Gustav Hasselskog, CEO of the Swedish company Candela he founded in 2014, steps aboard a futuristic vessel at dock in Stockholm’s Frihamnen harbour.
Low and sleek, the Candela P12 pulling away from the quay has more in common with an aircraft fuselage than a traditional commuter ferry.
“We will go full power up to 17 and then she lifts above the water and then we fly at around 25 knots.”
As Captain Lars Billström calls out the numbers from the helm, the 30-seat vessel rises smoothly above the surface, lifted by hydrofoils controlled by onboard computers.
The churn of ferry travel disappears, and there is almost no wake, as Stockholm’s shoreline slips silently past.
“When we lift the boat, the drag from the water reduces 80 to 85 percent,” says the captain. “And we can charge this boat fully in approximately one hour.”
After initially developing high-speed electric leisure boats, Gustav Hasselskog is betting on the global commuter passenger market.
“We reduce energy consumption by about 80%, which take out a lot of the fuel costs; it’s much cheaper than operating traditional diesel ferries”, he says.
The P12 is the first electric hydrofoiling vessel of its size in the world, we are the only company delivering these types of vessels.”
An achievement that needed solving complex engineering issues.
“Compared to a car, a smaller boat consumes 15 times more fuel per kilometer. But if you want to use batteries, they contain much less energy than diesel or gasoline, so you have a challenge.”
The answer came from re-exploring hydrofoil technology.
“Hydrofoil is wings that you put underneath the water and then you lift the entire boat out of the water. It’s basically the same technology as for an airplane. The core difference with an airplane is that the center of gravity in a boat is above the lifting point. So you get something that doesn’t want to stay up there. It’s a fascinating engineering challenge to make something unstable become stable”
To do so, the Candela P-12 uses computers, sensors, and software, measuring the boat’s position when it lifts above the water surface.
“They adjust the angle of the foil system 100 times per second to stabilize the boat. That creates a much smoother ride”, explains Candela’s head of communications, Mikael Mahlberg, aboard one of Candela’s smaller electric foiling leisure boats, gliding at full speed, silent and steady, one meter above the water surface.
“We take the discomfort out of boating, while reducing operating costs, and sparing the environment of emissions, oil spillage, wake and noise. And when we pass shorelines, we don't cause erosion.”
At Candela’s production facility north of Stockholm, P12 output is ramping up to meet demand, with orders from India, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, the Maldives and the United States, alongside a recent Norwegian contract for twenty ferries, the world’s largest electric hydrofoil fleet order so far.
Europe, however, remains Candela’s slowest market.
“It takes a long time to get this type of transition to a new technology in Europe. You need long political and public tendering processes that can be terribly slow.” Says Gustav Hasselskog. Still, he remains confident.
“The waterways are the oldest way of transport in Europe and elsewhere in the world, yet they are underused. We can get back to that in a new way.”
Candela plans to grow from 250 employees to 1,000 and open a new factory in Poland.
That growth, Hasselskog says, must rely not only on attracting the right talents, but also on a strong company culture. “We call it revolutionary kindness. The revolutionary part is believing that with the right knowledge, you can do anything, as long as you stay within the laws of nature. The kindness side is wanting to do something good for society, while maintaining a friendly internal culture. I’ve worked in organizations with more of a fear culture. That can drain creativity and efficiency. The creative, free-thinking spirits leave, then you move very slowly, and it’s no longer fun.”
