Smooth Sailing for Electric Boat

Marshall “Duffy” Duffield completed the first Newport Beach to Catalina Island run in his experimental electric boat with calm seas, clear skies and no one racing against him.

He hated it.

“We would have hoped for a little more chop,” Duffield said of the Saturday voyage. “A lot of people think an electric boat won’t handle any kind of sea or weather. We built this boat to handle any kind of weather. We plan on taking it to places that are specifically rough.”

The 62-foot-long, 3-foot-wide Duffy Voyager made the 55-mile round trip to Catalina in 5 hours and 38 minutes--a little faster than Duffield expected. But the glassy ocean didn’t test the hull construction, made to slice through waves rather than bob atop them.

And Duffield said he hopes challengers show up next year with their electric boats, to stir competition and advance experimentation with the energy-saving, non-polluting craft.

Duffield said his boat averaged 11.2 mph during the trip, and could do even better.

“We made it back with plenty of extra power. So we really can crank it up the next time,” he said.

Next he plans a trip from Newport Beach to the Queen Mary on Aug. 8, and will display the Voyager at the Long Beach Yacht Club that weekend.

In September, he and engineer Jack Heiser will run from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., to the Bimini Islands in the Bahamas and back, to test the Voyager’s rough weather capabilities.

“It was just such a nice day. It ran so smooth,” he said. “We were all prepared for the worst, and it didn’t happen.”