doing business as
Zin Boats
employer : Zin Boats founded : 2019 location : Seattle employees : 12 plus 30 contractors website : www . zinboats . com
Zin Boats debuted their sleek battery-powered speedboats in 2020 in Miami to widespread acclaim . The winner of AWB ’ s 2023 Entrepreneur of the Year Award has pivoted and now is poised to debut another innovative electric boat . This all-new tender , designed and built in Washington , will be flown to the Netherlands this fall to be paired with a high-tech ultra-green megayacht .
Brian Mittge
navigating choppy waters : Founder Piotr Zin , a prolific industrial designer with many patents to his name , founded Zin Boats in 2019 and raised $ 250,000 to create an electric cruiser using BMW car batteries . His boats , the first domestically manufactured zero-emission electric speedboats , were a hit and the new company was deluged with orders , but construction of carbon-fiber and wooden boats is hard to scale up . Then Covid-19 shutdowns nearly did the company in ; it survived on design work . In 2022 Zin brought on a partner : serial entrepreneur David Donovick , who got his start at Microsoft and has led several startups . Along with business acumen , Donovick is a boat guy who knows how to spin a wrench ; he owns and runs a boat servicing business on Lake Chelan .
full throttle to the future : Zin Boats relaunched and refocused quietly on a big but under-the-radar project : a ship-to-shore electric tender for the world ’ s first hydrogen fuel cell megayacht . There are 23 patent-pending innovations in the boat , which sets several records : the most expensive tender ever built , largest electric engine , largest battery , and first tender with an electric actuated joystick control that allows the boat to move forward , backward and sideways . When finished it will be flown to Holland in a Boeing 747 . They already have customers lining up for a second boat built from the new 11-meter platform . They are also developing a successor to their popular Z2R all-electric speedboat .
groundbreaking technology : They have moved past powering their boat with car batteries ; they design their own , which are good for 10,000 cycles , or three decades of daily use . They also developed a unique proprietary flame-proof wrapper to protect the boat completely if something were to go wrong with the battery .
maritime history : Zin is a lifetime sailor and fixture in the Seattle boating community . Donovick also has boating in his blood . His dad and uncle were both commercial fishermen . His father ’ s ashes are spread in the Fremont Canal that flows past their office and his name is listed on the maritime memorial at Fishermen ’ s Wharf , just half a mile from Zin Boats ’ R & D headquarters south of Ballard . There they make a fully functional plywood mockup of their boats , complete with running lights and a working model of a retractable solar roof . Their production lines are in Anacortes and Burlington .
made in the northwest : Ninety percent of their parts come from within 175 miles of their headquarters , with a full 85 % made in Washington . “ We ’ re proudly patriotic and proudly Washington-made ,” Donovick said , noting the company ’ s place within the sophisticated maritime business ecosystem deeply embedded in the Puget Sound region .
“ Shipbuilding has a great legacy in Seattle ... There ’ s going to be another chapter to Washington ’ s maritime history .”
— David Donovick , President and COO , Zin Boats