@iab had brought this up in the recently released thread. I was just going through some photos and video from earlier this year and came across some shots of the first time I got to drive one of these. It was the second build, so we were still working out a lot of details, but an amazing experience. I can’t describe how amazing it was to pilot a boat that I had designed, to actuate a throttle that I built in CAD myself, and to hear the rush of the water as the boat cruised across the lake.
It was a really fun project. We kicked it off by actually writing the press release. The founders both have engineering backgrounds and are amazing on that side of things. I wanted to pull a bit of emotion out of them to ground the project and when the first articles came out about it they had almost the same headline we wrote! It was fun to go from high level design strategy down to building the CAD for the throttle myself
Very cool process sketches and work. I like the kink in the windscreen - feels Nissan GT-R like - and the way the passenger-side seating wraps around to face rearward reminds me of old Chris Craft wood motorboats. Looks like a f***ton of work especially interiors. Top notch MD.
thanks @slippyfish, I was very happy the client approved showing the process. It was a lot of fun, of course that is just a fraction of it.
The big glass really makes the design. That came up early in the process, I advocated for it but also helped the client understand the cost involved. There are a few places in the LA area that make glass for concept card and very specific low volume aerospace purposes, so we were able to source it locally (the Arc production facility is near LAX)…as you know sketching it and building it CAD is one thing, making sure it can be made is another. The first boat had a very different attachment method to get the glass and frame to attach to the hull which we improved for the second build and then refined for production…
The interiors were a lot of work. Again, sketching it is one thing, but then getting on site to see the first build of all the cut and sew parts and refining and adjusting. Thankfully that work is much faster than the hull work so we had more rounds to get that right, tweak things like seams, piping, material textures, logo executions…
One of my favorite individual sub-assemblies is the throttle. The direct connection between the human and the electric motor. Tor the first build this was an off-the-shelf part but I advocated for a custom piece here. A few of the engineers agreed and we worked together to design and source something that cost wise was just a little more than the off-the-shelf component and so much nicer to the touch and more inline with the design theme.
Thanks @DanDesigns, we spent a lot of time up front defining the aesthetic boundaries. With the first product for a new brand you can go almost anywhere so it was worthwhile to spend that time up front to make sure we ended up where we wanted.
