Picture this; You’ve got your sport boat thruster maxed out, cruising at 40 mph on your favorite lake. But, the boat’s electric motor is nearly silent, allowing you to converse with friends even at high speeds. There’s no pollution of the wind or water, no acrid smell of gasoline, and you can zoom around for 4-6 hours before needing an overnight battery recharge.
Sound enticing? L.A.-based company Arc sure hopes so, because it’s selling a $258,000 all-electric wake surf boat that can supposedly do all that and a lot more.
While electric motors have now become common in the automotive space, consumer boats have been slower to go green. Yet the transition could offer many benefits to the marine industry, including vehicles that “are better in almost every single way” than their gas-guzzling counterparts, Ryan Cook, Arc’s chief technology officer, told GearJunkie.
Preorders of the Arc Sport became available this week, with initial deliveries planned for later this year.
“This boat is great for the environment,” Cook said. “We want everything on the water to be electric or zero emissions. It’s the reason we founded Arc.”
Arc History: The Prototype
Arc hopes to sell hundreds of the Arc Sport by the end of 2025, but it’s not the company’s first foray into electric sport boats.
Founded in 2021, the company started with the Arc One, an all-electric “luxury cruiser” that served as a prototype for what would become the Arc Sport. Only about 20 of the Arc Ones were actually made and sold to customers before the company stopped production and went back to the drawing board.
Company leaders wanted to design a boat with more features that could appeal to a broader demographic. Cook likened the process to Tesla starting with the Roadster and soon moving on to the Model S.
“The automotive industry has seen this emergence of electric and people are seeing the benefits,” Cook said. “At the moment, there’s not really competition for electric wake sports boats.”
Arc Sport: The Details
The upgraded boat offers 226 kWh of battery capacity and a 570-horsepower motor capable of ripping up to 40 mph. Though electric, the Arc Sport supposedly has “double the torque of most premium wake boats,” the company said in an announcement.
“When we go out on test outings, people are thrown back in their seats with the acceleration of the instant torque,” Cook said. “The torque is a ton of fun.”
Also, for tight maneuvering, the Arc Sport has thrusters at both ends, rather than the single thruster offered by many gas boats in the same price range. There’s also a retractable top and a touchscreen system for the controllable ballast, making it a breeze for owners to choose different wake options, the company said.
But, what about the all-important battery range? According to Cook, it depends on how you use it. The boat will run fine for 4-6 hours of “average usage,” which means zipping along with surfers and wakeboarders. Keep it moving only at super-low speeds of 5-7 mph, however, and the boat could supposedly run for 24 hours.
Usually, it will take 8-10 hours to recharge from 20% to 80% on a Level 2 charger. A full recharge from 0% to 100% will take longer.
Also, all the software development has happened in-house at Arc, so many features will be upgraded through the kind of over-the-air updates that are already common in the automotive industry. “You’ll wake up and your boat will have features that it didn’t have the day before,” Cook said. “That’s not normal in the boat industry.”
Arc Sport: Pricing & Availability
Compared to the cheapest options of gas boats, the $258,000 Arc Sport costs quite a bit more. An entry-level boat like the Axis A20, for example, costs just $70,000.
However, the Arc Sport is still cheaper than other electric options, like the Nautique GS22E, which costs about $300,000. And, very similar to high-end gas boats, like the popular Mastercraft XStar S (starting at around $245,000) or a tournament-ready Tige 22 RZX (which costs between $230,000 and $300,000).
A preorder of the Arc Sport is now available for a $500 deposit, and it’s available for boat lovers in both the U.S. and Canada. The company hopes to start deliveries sometime this year.
