A great combo – Flux Marine outboard and the electric Scout 215 XSF

Flux Marine is a US innovator in electric propulsion that first attracted attention when they won two awards, including ‘Best Green Product’, at the 2021 Newport Yachting Festival.

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It is led by CEO Ben Sorkin, COO Daylin Frantin and CTO Jonathan Lord . Sorkin and Frantin have been friends since growing up boating together in upstate New York, where Sorkin would pilot remote control boats around Lake George. Sorkin met Lord at Princeton University, where he proposed a hydrogen propulsion project to a professor. The professor suggested battery electric instead, Sorkin developed the concept enough to get seed funding from the university’s Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and Flux Marine was born after they graduated in 2018.

Read: Flux Marine lands $15.5M Series A Funding

The start-up was selected for many accelerator programs and received important grants, then raised $15.5 million in a Series A funding round. They originally had three electric outboard models but opted to focus on just one, the Flux 100 HP, which can be programmed for lower and variable power outputs.

Scout one of the first to partner with Flux

Scout Boats of North Carolina was one of the first companies they partnered with to offer electric boat packages and they now have the 215 Dorado and the 215 Sport XSF. Flux also partners with Highfield RIBS (rigid inflatable boats) on their Sport 660 model, and recently added a Tritoon to their model lineup.

I got an invitation from Ben to go out with him for a sea trial on the Scout 215 XSF during the 2025 Miami Boat Show and jumped at the opportunity.

Scout launched the non-electric version of the 215 XSF in 2016 and it and has earned a reputation for being a comfortable, affordable, well made boat. The centre console layout provides a walk around deck that is quite roomy for a fairly small boat. The ‘SF’ in SFX stands for Sport Fishing, so there are plenty of built in rod holders and other features for the avid angler, but there is also lots of comfortable seating that makes this a great all around family boat.

There are a couple of things about it that make it a good candidate for electric outboard propulsion and match up particularly nicely with Flux’s technology.

Optimized weight and hull design

Like all Scouts, the hull is built of 100% hand-laid fibreglass that provides strength using less resin-saturation and helps reduce overall weight. Weight, of course, has an effect on how much power is needed to run the boat, and comes into play with electric boats because weight reduces range. The efficiency of the hull also effects the range, and the 215 has Scout’s NuV3 proprietary stepped-hull design that uses less fuel – whether that be liquids or electrons.

While the weight is optimized, this is still a 21′ 5″ (6.2 m) boat weighing in at 2,775 lb (1,260 kg).
When powered by burning fossil fuel, the usual motor is a Yamaha or Mercury 150. The Flux 100 electric outboard delivers continuous power of 100 hp (75 kiloWatts) and peak power of 175 hp (130 kW) and as I found out on our sea trial, the electric Flux provides all the power you need.

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