The America’s Cup Team Alinghi passes by in front of the panoramic window on the 23rd floor of the W Hotel in Barcelona. Deep below me lies the harbor. If you look very closely, you can see the De Antonio E23 moored at the pier.
The sun is shining, the sea is calm, the weather is perfect on this test morning in Port Vell. The De Antonio Yachts office is still quiet in the morning. Time for a chat with founder and CEO Marc de Antonio about the first electric boat from the successful Spanish shipyard, which was founded and is based here in Barcelona.
Grant Dalton and Marc de Antonio © K. Zillmer
The 37th America’s Cup is being held here this year, and it is set to be the most sustainable of all. The dinghies should also not run on combustion engines. For De Antonio Yachts, it is exactly the right moment to go electric. “We met Grant Dalton, the CEO of America’s Cup defending champions New Zealand, when Barcelona won the bid for the Cup. He was very interested in working with a Barcelona brand for the electric boats.” They came to an agreement. De Antonio Yachts became the official supplier for the electric boats for the America’s Cup 2024, and Dalton ordered four electric boats.
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“It was exactly the right moment! It offers us the greatest attention. And it’s perfect in terms of marketing. We can use the communication of the America’s Cup to promote our boat,” says the CEO enthusiastically on this beautiful morning. You could hardly wish for a better market launch.
Far more than just the sailing world is watching this race, all the media will be reporting. These electric boats will control the GPS buoys on the race course. And the starting boat for the America’s Cup will be a De Antonio D50 Coupé.
But that’s not all! Not only is the organizer associated with De Antonio for the America’s Cup, Team Alinghi also partners with the Spanish shipyard. The support boats for the Swiss team will be provided by the Spanish shipyard. The De Antonio D37 is used for this purpose and was presented as a limited edition at boot Düsseldorf in January 2024.
So lucky coincidences? Sure, but not only. It is also the good reputation and clever management of the two founders Stan Chmielewski and Marc de Antonio that are now ensuring the harvest. The shipyard had set certain specifications for the new electric boat. Of course, it was not developed specifically for the America’s Cup, but for a worldwide audience of conscious boaters.
All new and electric
“We wanted a boat that is around 30 knots fast, offers around 24 knots in cruising mode and has a long range at 6 knots when cruising slowly. And all this on a length of 7 meters.” The shipyard wants to expand its model range from 9 to 15 meters with a smaller boat. With the new E23, De Antonio is returning to the De Antonio D23 in terms of length – the first boat the shipyard started with in 2012. Everything else is new – and now electric.
Time was short for the development of the first electric boat E23. It took the shipyard just one year to complete the project. Until then, the Spanish shipyard had only built combustion boats, but had developed a special boat design for outboards. The motor is hidden under the sun lounger and leaves the bathing platform free.
The fact that it has now become a catamaran was a result of the development process. “When we calculated the boat, we quickly realized the limits of the consumption of a monohull. We would have had to install a more powerful engine and larger batteries. The boat would have been significantly heavier and more expensive. And consumption would also have increased.”
Cat with foil
The rigid foil © De Antonio
But the two shipyard bosses wanted an electric boat that was not much more expensive than a comparable boat with a petrol engine. With a small motor, a small battery and low weight – a good entry-level model for electric boating. So it became a catamaran and, as with the America’s Cup racers, one with foils. To be more precise, with just one foil. But more on that later.
“We wanted a product that could be operated by any customer without much prior knowledge. The majority of customers have little insight into electric technology, so it should be intuitive. You should be able to relax on the move – look around, have a chat or just chill out,” says Marc De Antonio.
