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ZIN BOATS

THE ELECTRIC EVOLUTION

BY SCHELLEEN RATHKOPF

WHAT IF SOMEONE CHALLENGED YOU TO TRAVEL 80- 100 NAUTICAL MILES ON A BOAT FOR ONLY SIX BUCKS? OH, AND THE BOAT ALSO HAD TO HAVE A TOP CRUISING SPEED OF 35 MPH (56 KPH). WOULD YOU DISMISS THE DARE AS IMPOSSIBLE?

YOU MIGHT AND YOU WOULDN’T BE ALONE.

Thanks to the ingenuity of Piotr Zin, the mastermind behind Zin Boats in Seattle, you can do the impossible and he’s here to tell you how. He calls it the “Electric Evolution” and he is eager to take you for a ride on his new electric boats; the Z2T Tender and the Z2R Runabout. To Zin, putting electric boats on large yachts is the way of the future - and he may just be on to something.

Go Green – Go Fast!

“Growing up, I was very privileged to have access to pritine lakes, rivers, and seas,” Zin explains. “I wanted to design a boat to help preserve the natural beauty of water, but to do it without compromising the fun part of boating – the speed!” Zin set out to create an electric boat that could perform better than its gas equivalents and one that would preserve the delicate natural resources for future generations. With the support of investors, a small but hard-working team, and an amazing group of suppliers, the 42-year old Zin started work on building the perfect tender and runabout when his son was born two years ago. Since that time, he’s created a boat that is lightweight, environmentally friendly, easy to maintain, and is believed by many to be the next big thing in boating.

Battery Power

Zin boats use the BMW i3 electric car’s 40.5 KW battery and are designed to travel up to 100 miles when fully charged. Unlike with electric cars, there are no special charging stations required to charge the boat battery. Any dock, boat garage, marina, or yacht with a plug or power source will do. With the typical 240V and 50A circuit, the boat will be fully recharged in about five hours. Using a regular 120V 30A circuit, that time is about double. A typical top-off for the battery is just 1-2 hours, giving you an additional 20-30 miles. So theoretically, you could leave your large yacht, take the Zin for a spin to the beach (yes, she can be beached), out for some waterskiing, and a visit to shore, and be gone all day before returning to your yacht. Then you’d plug her back in for the night. Amazing. Measuring just how far you can go is a similar gauge to a gas engine: it depends on the speed. If you go about 5-7 mph (8-12kph), the range is over 120 miles (193km). At a typical cruise speed of 10-12mph (16-20kph) you’ll get about 80-100 miles (128-160km) range. But don’t worry about tracking your mileage. The Zin boat is your friend in that regard and is programmed with warning signals that alert you with available ranges and speeds to avoid running out of power.

How is this even possible?!

The simple answer for those of us who are not battery experts: carbon fiber. Everything down to the cap on the battery console is made of carbon fiber, which gives the boat incredible strength without the weight. The model Z2R Runabout and Z2T Tender are both under 2,000 pounds! “I’m absolutely obsessed with how light this boat is and its strength,” Zin says of his designs. “The boat planes fully at 8.5 mph and the wake is flat.”

Zero Maintenance

At this point, you may be asking, “What’s the catch here as it

is all sounding too good to be true” and you may even be searching for the maintenance manual to convince you that this boat requires a ton of extra TLC or something. Well, you’d be wrong. “Wash it once in a while and keep it charged,” is the extent of the maintenance section. The battery can manage 10,000 cycles, so it will last about 27.3 years if you use the boat every day. I am not kidding! Operating a Zin Boat comes down to a single touch screen onboard that manages everything. There are no buttons, switches, or added gadgets, making it extremely easy to operate. There are also no tanks to polish, gas lines to clear, or fuel leak pads required. So unless you love working on engines and don’t mind showing up for cocktail hour with oil skids on your shirt, you will absolutely love how easy and clean the Zin boat is to handle and maintain, allowing your TLC to be directed elsewhere. Piotr Zin loves this part. “There’s no maintenance and I mean ZERO,” he says with a smile. “Just plug it when not in use.”

Seattle Tech and Boat Savvy

For Zin, going electric just makes all the sense in the world and is the way of the future for tenders and runabouts. Though he doesn’t own a Tesla, he does have other electric toys in his garage including electric sailboats, bikes, and even an electric SUP. He settled in on Seattle because of it’s not only a tech center, but because of the Pacific Northwest’s boat building traditions. “Places like LUDD and Delta have been delivering fantastic craftsmanship and quality for years,” Zin says. “Plus, the pool of talent here is amazing. Zin Boats is part boat builder and part technology company. Seattle is a perfect place for a startup like mine that will undoubtedly lead the electric boating industry.”

Getting Noticed

Zin Boats, though still technically a startup, is getting noticed. They have two models in the mix: the Z2T and the Z2R. There are too many reasons to list why Z2R was recently chosen as the best electric tender on the market by BOAT International. But suffice it to say that it was given this distinction because it’s super lightweight, easy to operate, beachable, trailerable and is the perfect runabout boat for up to five people. The open bow design of the Z2T offers up seating for 10 (yes, ten) and has all the accolades of the runabout in a sweet and easy tender package. Currently, Zin Boats is building boats for a few special clients who are using them as tenders on their larger yachts. The production versions of the boats will be arriving in early 2021. The boats are being built in the Pacific Northwest and can be delivered anywhere in the world. Piotr Zin is excited to be in the right place, at the right time, building something that is energy efficient, performance ready, easy to maintain and control, and a shell that is 100% fully customizable. “You want gold cleats,” he jokes. “Sure! No problem!” He’s confident that his electric boats are the next big thing in boating, and I, for one, agree. This guy is totally on to something and if you have $248,000, you can have it too. “This has been a rollercoaster year for us and the whole world,” Zin shares, “but I want to thank everyone involved in this project who have helped us spread the word about what we’re up to. Every boat we sell, every “like” we get, gets us closer to our goal of clean boating for the future. Keep it up, we only have this one planet, let’s be nice to her.”

Specs

Z2T / Tender

LOA 20’ Draft 18” Beam 6’6” Weight 1850 lbs. Hull Carbon Fiber Seating capacity: 10

Z2R / Runabout

LOA 20’ Draft 18” Beam 6’6” Weight 1750 lbs. Hull Carbon Fiber Seating capacity: 5

Zin Boats

ZinBoats.com