After tallying the votes from more than 10,000 electric boat enthusiasts all over the world and an international judging panel of e-boat experts, the second annual Gustave Trouvé Awards for Excellence in Electric Boats and Boating – ‘The Gussies’ – has announced Maid of the Mist’s all-electric, zero-emission vessels as a recipient of its 2021 Gustave Trouvé Award.
Placed into service in October 2020, Maid of the Mist was honored in the Electric Boats Designed for Paying Passengers, In Operation category.
The awards, now in their second year, were created by electric boat website Plugboats.com to recognize the inventors, designers, manufacturers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries who are making advances every day to develop clean, quiet, zero-emission technologies and designs to reduce reliance on fossil fuel for marine propulsion.
“This international award is a testament to our associates and the expert companies we worked with to develop these unique vessels,” said Maid of the Mist President Christopher M. Glynn. “Our two electrics, the James V. Glynn and Nikola Tesla, are receiving rave reviews from both the maritime industry and our guests, and we are grateful to have received this honor.”
Over 100 boats were nominated in 2021, more than twice as many as in 2020, with the finalists and eventual winners chosen through a combination of public voting and weighted ballots by a panel of industry experts from: the Electric Boat Associations of the United States, Great Britain, Greece, Switzerland, and Canada.
“The number of entries and the response from the public shows just how quickly electric boats are growing,” said Jeff Butler, editor/publisher of Plugboats and founder of the awards. “Whether it’s a family day boat, an ocean cruiser, river tour boat or the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls, electric boats can do it all without the noise, fumes and carbon emissions of fossil fuels.”
‘The Gussies’ are the only international boating awards that focus exclusively on electric boats and are named to honor Gustave Trouvé, a prolific French inventor with over 75 patents to his name. Among his innovations was the world’s first outboard boat motor, which he devised so that he could detach the motor from his prototype electric boat ‘Le Teléphone’ and take it home to work on in his Paris apartment.
While M. Trouvé’s invention predates the 1887 patent of the internal combustion engine, and electric boats have been available since the first years of the 20th century, it is not until recently that they have begun to enter the mainstream.
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