Hybrid Taxi Boat in front of Grand Harbour Hotel (Southampton, UK) during Hybrid Boat workshops.
In Pursuit of a Better Way
With huge thanks to our sponsors and supporters around the World, we’re delighted to bring you a final update this year regarding Project Venice: our pioneering endeavour to develop a drop-in Marine Hybrid drivetrain.
It’s been a busy autumn - both in and out of the water… The Taxi Boat had an outing at Southampton Sustainability Week and Workshops (read more below) and is expected to become a complete Hybrid after the Christmas Break.
Until then we wish all of you a very good holiday and a great start into the new year!
Testing, Testing…
Following its final test run of 2016, our prototype boat is now out of the water, ready to be fitted with the battery and the rest of the components that make up the hybrid system. The last tests we’ve conducted this autumn were with the diesel system alone. This enabled us to log vital baseline data such as speed and fuel consumption and check our propeller fit (see graph).
The blue dotted line shows the propeller curve that we had predicted and the black line with triangles shows the actual data recorded on the test run. Both lines do show nicely that we chose the correct propeller for this boat and engine and we are likely to hit the engine's max power at max RPM.
We can now use the data collected on this last test run to simulate how the boat will act as a hybrid system.
Sold Out at Sustainability Week!
We were delighted to provide an insight into the world of sustainable marine technology as part of Southampton Sustainability Week in October. There, our Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Dr Dennis Doerffel, delivered an inspirational talk at the University of Southampton at which he was able to raise awareness of Project Venice.
Later in the week we gave members of the public the opportunity to take to the water on our electric rib.
Two days’ worth of tickets sold out almost immediately, prompting us to offer another day to our packed schedule!
Nearly 40 people and two film crews got in on the action and, without exception, everyone was impressed by the rib’s performance and silence. Dennis also explained the Venice Taxi Boat Hybrid System and answered any questions.
It was a perfect opportunity for us to inform and demonstrate the benefits of electric and hybrid vehicles of all types.
Will we be getting involved in Sustainability events like this again next year? Definitely!
You can watch a couple of videos about the Sustainability Week by clicking here.
A Grand Entrance
If you happened to drive past Southampton’s iconic waterfront Grand Harbour Hotel in late October, you couldn’t help but notice our Venetian water taxi in pride of place on the front lawn (see image above). It was there for the duration of the Next Generation Hybrid Power & Propulsion Workshop, during which Dennis was asked to talk about developing Hybrid Commercial Off The Shelf solutions for commercial, leisure and military craft. http://www.shockmitigation.com/news-detail/review-of-next-gen-shock-mitigation-workshop-/251/
Dennis presentation triggered a staggering level of interest from participants and we hope to announce some exciting news in the near future!
Looking Towards 2017
Despite underfunding, the passionate team here at REAP Systems is putting every spare hour we have into making our vision, and that of our supporters, a reality. Our next steps are to complete the Hybrid System Control Unit and battery assembly stage of the project. By January all the hardware will be in place as well as the software implementation.
Finally, the boat is now also wearing the REAPsystems colours ...
....and all of the current sponsor’s logos have been applied!
Thank you!
We are extremely thankful to all our supporters and hope that you appreciate this project update.