For anyone considering a pontoon boat, the Loon, built near Orilla, Ont., is an emissions-free electric boat. Solar-assisted, this pontoon boat comes with built-in battery charger. The panels charge the eight - six volt deep cell batteries that operate the Briggs and Stratton electric outboard motor.

On a sunny day, the boat can travel up to 50 km at a cruising speed of about five knots. The six-metre, eight passenger Loon weighs about 1,000 kilograms, slightly heavier than it’s gas-guzzling cousin. According to the boat’s builder, Monte Gisborne, the Loon can travel at least eight times further on a unit of energy than the most efficient gas-powered boat.

Monte concedes that the solar panels (installed on the roof) will provide about 16 km of free travel on a sunny day and you can even stretch it to 32 km, but you won’t be going anywhere after that, as the batteries will need to be recharged, either by sun or by plugging in the boat the grid.

The boats sell for anywhere from $25,000 to $35,000, but a new prototype is currently under construction so don’t quote me on that figure. While the boats save money on gas, the break-even point is somewhere between five to seven years, assuming people spend $100 a weekend on gas over 16 week period.

If you’d like more information on Tamarack Lake Electric Boats visit www.tamarackelectricboats.com TheNew York State Energy Research and Development department recently offered this company a $500,000 grant, so there is a chance they may be relocating to the US, but according to Monte, the Loon will still be available for sale in Canada.

Cheers,

Julie

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 9:36 pm and is filed under Boating, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.