Electrifying the fleet: Biddeford company takes aim at converting commercial vessels to electric
Photo / Courtesy, Jack Sullivan, Island Institute
Matt Tarpey (at the helm) and is dad Sean test drive the Take Charge, an inflatable work boat with an electric outboard now used by Pendleton Yacht Yard on Islesboro.
Maine Electric Boat has installed more than a dozen electric propulsion systems on sailboats and powerboats since the company was formed five years ago.
With an eye toward the future, the Biddeford-based company is now taking aim at a new market: commercial work vessels. That sector — lobster boats, aquaculture vessels, boatyard utility boats and the like — is where the company’s growth and the expansion of electric-powered boats in Maine is likely to come from, says CEO Matt Tarpey.
Tarpey, 36, supplied a 40-horsepower engine last year for a utility workboat at an Islesboro boatyard, and is now working with a Portland lobsterman on plans to convert his diesel-powered boat to electric in the coming 18 months or so. He’s not aware of any other Maine lobstermen with electric boats.
He knows Maine’s lobster fleet — some 5,000-plus strong — could be slow to adapt to electric vessels but is convinced that it is inevitable over time. Fishermen and others that make their living on Maine’s working waterfronts, he says, will come around when the up-front costs of batteries drop and they see the benefits first-hand. Those paybacks include a lot of less: less maintenance, less money on fuel, less noise, less pollution, less time at the dock and more on the water.
“It should be a no-brainer as battery costs drop,” he says. “So much of it depends on motivation.”
Boatyard background
Maine Electric Boat is located at Rumery’s Boat Yard on the Saco River near downtown Biddeford. The boatyard was founded in 1962 and has been owned by Tarpey’s father, Sean Tarpey, since 1998, providing storage and repair and maintenance for sailboats and powerboats.
The brick building that houses the boatyard, Maine Electric Boat and Marine Solar Technologies (a fledgling company focused on solar/battery-powered water-monitoring buoys) was built in 1882.
In early days, it was a coal-fired power plant for the York Light & Heat Co. supplied by barges that brought coal upriver from the nearby Atlantic Ocean. The building has now come full-circle from pollution-belching coal to Maine Electric Boat’s focus on clean electric-powered propulsion systems for vessels of all types.
Rumery’s Boat Yard installed its first electric motor in a 26-foot sloop way back in 2004, Sean Tarpey says. But it wasn’t until 2019 that electric-powered boating became a full-fledged business when Matt Tarpey, his father Sean and a third partner started Maine Electric Boat.
Since then, the company has converted a variety of sailboats and pleasure power boats from diesel power to electric. To do so, it removes the fuel tanks and engines and replaces them with battery banks, an electric motor and a battery management system.
It has also installed electric motor systems on a number of new boats. Some of those boats are powered by a motor manufactured by a Polish company, E-Tech, that hangs underneath the boat. The motor also serves as a rudder when steering the boat.
Most customers have come from Maine, but others have been from Massachusetts and the Midwest.
Last year, Tarpey supplied the motor for a 14-foot inflatable work boat powered by an electric outboard to Pendleton Yacht Yard on Islesboro, an island community three miles off Lincolnville in Penobscot Bay. The boat, named Take Charge, is powered by a 40-horsepower Flux Marine outboard. It’s being used to demonstrate electric marine propulsion in partnership with the Island Institute as part of the nonprofit’s vision of developing a “fully electric working waterfront in Maine.”
The Island Institute’s goals include putting electric outboard motors on skiffs through partnerships with local fishermen, aquaculture operations and new waterfront business ventures, and installing solar-powered charging stations on docks and wharves.
Working e-waterfront
Maine Electric Boat sees itself as part of that electric working waterfront equation. As such, it serves as the distributor of electric marine engines from E-Tech, Flux Marine and other manufacturers. Tarpey says fishing fleets in other parts of the world — Finland, Norway, British Columbia, for example — are already widely electrified.
There’s no reason Maine can’t do the same, Tarpley says.
While the upfront expenditures can be pricey, at least for now, he says costs will drop and that fishermen will also see savings in fuel costs, maintenance costs and the increased time they spend working because electric boats don’t break down as often.
When a lobsterman asks a fellow lobsterman how he likes his electric-powered boat, the word will spread.
“He’s going to say, ‘If you could see my books and see how I’m doing, you’ll want one too,’” Tarpley says.
At Pendelton Yacht Yard, owner Gabe Pendleton says the electric workboat is working out just fine as it takes people and supplies back and forth to moored boats and tends to other basic tasks. While growing numbers of pleasure boaters are using electric motors, he agrees that in some ways it’s easier for commercial vessels to adopt electric technology.
Working vessels are probably easier to convert to electric because they have the capacity for larger battery banks and are used more predictably, Pendleton says. Whereas pleasure boaters might travel randomly to places and not know their exact destinations, those who work on the water typically know what their day will look like, where they will travel, and how much range they need in their batteries. At the end of the day, they might have a charging station at their homeport berth.
The Take Charge has been well-received among boatyard employees and people in the community who are intrigued, Pendleton says. He wouldn’t be surprised to see an acceleration of electric engines on boats.
“We’re getting close to that and that’s the way people are going in general,” he says.
Maine Electric Boat is committed to green power. Rumery’s Boat Yard has a rooftop solar array that provides 90% of its power needs. Maine Electric Boat also has two canopy-covered electric pleasure boats for rent to the public. The boats, which can hold either four or eight people, are berthed at Rumery’s Boat Yard and can be taken for leisurely outings on the Saco River from the boatyard to the mouth of the river where it empties into the ocean.
This past winter, Matt and Sean Tarpey hosted a roundtable discussion attended by U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, USDA Rural Development Maine State Director Rhiannon Hampson, business owners, local officials and marine science experts to discuss green energy options for commercial vessels, including the possibility of replacing diesel engines with electric engines.
“Maine,” Hampson said at the time, “can help lead the maritime industry in adopting ‘blue technology.’”
It remains to be seen just how popular electric commercial vessels will become in the years ahead, and whether the growth could follow the trajectory of the electric car market. A decade ago, electric cars were scarce on Maine roads; today, they’re everywhere.
Matt Tarpey, for one, is confident: “While young, this industry is one that has a lot of potential.”
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Love seeing the innovation and entrepreneurialism in Maine that ties so closely to where our state has led the way in the past. Great that Maine innovators are on the forefront of creating cleaner solutions for one of the last sectors of transportations that depend entirely on petroleum.
another subsidized company taking advantage of the people
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