Pure Watercraft was supposed to revolutionize the eco-responsible boating market, with its electric motors and boats: the company created in 2011 turned out to be a money pit, which will leave bad memories for its employees, but also for the investors who believed in it, notably General Motors, but also the Chinese company Highfield Boats, which thought it had found a major new outlet for its tenders, proudly bearing the American flag...

Last August, in the torpor of summer, one of the biggest bankruptcies of recent years in the US boating and yachting industry was taking place.

Pure Watercraft, based in Lake Union (Seattle), declared bankruptcy, putting a definitive halt to what everyone thought would be a wonderful Green Tech adventure: the mass marketing of electric motors and boats.

The adventure had begun in 2011, with the creation of a green tech start-up, whose objective was to set up a virtuous model, combining the development of an electric motor and batteries that could be installed on any suitable boat, with the development and sale of boats equipped with these solutions.

By 2011, the company had raised no less than $37 million to finance its ambitions, which attracted the very serious General Motors in... 2021 (in need of green solutions....), which is investing no less than $150 million in Pure Watercraft, in kind and in cash, with a view to selling its automotive batteries and amortizing the development costs of its Lordstown (Ohio) plant.

To develop its range of boats, Pure Watercraft launched the development of a pontoon boat, the Pure Pontoon, took deposits and set up a factory with 100 employees, and signed an agreement with Chinese RIB manufacturer Highfield to develop electric tenders, with 3 models in the catalog, the Pure Highfield 360 (27100 euros), Pure Highfield 380GT (29500 euros) and Pure Highfield Sport 420 (34000 euros), the Chinese being one of the market leaders in aluminum-hulled tenders.

All this creative fever, however, came up against the harsh reality of the market, and although some 900 American yachtsmen placed orders for their Pure Pontoon, not a single one left the factory, the deposits paid having disappeared in the Pure Watercraft financial debacle.

Declared bankrupt last July, its Lake Union headquarters was closed and its employees dismissed, and the company has since been sold off.

Around a hundred Pure Highfield tenders were sold below cost price, along with the company's fleet of trucks, and 750,000 lithium battery cells had a hard time attracting anyone, as this type of investment is technically risky.

9 buyers are now said to be lining up to take over Pure Watercraft's patents and intellectual property rights, with the West Virginia-based pontoon boat construction site, due to open in June 2023, likely to appeal to players in this very special sector.