It seems strange to consider land-locked Prince George at the heart of an innovative industry to build seaworthy boats, but that is what Simon Angus envisions as he develops what he says is the world’s first fully-sustainable electric-drive sailing catamaran.
After 15 years as a mechanical engineer in the pulp mill and oil refining industries, Angus decided to branch out on his own as founder of Open Waters Design and Manufacturing. For two years he’s been applying his knowledge of advanced composite manufacturing techniques to build a sturdy and lightweight high-performance catamaran built to comfortably carry four adults and two children, using sails and an electric motor for propulsion.
Unlike most sailboats, which are not easily transported, the 40-foot x 23-foot boat Angus has designed can be disassembled to uniquely fit in a 40-foot shipping container. It also runs on electric power from batteries charged by the motion of a propeller turning while the sailboat is in motion.
“I’m a sailor and windsurfed all my life in England, I just could never afford a sailboat over there,” he said. “At the age of 43, I just decided to combine my passion for sailing with the skills I’ve developed as an engineer and put them together to generate something new. I’ve not invented anything. I’ve just put a bunch of stuff together in a unique format that seems to work really well.
“Really, nobody in Canada is doing what we do.”
Angus is from England and moved to Prince George 17 years ago, putting his engineering skills to work for Deltech Automation, and a year later moved to Kitimat as an engineer for Eurocan Pulp and Paper. He returned to Prince George in 2012 to become project manager at the Husky Energy refinery and held that position for eight years until he started his boat business in November 2019.
The vacuum infusion process Open Waters uses to make the hull and boat panels is innovative. Layers of composite fibre are laid down over a recycled foam core material and a vacuum sucks the air out from between the layers so they form ultra-tight bonds as they cure in the mold, minimizing the amount of material needed.
“Once we have a full vacuum and there’s zero atoms between the carbon fibres, only then do we introduce the resin,” said Angus. “The resin fills those voids of nothing, and it creates an incredibly light part that’s incredibly strong.”
Angus has had his ESC40 catamaran moored in a marina between New Westminster and Richmond since the summer and he sailed the prototype for 1,800 kilometres in the Strait of Georgia with Bowen Island as his base for two weeks. He had to modify the rudder design slightly after testing but he’s got his boat nearly ready for shipping and he will have it trucked on a flatbed trailer to Florida early In January.
Angus had hoped to put it in a cargo container and have it moved by sea from Vancouver to Tampa, but the global container traffic gridlock forced him to find an overland trucking route, which tripled the shipping cost.
“We’ve had it sailing and we’ve done up to 12.5 knots and then the rudder brackets started to break, so we’ve redesigned the rudder system,” said Angus. “At 12.5 knots it wanted to keep going, but the rudder was about to fall off. That’s ridiculously fast for a sailboat.”
The carbon-fibre composite boat weighs about 4,500 kilograms, about half the weight of a comparable boat. The pontoon design of a catamaran maximizes stability in the water, and the lighter weight makes it faster and more responsive and minimizes battery drain to increase the range between charges under electrical power. Solar panels generate power for lights, refrigeration, and other creature comforts, while the hydro regenerative system stores power to turn the folding propellers of the twin 10-kilowatt electric motors.
Unlike an electric car that needs large heavy batteries to provide long-range capabilities, the four lithium-ion batteries used in the ESC40 weigh just 36 kg each, much lighter than a diesel engine. Long range is not needed because they are constantly being charged as the boat sails. A fully-charged system with no wind or wave resistance will take the boat 160 km.
“Being light means we need little propulsion power, so we’re not using huge amounts of energy to push us through water when we’re not under sail, and that means we can go electric,” said Angus.
“Being very fast means we can generate lots of electricity through the hydro generation system with the propellers of the motors spinning as we are hurled through the water with the sails. That is generating all the energy we need to be a fully sustainable sailing boat.”
The hull of Angus’s fast cat is designed to handle speeds in excess of 20 knots, two to three times faster than most catamarans made using conventional processes and materials. It has curved retractable daggerboards that improve handling and performance at speed. Its rudders also retract to allow the boat to cruise in shallow waters. The boat’s two-foot draft allows it to float in knee-deep water and it can be beached safely on the bow or the stern.
The ESC40 is not an all-season boat; it’s designed for fair-weather months. For owners who live in colder climates, they will have the option of having it dissembled and shipped south in a container to a warm-weather winter dock.
Angus plans to sail his catamaran from Florida, where it will be assembled, to the Caribbean. He’s entering it in the Heineken Cup yacht race in early March in St. Maarten. Four-time Olympic sailor Ross McDonald of Victoria, a two-time medalist in the Star category, will be at the helm.
“That’s really going to get us competitive, and once we’ve done a couple months of testing out there we’re really going to push it to its max in that regatta and see what she can do,” sad Angus.
“It’s a fun race that’s part of our marketing campaign to get the boat out there, and that’s the big reason to go to the Caribbean. We can fly a drone in crystal-clear waters to really show off the boat and we’ll have potential buyers and potential investors on board.”
Established boat-builders are making 60- or 68-foot carbon fibre sailboats that cost several million dollars, but no other manufacturer Angus knows of makes 40-foot models. Going green and utilizing electric power in the design was an easy choice.
“It’s something that everybody has to do at some point in the future, and what I’m trying to do is to develop that and make it happen a little sooner for some people who can have a pleasure yacht that’s fully electric,” he said. “It’s a luxury item for sure, it’s a very high-performance sailboat that’s not for everybody. It’s an ocean-going boat you sail very quickly and very safely and go wherever you want in low-sea conditions.”
The unique qualities of the design and its potential to create a new industry for north central B.C. has attracted funding from the National Research Council of Canada, through its Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP). Open Waters also received a tax credit from Revenue Canada’s Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SHRED) program, and Prince George-based Northern Development Initiatives Trust gave the company a $50,000 grant.
The prototype is 40 per cent funded by grant money. The rest has come through a loan arranged through Community Futures, and from shareholders and Angus’s own savings.
The father of three loves the outdoors, snowboarding and mountain biking and the natural beauty of the forests, lakes and mountains in and around Prince George. He intends to base his business permanently in the city and take advantage of its location as an industrial hub to provide Open Waters what it needs to grow while he creates a local boat-building industry.
“It’s where my kids are and it’s where I’ll always call home,” said Angus.
“Prince George has a real good skillset and it has people who actually want to work. We can put the boat in a container in Prince George and it’s gone on the rail to Rupert. There’s a huge advantage to having that Prince Rupert port.”
It’s taken two years to build the prototype, but now that he has the molds and the know-how, once he gets into the production stage at his shop in downtown Prince George Angus figures it will take seven people four months to build one boat. He plans to have two more catamarans finished by the fall and every year he expects to double his output from the previous year.
“Within five years we’ll have 50 people employed,” he predicts, “The nice thing for Prince George and one reason IRAP and Northern Development was interested in us, is because it’s unique economic diversity. We’re very reliant on the forest industry, and we always will be, but economic diversification is important and I’m bringing advanced manufacturing to the area.
“Ninety per cent of these boats are going to be exported. It’s new business into Canada and new jobs into Prince George.”
Angus purposely called his company Open Waters Design and Manufacturing knowing there’s a good chance he will branch off and start making other things using the vacuum infusion carbon-fibre composite process.
“Our first product is a boat, that’s where my passion is, but if someone wants something lightweight and very strong, then we can build it for them,” he said.
