FREEPORT, Maine — Just weeks ago, Maine Ocean Farms began using an all-electric aquaculture boat designed specifically for its oyster farm.
Someday soon, Maine Ocean Farms may even use it to transport the oysters directly to Portland, eliminating a trip back to the dock to load a truck and then drive the shellfish to market.
“It will cut out kind of that choke point of a really busy shore side interface,” co-owner Willy Leathers said. “It’s a communal use pier, your timing can get kind of thrown off or you can have access congestion.”
At this point, the boat technology has outpaced the high-speed charging station needed in Portland to quickly refuel the vessel for a speedy return trip, Leathers and co-owner Eric Oransky said.
Their boat, called the Heron, is the first all-electric aquaculture harvesting boat in Maine. It’s a 28-foot-long by 10-foot-wide aluminum hull landing craft built in North Yarmouth. It’s a project four years in the making, with the farm partnering with Aqua SuperPower, a British company looking to expand the availability of marine charging stations.
“There’s an undercurrent that aquaculture is a very good industry to electrify because we’re going set distances on set schedules to set locations and we can kind of build out our routine on the capacity of the vessel and the systems and the charging that we have available,” Leather said Wednesday as he and a crew headed out to harvest.
To make the project a reality, Maine Ocean Farms worked with the Island Institute, Maine Technology Institute, the Greater Portland Council of Governments and the federal Department of Energy, among others, Leathers said.
They launched July 16 with sea trials and are now using it as part of their harvesting operations and for farm tours.
On Wednesday, Leathers, Oransky and their crew of four harvested more than 7,000 oysters in about three and a half hours.
The boat works in tandem with a diesel-powered boat that is much louder and emits a strong diesel smell. One of the goals of the all-electric boat is the reduction in noise and emissions.
“We’re running right now at probably six or seven knots, it’s relatively quiet, we can have a conversation, we’re also in a place where we’re not producing direct emissions right here off the boat,” Leathers said.
Reducing noise associated with aquaculture has been a concern for the industry in recent years with opponents citing noise as one reason for concern.
The industry provides a statewide economic impact of about $137 million a year with companies raising Atlantic salmon, eastern oysters, mussels, seaweed, scallops, clams and other types of seafood, according to the Maine Aquaculture Association.
And though proposed large-scale, land-based fish farms have drawn pushback in recent years, most aquaculture farmers are smaller-scale operations like Maine Ocean Farms.
The company has been around for about 10 years and Leathers predicts they will harvest about 350,000 oysters this year. Next year, they will shoot for 500,000 to 600,000, he said.
Another part of their business is farm tours, which makes up about 20 percent of their business right now but is expected to be an area for future growth.
“Doing that in a way that we have this quiet environment that allows us to communicate and talk,” he said. “It also opens up opportunities for collaborative research possibilities with organizations in our sector.”
To get more local news, activities and weather in Maine, download the Spectrum News app.
