Wakesurfing with a clear climate conscience
Honu SUP GmbH has become the world’s first commercial watersports specialist to operate a series-produced electric watersports boat. The high-performance battery-powered boat allows sports enthusiasts to enjoy emission-free wakeboarding on Lake Thun. To ensure adequate run times, Swiss fast charging specialist GOFAST has installed a fast charging station for the electric boat at the landing stage.
Dani Reinhart, director of the Honu SUP Center in Thun, had long dreamed of adding wakeboarding and wakesurfing to his watersports centre’s portfolio. The obstacle lay in the fact that the powerful towboats used for these modern sports tend to burn over 40 litres of petrol an hour – which doesn’t exactly sit well with surfing’s image as a sport that is in tune with nature. But the perfect solution was found in the form of the all-electric Super Air Nautique GS22E wakeboarding boat, developed by US manufacturer Ingenity Electric: 100% fun to drive with 0% emissions. Following a two-year planning phase, the new electric sports boat has been moored at the landing stage on Lake Thun since the end of April 2022.
Fast charging for better utilisation
With an output of around 300 hp, the Super Air Nautique GS22E offers the typical performance characteristics needed for wakeboarding. The battery capacity of 120 kilowatt hours allows around two to three hours of watersports, following which the battery needs to be recharged. To maximise utilisation and ensure profitability, the Honu SUP Center needed an efficient fast charging solution that allowed its new flagship to be recharged at the jetty. This is the first ever electric sports boat with the capacity to charge at up to 80 kilowatt DC, which reduces the charge time to an hour. By comparison, charging with 11 kilowatt AC would take 12 hours and would only be suitable overnight or at other times when the business was closed. The watersports centre is confident that the planned pattern of operating hours and fast charging breaks will be an ideal fit for its wakeboarding operations.
The ideal partner in GOFAST
While fast charging is now routine for electric car drivers, fast charging in watersports was uncharted territory. Both Energie Thun, who connected the site to the grid, and Honu SUP recognised that what was needed here was the expertise of an experienced fast charging provider. ‘We found the perfect partner for the project in Swiss fast charging expert GOFAST,’ Reinhart delightedly explains. He was impressed by the fact that GOFAST was flexible enough to develop a custom solution for this new type of project and was also prepared to guarantee the system’s operation. Stephanie Sauter, Deputy CEO of GOFAST, is also delighted at the new area of application. Even if fast charging is still something of a marginal phenomenon in watersports at the moment, Sauter is certain that the market will veer in this direction in the coming years. She feels it is only logical that, as a fast charging pioneer, GOFAST should start expanding its experience in this field.
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Satellite on the jetty
One of the challenges was selecting the right charging technology. The water, the available space and the structure of the landing stage meant that GOFAST was unable to install its standard large fast charging points with integrated power modules. As an alternative, what is known as a satellite system was used. On the jetty in Lachen marina, all that can be seen is a slim charging point featuring two charging cables with CSS connectors. The bulky, heavy power modules are located in an enclosure on the raised bank, a safe distance from the water. The system has an output of up to 80 kilowatts and supplies local green electricity from Energie Thun’s Aare plant – making a wakeboarding session with Honu SUP in Thun a positively sustainable activity. |