Hydrofoil Boats: How They Work, and Every Electric Foiler You Can Buy
Twelve electric hydrofoil boats, from a 3.53 m Quadrofoil to the 30-passenger Candela P-12: how foiling works, what it costs, and the published figures.
The definition of a foiling hull lives at hydrofoil. What follows is the part a definition cannot hold: which electric hydrofoil boats exist, what their builders publish about them, and what foiling costs the owner.
This catalogue holds twelve electric foilers — seven of them under 8.53 m and therefore listed on this site, five larger ones on our sister site — running from the 3.53 m, two-seat Quadrofoil Q2A to the 11.99 m Candela P-12, which is rated for 30 passengers.
Why drag matters more on an electric boat
An electric boat spends a fixed number of kilowatt-hours and cannot refill them in five minutes. Every kilowatt-hour spent pushing water aside is a mile the boat does not travel, which makes drag the central problem of the whole category — and a boat that is flying drags only its foils and struts rather than its whole wetted length.
What the catalogue can show is what the builders publish. The Candela C-8 publishes 57 nm from a 69 kWh pack at 8.5 m; the Navier N30, on the sister site, publishes 75 nm from 80 kWh at 9.1 m. Compare those with TYDE THE ICON, a 13.16 m foiler with a 4.5 m beam, which publishes 50 nm from 240 kWh. Foiling does not repeal weight and size: the largest boat in the section carries the largest battery in it and publishes a shorter range than the 8.5 m C-8.
One caution before anyone builds a spreadsheet from those numbers. The catalogue records a range figure as the builder states it, and most builders state a range without saying at what speed it was measured. A foil boat is efficient only while it is flying, and a range quoted while foiling and a range quoted at displacement speed are different claims about the same boat — see range at a stated speed.
What foiling costs
There is a minimum speed before the boat flies at all
Below take-off speed a foiler is an ordinary hull with wings hanging under it, and the efficiency argument above does not apply to it. This matters for harbour manoeuvring, for no-wake zones, and for the way the boat behaves when the battery is nearly flat and the sensible thing is to slow down.
Not one of the twelve publishes a take-off speed. Nine of the twelve publish a top speed — the fastest figure in the set is the 60 kn quoted for the Silent Yachts 28 Speed, and the slowest, the Quadrofoil Q2S at 21 kn — but the speed at which the hull leaves the water is absent from every entry we hold. If it matters to you, it is a question for the builder, and the honest position here is that we do not have the answer.
Draught, when the boat is not flying
Foils hang below the keel, so a hydrofoil boat sitting at a pontoon draws more than its hull alone. Some designs retract or lift their foils for shallow water and trailering; the catalogue does not record which of these twelve do and which do not, and no draught figure is published for any of them. Ramps, trailers and shallow moorings are the places this bites, and it is the specification we would most like builders to volunteer.
Complexity
A foiling boat is a hull, a set of wings, and struts that carry loads a plain hull never sees. That is more to go wrong than a hull and a motor. We hold no service-interval or maintenance data for any of the twelve, so we will not characterise the running costs.
Price
Four of the twelve publish a starting price. On this site: the Quadrofoil Q2S from EUR 26,900, and the Candela C-8 from EUR 330,000. On the sister site: the Navier N30 from EUR 276,000 and the Enata Marine Foiler from EUR 990,000.
That gap is the point. EUR 330,000 is not a cheap way to own an 8.5 m boat, and nobody should choose a foiler to save money. What the money buys is the range and the ride at speed, not a bargain. The other eight models have no published price at all, which in this catalogue means the field is left empty rather than guessed at.
The seven electric hydrofoil boats under 8.53 m
These are on this site and each links to its own page with the full specification.
| Model | Length | Top speed | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quadrofoil Q2A Electric | 3.53 m | not published | not published |
| Quadrofoil Q2S Electric | 3.53 m | 21 kn | EUR 26,900 |
| Foilone Pegasus | 4.88 m | 30 kn | not published |
| Volare Boats Artemis 23 | 7 m | 26 kn | not published |
| Candela Seven | 7.7 m | not published | not published |
| Edorado 8S | 8.35 m | 38 kn | not published |
| Candela C-8 | 8.5 m | 30 kn | EUR 330,000 |
The small foilers: Quadrofoil and Foilone
The two Quadrofoils share a hull — 3.53 m long, 2.59 m beam, two seats — and differ in the drivetrain. The Q2A has a 5.2 kWh battery and a 3.7 kW motor; the Q2S doubles the pack to 10.4 kWh, raises the motor to 5.5 kW, and is the one with a published top speed of 21 kn and a published price. Neither publishes a range, which is worth saying plainly: these are the entry point to foiling, and the figure a buyer would most want is the one the builder does not give.
The Foilone Pegasus is a different proposition again — 4.88 m long on a 0.95 m beam, a single seat, 10 kWh and 14.9 kW, and 30 kn quoted. A boat narrower than a metre with one seat is closer to a foiling craft for one rider than to a day boat, and its dimensions say so before any description does. No range and no price are published.
The mid-size pair: Volare Artemis 23 and Candela Seven
The Volare Boats Artemis 23 is 7 m long, 2.39 m in beam, carries eight, and publishes 50 kW, 26 kn and 35 nm — the only complete speed-and-range pairing among the boats under 8 m on this list. Its battery capacity is not published, so the 35 nm cannot be checked against a pack size.
The Candela Seven is the thinnest entry in the whole section: 7.7 m, six passengers, and nothing else. No battery, no motor power, no speed, no range, no price. It is in the catalogue because the boat exists; it is not written up at length because there is nothing published to write up.
The 8 m class: Edorado 8S and Candela C-8
The Edorado 8S, at 8.35 m and 2.55 m beam, publishes 38 kn and 37 nm — the highest top speed of the seven on this site — but no battery capacity, no motor power and no price.
The Candela C-8 is the most completely documented boat in the section: 8.5 m, 2.5 m beam, 69 kWh, 75 kW, 30 kn, 57 nm, eight passengers, from EUR 330,000. Everything a comparison needs is on the record, which is rarer in this catalogue than it should be, and it is why the C-8 keeps turning up as the reference point when a foiler has to be measured against something.
The five larger electric hydrofoil yachts
These are over 8.53 m and live on our sister site rather than here, so they are named but not linked. The figures are the same catalogue.
| Model | Length | Top speed | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silent Yachts 28 Speed | 8.6 m | 60 kn | 70 nm |
| Navier N30 | 9.1 m | 35 kn | 75 nm |
| Enata Marine Foiler | 9.75 m | 40 kn | 113 nm |
| Candela P-12 | 11.99 m | not published | not published |
| TYDE THE ICON | 13.16 m | 30 kn | 50 nm |
Three of them are worth a sentence each. The Silent Yachts 28 Speed pairs 100 kWh with 200 kW for the highest quoted top speed in the section. The Enata Marine Foiler quotes 448 kW, 113 nm and eight passengers, from EUR 990,000 — the longest published range of any electric foiler we hold, and the highest price. The Candela P-12 is the outlier in kind rather than in number: 11.99 m and 30 passengers, a foiling passenger vessel rather than a private boat, and the reason this section spans a two-seater and a small ferry.
What we do not hold
Worth stating in one place, because the absences shape what any comparison of these boats can honestly say:
- No take-off speed for any of the twelve.
- No draught figure for any of the twelve, and no record of which foils retract.
- No charging time for any of the twelve.
- No range for five of them — including both Quadrofoils, the Foilone Pegasus and the Candela Seven.
- No battery capacity for five of them, including the Artemis 23 and the Edorado 8S.
- No price for eight of them.
Where a builder publishes nothing, the field stays empty here. A plausible figure would be worse than a blank one, because a blank one tells you to ask.
Where to go next
The seven boats above each have a page with the full specification as published, and every figure on this page is drawn from those pages. If you want to see foilers alongside the boats they compete with, the sport category and the day boats are where most of them sit, and the full catalogue can be filtered by length, speed and battery capacity. The builders index lists Quadrofoil, Foilone, Volare Boats, Candela and Edorado alongside everyone else, and the guides cover the questions this page deliberately left to the glossary.