Boundary Layer has electrically propulsed hydrofoil vessels
Summary
If youve ever spent time writing beat poetry about container ships chugging their way into and out of harbors, nimble or fast will be unlikely to make it into your finely crafted written words. I spoke with Boundary Layers CEO and founder, Ed Kearney, who told me that these early vessels are a launchpad to enter the $100 billion air freight market with a high-speed hydrogen-powered container ship.We applied to Y Combinator and were accepted. Those customers already have very high-value goods that need to move quickly and were able to offer them an alternative to air freight thats half the price and comparable transit times.Of course, a plane is going to out-fly a ship cruising at sea every day of the week, but Boundary Layer believes that high speed and the use of standard containers makes it competitive. When shipping by air, even if the goods are on pallets, the company claims there are significant inefficiencies.If you really want to nerd out about why containerized commerce is such a benefit, theres an incredible eight-part podcast series thatll have you transfixed for a few hours. Anyway back to Boundary LayerWeve got three Fortune 500 companies as launch partners one is in the electronics space, one in the automotive supply and one is in the electronic equipment space, claims Kearney, who declined to name the companies for now, but claims those three partners have $26 million worth of letters of intent (LOI), and an additional $60 million in pre-orders for the passenger ferries, spanning the world: The passenger ferry customers will be announced soon, but theyre all over the world, including the Mediterranean, the US, as well as the CaribbeanBoundary Layer created a video to show off its passenger ferry:The company makes a big deal out of its vehicles being zero-emission.All our vessels will be zero-emissions, and propulsion ultimately comes from electric motors.