Not many workboats get to trade a snarling outboard for near total silence at the flick of a switch, and fewer still can say they are among the first in the world built to do exactly that, on duty, every day. Novi Marine's Gemini WR650 Hybrid Patrol RIB has gone into service with Stadshaven Antwerpen, the authority responsible for the historic docks lining Belgium's River Scheldt, and its Dutch builder, together with Belgian and Dutch marine trade press, describes it as one of the first hybrid RIBs of its size operating full time in a European city port.
The boat has been named Pharus, Latin for lighthouse, and was formally christened by acting Antwerp mayor Els van Doesburg, who poured champagne over the bow at a ceremony on the city's Eilandje docks. The naming fell on a symbolic date: Stadshaven Antwerpen's tenth anniversary, the harbour authority set up in 2016 to bring order, safety and, more recently, sustainability to the city's oldest port district. Pharus replaces a patrol boat that had done a decade's service, a changing of the guard timed almost exactly to the organisation's own.
The 6.5 metre RIB pairs a 150hp Yamaha outboard with a fully electric Torqeedo drive system, built and certified by Novi Marine, with Yamaha Motor Europe and Torqeedo as delivery partners. Harbourmaster Werner Weijts told Belgian broadcaster VRT NWS that on a full charge, the boat can run silently for up to eight hours of daily patrol work, useful when idling past yachts and houseboats where noise matters. Novi Marine director Arjen Maan explained that the Yamaha outboard is kept in reserve for exactly the moments electric power can't cover, when city services need to reach an incident faster than the electric motor alone allows.
Weijts put the wider ambition behind the boat this way: "Ten years ago we brought structure to the water. Today we are building a sustainable and versatile City Port that will bring Antwerp, the people of Antwerp and the water closer together again."
Pharus will handle patrol and intervention work around Antwerp's docks, retrieving floating debris, assisting boaters and houseboat residents, and keeping an eye on swimmers as the dock zones grow more popular for recreation. It's also set to escort tall ships through the Kattendijkdok during this year's Tall Ships Races.
It's a small boat doing an outsized job of proving a point. European harbour authorities have spent the past few years talking about decarbonising their fleets without losing operational flexibility, and most of that talk has stayed exactly that, talk. Pharus is a working answer rather than a concept boat, built for a real roster of patrol shifts rather than a boat show stand. If it holds up to daily use in one of Europe's busiest river ports, it's a useful data point for every harbourmaster asking the same question.
