Boats - Shem Creek 2

March 19, 2009

The world’s first electric hybrid sports boat

Chris Anthony, co-founder of the company that produces the Aptera 2e electric car, says their Epic Wakeboats 23E burns 50% less fuel and emits 1/2 as much CO2 as a typical wakeboard boat during a four-hour trip on the water.

The 22′ is a series hybrid that uses a small gasoline engine to drive a generator which keeps the lithium-ion batteries going as they empty out – similar to what’s in a Chevrolet Volt. The batteries are mounted along the centerline of the boat, and can be recharged from a common 110/220 volt wall socket.

The boat is expected to cost around $150,000 come July, but they hope to produce a $70,000 model by 2012.

If you’re still interested, the closest dealer right now is Southern Ski Boats up north in Virginia.

February 3, 2009

Discover shipwrecks at home with GE’s new Ocean layer

U.S.S. Hunley markers
(Credit: Google Earth)

Like a million other people today, I played around with the newest version of Google Earth, that voyeuristic fantasy ride of an application that any wanna-be adventurer could easily get lost in for hours.

The first thing I checked with their new ‘Ocean’ layer is whether or not the excavation site for the H.L. Hunley was marked or not – unfortunately NOT. Then I figured I’d pull the lat. & long. coords. up and at least get an idea of exactly where it was, so I went to National Geographic because they were out there flying their helicopter the day the sub was pulled up – yea, I was there, and it was awesome!

Anyway, from the map they had in the article (see below), I saw that the U.S.S. Hunley was pretty much right next to the U.S.S. Housatonic, a wreck that WAS marked in GE (in the bottom right corner above Google’s 1st ‘G’ in the image above). So now you can at least see how shallow the water is there (40′ if I remember correctly) and then it starts dropping off big time a little further out.

About that excavation – I left Goat Island before dawn that morning with my buddy Steve Prescott and his two kids. We slipped through the inlet out to the excavation site, imagining what the submariners were feeling while lurking under those same waters back in 1864. There were hardly any other boats there at first, but then they started coming in droves. There were even people kayaking all the way out there! When the sub was finally raised, it was incredible, a real parade of boats on the water – kayakers, jon-boats, small boats, large boats, party boats, you name it! On the way in, people lined up on Sullivans Island, Patriots Point, everywhere they could, to get a glimpse at the H.L. Hunley finally raised from the ocean floor. Most of us followed the sub’s barge from the excavation site all the way to the lab where it sat for months being examined. We hung out there with about 30-40 other boats partying for a couple of hours, and wound up being one of the last ones to leave. Definitely a day I’ll never forget!

I’m sure over time, the H.L. Hunley and many other shipwrecks, hazards to navigation, and the like will be marked up in GE, ’cause it’s just awesome! I’ve even heard of scuba divers marking their trails and I bet it’s a cool toy for treasure hunters and salvage guys too.