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"I identify with the weak person; this is one reason why my fictional protagonists are essentially antiheroes."
- Philip K. Dick

Electric-Yacht  
  A surface vessel powered entirely by electricity.  

I had, however, no time to reflect upon my rare good fortune, for Ali Barber seized me by the hand and led me rapidly out of the palace to the bank of the river. There was a small yacht, and I went on board of it with Ali Barber.

“The Treasury is some distance up the Nile. We go to it in the electric ferry boat of the Illustrious.”

We were moving along at a tremendous rate.

“We are alone on board,” said Ali Barber. “This being an electric yacht requires no one to work it.”

On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster. It rushed through the water at lightning speed. Sometimes the boat was shot up a fearful height, and sometimes it fell a terrible depth, which I presume was going up and down the cataracts. In my agony I thought I should have thrown myself into the river. I screamed and yelled and at last became unconscious.

Technovelgy from A Strange Trip, by John Baker Hopkins.
Published by Tinsley's Magazine in 1885
Additional resources -

Compare to the electric boat from The Great Drought (1932) by S.P. Meek.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from A Strange Trip
  More Ideas and Technology by John Baker Hopkins
  Tech news articles related to A Strange Trip
  Tech news articles related to works by John Baker Hopkins

Electric-Yacht-related news articles:
  - Electric Catamaran 'Explorer Eco 40m' Has 'Solar Skin'

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