Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ProZero (ProZero - carbon based fast boats for professional use) Reporting period: 2017-04-01 to 2018-03-31 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project The overall objective of the ProZero project is to overcome barriers and challenges connected to introducing carbon fibre boats on the fast boats market for professional use. The market has remained unchanged for decades and the introduction of a range of lightweight boats made out of carbon fiber would have a series of positive economic and environmental outcomes. Tuco Marine Group ApS is pursuing a major market opportunity by developing and commercializing carbon fibre boats for professional use. More specifically, Tuco is targeting 3 categories of boats: i) Fast Rescue Boats (FRB), ii) Daughter Crafts (DC - boats used for transport between mother ships and oilrigs or windmill parks), and iii) Work Boats (WB) designed with a deck for different work purposes. The plan of the project are: 1. Design and develop moulds and tools for the scalable and cost-effective production of carbon fibre boats.2. Showcase carbon based boats in operational use. 3. Develop the designs for a product range to complete the offering. The result will be a complete series of boats which can be built to order on the same platform, and thus without additional fix costs for each order.4. Develop and implement a design portal, enabling customers to get access to the designs and drawings.Although carbon has been successfully deployed in other vessel types, such as fast ferries, recreation and high-end racing yachts, the usage of carbon remains unproved in the market of fast boats for professional use. The commercial shipping industry is very conservative and it is thus necessary to demonstrate the benefits of carbon fibre in the targeted market before large-scale commercialization. Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far The work carried out in the first reporting period has been directed towards striking a balance between three main areas:1) Tuco’s objective of pursuing market opportunities with carbon fiber based work boats and 2) a key design structure that carefully reflects the preferences and requirements of the end users while also 3) meeting the international regulations and requirements of classification companies. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) With ProZero project, TUCO will overcome prevailing market and entry barriers by partnering with key stakeholders and building solid reference cases. In addition, we will offer a full product range – the ProZero boat series - that can be built to order on a simple platform (using same tools) reducing the required initial investments of the whole series. The accomplishment of the project objectives will represent a significant business opportunity for TUCO, with an expected turnover of 23 Mio EUR, 5 years after commercialization.The SME instrument funding plays an important strategic role in the future business development of TUCO. After assessing the feasibility of ProZero in the SME phase 1 project, we intend to pursue our strategic vision of introducing a new line of fast boats for professional use to the market. The ProZero Website ProZero - Fast boats for professionals
