Competr brings forward-drive electric outboard to production after three Monaco wins

What it is

Competr is a 26.9 kW electric outboard, roughly equivalent to 40 hp, now in production and commercially available. It grew out of the University of Bologna’s Argonauts Team (UniBoAT), which won the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge’s Energy Class three years running and took the Prince Albert II Award for Best Marine Innovation along with a €25,000 prize for what organizers called an “outstanding contribution to sustainable yachting.”

What separates Competr from most electric outboards on the market is what sits below the waterline. The motor uses a Forward Drive, or tractor, configuration, meaning the propeller faces toward the bow rather than the stern. It pairs that with contra-rotating propellers, two props turning on the same shaft in opposite directions. Neither idea is new on its own: Volvo Penta introduced forward drive in 2005 and Mercury launched its own version in 2020, but both were inboard or stern drive systems. According to the University, this is the first time the combination has been applied to a small power outboard, combustion or electric.

Where the efficiency comes from

There are two separate efficiency mechanisms at work, and they are often conflated. The forward drive matters partly because the propeller is the first part of the unit to contact the water. On a conventional outboard, water hits the stem holding the shaft and propeller first, which creates turbulence before the prop can grip. Less turbulence means the prop can do its job with less wasted energy.

The bigger gain comes from the contra-rotating propellers. A single prop sheds turbulence off its tips beyond the sides of the hole it is cutting through the water. The second prop, spinning opposite the lead prop, refocuses that flow into a smooth stream behind the props. Competr and the University put that gain at 10 to 15 percent of propulsion efficiency, which is meaningful when every percentage point translates directly to time on the water from the same battery pack.

The transmission itself was developed by the students and Professor Nicolò Cavina, and the University holds the patent. Competr, the commercial entity spun out of the student team, holds an exclusive manufacturing and marketing license for 10 years.

Why a race format produced a usable product

The Monaco format is deliberately hard to game with a one-trick motor. Boats run three distinct events: a speed trial rewarding straight-line velocity, an endurance race rewarding range and efficiency, and a manoeuvrability challenge rewarding precise steering. A motor optimized only for top speed tends to fall down on range, and one tuned for range often sacrifices agility. Winning the overall class championship requires being near the top across all three.

Competr’s tractor layout was designed to score well everywhere at Monaco, and the same properties carry over to commercial day-to-day use. After the 2025 competition, Competr and Focchi RIBs, their partner in the RedWave SeaLab Class entries, took the still-final motor around a number of European marinas and gathered owner feedback. The first iteration had concentrated on speed, using a 5.7 metre (19 foot) RIB. The marina feedback pushed them back toward steering, particularly in reverse, where repeated low-speed manoeuvring with gear and crew aboard demands a precise stern.

It is also worth noting the same motor was a critical component for the RedWave team that won the SeaLab Class, framed by the Challenge as floating laboratories for emerging energy architectures. That dual track, university competition and commercial RIB work, is the thread running through the whole project.

The numbers that matter for buyers

Leopoldo Cavalino, Head of Commerce for Competr, described what the feedback loop produced in concrete terms. Working with Focchi, the team developed a 4.6 metre (15 foot) boat as the testbed. One of the main variables was battery placement, which becomes more influential as the hull shrinks. Moving a heavy battery a few centimetres forward or back changes trim, planing behaviour, and turning performance enough to matter when chasing speed, endurance, and agility simultaneously.

The stated result is a boat that can turn 180 degrees in less than three metres, about two thirds of its own length. Cavalino was direct about that figure: it is the sort of claim worth taking seriously precisely because it came out of marina testing rather than a brochure, but independent confirmation on production boats is still outstanding.

The first commercially available boat-and-motor package is a Focchi 570, being delivered to a client in the Isola Tremiti off Italy’s Adriatic coast. The archipelago sits inside the Gargano National Park, where the environmental restrictions make electric propulsion a practical fit and the intricate coastline rewards the motor’s low-speed steering.

An honest caveat

This is a genuinely new configuration for a small outboard, not an incremental iteration of a standard electric leg. The patent, the race record, and the production status all check out as real rather than vaporware. What is missing is independent, instrumented efficiency data on production units. The 10 to 15 percent contra-rotating gain is the design intent, and the three-metre turning claim comes from the development team. Until a third party runs the motor against a conventional electric outboard on the same hull with the same battery, treat both figures as manufacturer-reported, not independently verified.

That said, Competr is in the unusual position of being one of the few electric outboards you can point to that earned its credibility in direct competition before it ever reached a dealer. For day-boating, tenders, and short coastal cruising, this is exactly the kind of engineering the segment needs more of, assuming the production pricing and service network hold up to the performance claims.