On the waters of Monaco, performance is measured not only in speed, but in the precision with which an engineering idea becomes a working system.
Physis PEB, the Politecnico di Milano student team dedicated to sustainable marine propulsion, received the Innovation Prize at the 2026 Monaco Energy Boat Challenge and secured third place in the Energy Class. Held from 8 to 11 July at the Yacht Club de Monaco, the thirteenth edition of the international competition brought together 54 teams from 21 countries, placing emerging technologies under the combined pressure of sea conditions, technical scrutiny and competitive performance.
The Innovation Prize, awarded by an international jury, recognises projects distinguished by the originality of their solutions, their potential impact and their practical relevance to the future of sustainable navigation. For Physis PEB, the award reflects a design process in which structural engineering, propulsion, energy management and control systems converge within a single experimental platform.
At the centre of this result is PB526, the team’s latest prototype, unveiled only a few weeks before the competition. The vessel introduces the first self-supporting monocoque chassis developed by Physis PEB, together with an integrated motor tower and an active trim control system. More than a collection of technical upgrades, PB526 represents a shift towards a more integrated design logic, in which structure, propulsion and dynamic behaviour are developed as parts of the same architecture.
This approach was tested within the Energy Class, a category built around standardised catamaran hulls supplied by the Yacht Club de Monaco. By fixing the hull geometry, the competition turns propulsion efficiency, cockpit design, energy management and system integration into the decisive variables. Each prototype therefore becomes a visible expression of the engineering choices made behind it: weight distribution, control strategy, power delivery and reliability under real operating conditions.
Founded in 2021 by Professor Paolo Schito of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Professor Riccardo Mereu of the Department of Energy, Physis PEB now brings together more than 100 students from engineering, design and architecture programmes at Politecnico di Milano. The team develops high-performance vessels with no operational emissions, exploring architectures that integrate hydrogen, solar energy and battery systems.
Within this multidisciplinary environment, the boat is both an object and a method. It is a platform through which students translate theoretical knowledge into materials, geometries, algorithms and decisions that must continue to function beyond the controlled space of a laboratory.
The result achieved in Monaco confirms the project’s value as an advanced educational and research setting, where applied experimentation and cross-disciplinary expertise meet the wider transition towards lower-impact maritime mobility.
The Department of Energy and the Department of Mechanical Engineering congratulate all the students involved in Physis PEB on this achievement.
