I’m on the southern-most tip of Mumbai, in Colaba. It’s a toasting-hot summer’s day and the heat coming up through my shoes is so strong, it’s frying my toes. Beads of perspiration soon break out and the heat and humidity are so oppressive, I start fanning myself; what I’d give for a cool, air-conditioned room! Then a breeze picks up. Flags in the distance flutter and palm leaves begin to rustle – not good. The odds are already steeply stacked against our electric car, and now the wind’s picking up.
It doesn’t look good at all. To begin, there’s the sheer length of the D-shaped route we’ve chalked out around Mumbai’s harbour. We’ve got to drive all the way around the bay, 67km in all. But the boat only has to cut straight across, and it’s less than 13km from bank to bank. Then, because we’re starting at midday, there’s the crush of downtown traffic to deal with. There’s the range anxiety, always a huge issue on an electric, and to make matters worse, the e2o only has a top speed of 80kph – positively glacial when you really want to get going.
The Beneteau has problems of its own. Of course, no range anxiety here, but the wind is still unpredictable. And then, getting up onto the slipway on the other side of the bay isn’t going to be easy either. There’s got to be enough water for the boat to enter, and with all the vegetation on the approach, there’s likely to be plenty of tacking too. What will help, at least mentally, is the fact that the boat can’t top 12-15kph in these conditions. And that makes even the e2o feel quick.
