Zero-Emission Catamaran Collaboration: Cambridge Uni & Propulsion House

Propulsion House Pulling-e and Cambridge University’s Riviera Racing Team have joined forces to collaborate on the development of a zero-emission racing catamaran. This partnership was initiated after the Monaco Smart Yacht Rendezvous earlier this year. This project’s objective is to demonstrate the potential of hydrogen as a sustainable solution for the yacht industry, which will take place at the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge scheduled for July 2024. 

The Monaco Energy Boat Challenge

The Monaco Energy Boat Challenge is a platform that highlights innovation and sustainability within the yachting sector. Participants are encouraged to explore cutting-edge technologies, materials, and alternative propulsion systems that can reduce environmental impact while maintaining high-performance standards. The event will feature more than forty international teams from around the world competing in speed, agility, and endurance tests.

About The Catamaran

Heikki Bergman, the CEO and Design Manager at Pulling-e, expressed his enthusiasm for the collaboration, emphasizing that the team’s efforts in creating a specialized and innovative design tailored to meet the challenges of this project have been exhilarating. He sees this initiative as a pioneering step in advancing sustainable maritime technology and eagerly anticipates the opportunity to showcase the results in Monaco:

“Creating a holistic and tailor-made design for the team has been exciting, pushing the boundaries of innovation to create something unique, purpose-built and engineered to meet the demands of this Challenge. This is about pioneering new frontiers in sustainable maritime technology, and we eagerly anticipate Monaco to showcase the results.” 

The catamaran racer, a collaborative effort between the university and the engineering firm, incorporates a propulsion system developed by Pulling-e. This system utilizes a hybrid power source that feeds an electric motor and directly drives a pulling-type propeller located within the underwater pod unit. This design ensures that the propeller operates in an undisturbed water field and facilitates gearless power transfer.

Cambridge Workshops

The propulsion system will be transported to the team’s workshops in Cambridge for comprehensive real-world testing under various conditions. Subsequently, Pulling-e’s team will verify the component’s performance through full-scale testing in their workshop.

Harsh Sinha, Co-Captain and Director of Operations at Cambridge University Riviera Racing, expressed their gratitude for the high degree of customization provided by the Pulling-e team for their propulsion unit. He commended their unwavering support from the early stages of the project. Praising their receptiveness to exploring and experimenting with new ideas, he explains:

“The team at Pulling-e have been fantastic in providing us with unprecedented levels of customisation to our propulsion unit.”

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