Welcome...
I like to think of myself as a glass-half-full person (unless somebody else is buying the drinks) but even taking this into account I am convinced there are plenty of reasons to be excited about the future of boating.
Three of those reasons are covered in this issue. The first two are electric boats that demonstrate how well this power source works in certain kinds of craft. One of them is a fast, agile, practical sportsboat that competes toerail to toerail with its petrol-powered rivals, the other is an exceptionally refined 35ft inland waterways cruiser that makes its diesel counterparts seem unnecessarily noisy, smelly and crude by comparison.
Even if neither of these appeal to you, there is a third reason to be excited, thanks to the research being done into greener fuels for the combustion engines that will continue to power the majority of seagoing boats for years to come. You probably already know about the potential of hydrogen but what about ammonia, methanol, LNG or even formic acid? The latter is the same liquid ants use to paralyse their enemies but it can also be synthesised from carbon dioxide and hydrogen, acting as a means of carbon capture and hydrogen storage, which can then be converted back into a gas and used to power a boat. For more on this and other fuels of the future turn to p80.
MORE FOR YOUR MONEY
Regular readers are always telling that they want more pages and more stories to satisfy their insatiable appetite for quality boating content so this issue we’ve added an extra 25 pages to try and keep up with demand. I’m afraid that does mean we’ve had to push the cover price up to £6.50 for our premium quarterly issues featuring the extra Custom Yachting supplement, but for the moment at least, there’s no change to subscription rates, so if you’re not yet a subscriber
I’d turn to p66 and take advantage of the current offer while you still can!