World Champion Taylor Scism, daughter of MTI’s founder Randy Scism, looks to captain the first electric boat in the 2023 season. Continue reading below to learn more about what this boat can do for the world of powerboat racing and its impact on the environment.
The E1 World Electric Race Boat Series is scouting for participants for its debut racing season, and World Champion Taylor Scism of the USA is being considered as a driver for the debut 2023 season.
The world’s first electric race boat series, E1 is part of the Union Internationale Motonautique (UIM), the international governing body of powerboating. E1 was established to create an exciting, competitive racing platform to promote sustainable electric watercraft and reduce the environmental pressures being placed on the ocean, rivers and lakes.
Scism, the daughter of legendary MTI founder Randy Scism, drove an MTI 390X last year with Johnny Tomlinson in the new Factory 450 Class, and the two picked up World Championships. (The pair are planning to kick off their sophomore season together in 2022.) The E1 series will see 12 teams competing in global race locations, behind the wheel of the RaceBird boats designed by SeaBird Technologies and Victory Marine and powered by Mercury Racing. Each team would consist of a male and female member in a single-driver craft (potentially splitting their time during each race or rotating dates). The E1 Series was launched in 2020 by two close friends from the automotive world, Alejandro Agag and Rodi Basso. Agag, a groundbreaking pioneer of sustainable motorsports, has created three electric racing series from scratch: Formula E, Extreme E and now the E1 Series.
Committing to both domestic and international racing next year would make for a jam-packed schedule for Scism, who also heads up MTI’s client relations staff. But she tells Speedboat that she’s excited by the prospect of the electric boat race. E1’s scouts have been in talks with her for several months, and are recruiting participants across a wide variety of sports.
“It’s really interesting,” Scism says. “They’re actually pulling from a lot of different kinds of athletics. One woman they’re considering is a horse jumper, while another is a skier. Some haven’t been in a boat before. They plan to put us through safety training, driving school, possibly simulator training, and then flight school, where we’ll have the chance to get in and drive the RaceBirds.” Scism said only two of the women being considered are from the USA, while the rest are international.
“It’s not a done deal by any means yet,” she says. “We probably won’t know until late fall, maybe even early winter, if we’re officially going to be selected as drivers. But they’re very excited to have the women involved, and are going to be doing workshops where aspiring younger participants will be interacting with seasoned female racers.”
Original article published on speedboat.com
