Electric Launch Company

The Electric Launch Company, later renamed Elco Motor Yachts, (Elco) is a United States boat building and electric motor company that has operated from 1893 until present (with a "hiatus" from 1949 to 1987). It was originally run by Henry R. Sutphen in 1895. Its current president is Steve Lamando.

Elco first made its mark at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. Fifty-five launches, each 36 feet long and powered by battery-driven electric motors, carried over a million passengers.

In 1899 Isaac Rice, president of the Electric Storage Battery Company and owner of the Electro-Dynamic Company (both suppliers to Elco), acquired Elco as a subsidiary of his new Electric Boat Company. Elco built a new boatyard in Bayonne, New Jersey soon afterward. Previously, Elco boats had been built in subcontracted facilities.

By 1900, electric-powered pleasure boats outnumbered the combined number of boats powered by steam and explosive engines (as gasoline-powered motors were called). By 1910, the advantages of the range and power of gasoline came to dominate the market and Elco converted to motor boats.

During World War I, the company built five hundred and eighty 80-foot submarine chasers (aka motor launches) for the British Admiralty, and 448 110-foot submarine chasers and 284 boats of other types for the US Navy.

Between the wars, it introduced the 26-foot Cruisette, a cabin cruiser which became successful. This was followed in the 1930s with 30-foot to 57-foot Veedettes and Flattops.

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