a helpful trajectory) and you rescue the passengers by sliding a row of lifeboats (and, later, life preservers) underneath the falling passengers. The gameplay is quick, intuitive, and challenging, as you switch back and forth between flicking dudes and maneuvering boats. Passengers will bounce off of boats and full life preservers (although more than three will sink a boat), … Read more

A skipper's dream of sailing across the ocean using solar power is about to come true. More impressively, he'll be sailing on arguably the world's largest pollution-free yacht, the PlanetSolar, which was unveiled Thursday at the HDW Shipyard in Germany.

Raphael Domjan, the skipper and CEO of the PlanetSolar project, regards this event as a confirmation that "the solar-powered boat is now a reality." Since the '80s, Domjan has been dreaming of touring the world using the minimum amount of energy. He envisioned a solar-powered boat in 2004 and the PlanetSolar project has been in … Read more

Lithium ion battery company Valence plans to supply batteries to Siemens for hybrid ships and to Chicago utility S&C Electric for grid storage.

Its deal with Siemens Drive Technologies calls for Valence to develop energy storage for a planned hybrid marine propulsion system from Siemens. Valence will hook up its lithium iron magnesium phosphate batteries to Siemens' drive system via a standard interface, the company said.

The two companies have already supplied a hybrid drive train for double-decker buses from Wrightbus.

Valence on Wednesday said it intends to supply grid-connected storage systems for S&C Electric, which … Read more

Canadian watercraft maker Sea-Doo is unveiling the Sea-Doo GTX Limited iS 255 and RXT 255 models this week at the Miami Boat Show.

Although personal watercraft is a little out of our realm for The Car Tech blog, and we won't be test driving the new Sea-Doo models, we can't pass up revealing Sea-Doo's new technology. The new Sea-Doo models offer an industry first for personal watercraft-- suspension and braking systems.

The Intelligent Brake and Reverse (iBR) is a Sea-Doo offers an on the water braking system and a hands-on-the-handlebars reverse. A lever on the left handlebar … Read more