(The reason if the T-boat proves to work that my first port of call will be China.)
For when it comes to fresh-air product and trying something new, they are what the US was in the 1950s and 1960s...
... while the UK is all about nostalgia. Take the government grant awarded to Rolls-Royce to combine a Siemens motor and American airframe for the speed record we'd forget about a month later; and pull out of electric motors altogether, it having taken a successful Turkish CEO to point out that they ought to stick to the knitting?
Capturing my attention recently are videos of kart-boats retailing at Walmart for what is said to be as little as $700, but in reality looks to be ten times that if you'd like it to run for more than a fortnight.
The underlying picture however is how electric jet-pumps are transforming sports on water. There have been efforts to power surfboards that date back to the 1960s and record-breaker Malcolm Campbell was filmed using one such before his fateful visit to Coniston.
This was with an outboard, however, and it was only relatively recently that an IC engine was squeezed inside the board itself. And then, in the way flat-screen TVs were nowhere and then everywhere, practically every PWC or personal watercraft to be seen has an electric jet-pump.
I've commented on the vulnerabilities of hydrofoils ~ and the use of defensive chain between each side of harbours like the Golden Horn dating back several centuries ~ but there are still advantages a hydroski offers over jet-boats, which:
(a) in shallow enough water, are stopping and
(b) whilst in air, if only briefly, are decelerating.
Which may not matter to surfers, but does to maritime drones.
