If you don't think electric motors and microprocessors will change much at sea, you need to check out Regent's progress. The Rhode Island venture has been flying full-scale crewed prototypes off the back of $9 billion dollars worth of advance orders.
It can operate in conventional displacement mode, or as here on hydrofoils prior to transitioning to flight in ground-effect above the water and whilst the pic is of scale testing, the current prototype is the largest electrical flying machine anywhere.
Subject testing and adapted with canards up front to complement airfoil profiles at the rear, the longer-term aim with the monoski under development is a watercraft able to operate comfortably both on the surface at speed as well as just above it.
Regent's craft is not unique worldwide, now that we are finally able to realise travel in ground-effect ~ something that absent computers, electrical motors and batteries of high energy density was previously unviable.
I think we have to face up to the fact that in so far as the UK goes, when it comes to transport we're no longer able to achieve anything much on a grand scale as we used in the past.
We may still make a difference when it comes to drones, but the jury's out.
What you can see from the pic though is that the machine is using only a fraction of the energy to go rather faster than the conventional RIB in trail. With the monoski under development all that remains beside these desiderata (Ed. come on, WTF?) is something that uses only a fraction of the material normally required to build boats.
