July 2025 · Monaco

Rookie of the Year

Float Forward made its debut at the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge in July 2025, finishing 7th overall among 20 international teams. The highlight of the event was a 5th place in the Endurance Race, showcasing the team's engineering work and determination.

That first performance earned Float Forward the Rookie of the Year award, going beyond the goals set for the team's first season. The result fuels our motivation to keep improving and to aim higher in the upcoming editions of the competition.

On August 28th of 2024, the first goals for the team were defined together with our professors. By September 25th we held our first team meeting with 30 members, marking the official launch of the project. In November, we received the exciting news of our first sponsorship from Maersk.

From February onwards, after our first meeting in the current workshop, everything accelerated: we built the wooden skeleton, manufactured carbon fibre components, completed both the HV and LV electrical systems integration, secured power tools sponsorship, started assembling the boat, tested it in an indoor swimming pool and later in open sea, transported it to Monaco, passed all technical inspections with no major challenges, and raced in the Endurance Race from start to finish without failures, despite having very limited testing.

Before the team existed, it was estimated that competing with a DTU built boat would take around three years. Everything listed here happened in under one.