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Comment by papertokyo | Hacker News Reader

Is the scale of the engine for marine applications very different to aviation? Ferries usually have huge hulking diesels so I'm curious what the equivalent electric powertrain is like.

I'm also assuming that a scaled down version would be ideal for personal watercraft?

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We are planning to add a MW-class machine to our portfolio in the next five years which could serve as a nice replacement for the dirty diesel engines on these larger ships.

Looking at Taiga Motor's electric jet ski, 250kW would be a bit on the high-side. It would also be a very expensive jet ski :) https://taigamotors.ca/watercraft/

I would look at utility and patrol boats, like RHIBs, for your motor application. I bet it would fit very well together.

In marine use, as a former ship driver (naval, not commercial, so needs could vary), I would prefer a larger number of small engines I can vector rather than one or two larger engines. It removes the need for tugs from both the maneuverability standpoint since you have vectoring and the safety standpoint since you could have redundant systems.

Don’t many modern ships already have this? I recall watching “Big Ships” or some such on Discovery Channel about 15-20 years ago where they explained ships already having multiple stern and aft, starboard and port, “pods” either with jet streams or rotors.

Sure, but having driven ships with those, they're not as maneuverable as they could be. It takes time to deploy the pods and often they aren't available at high speed.

Now that makes a lot of sense. Unlike side thrusters, you'd be able to use all engines to provide forward movement for max speed while also using the same engines for low speed maneuvering.

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