Solar Powered Cat Conversion From A-class

[Doug Lord]

Originally Posted by bad dog

Canberra Traditional Boat Festival last weekend...

Moondog made her debut on the lake below the House of Hot Air (that'd be Parliament House - look for the flagpole in the background). A few people said "that's not very traditional!" and it was great to be able to say "No but it sure is ugly."

Actually, the official line round here is that solar power is VERY bloody traditional - it made the planet and all life on it, one way and another. Anyway, it's a prototype, so it HAS to be ugly, right?

Who cares? It was the fastest boat on the lake that day, and with the little Torqeedo 1kW motor. Looks promising, testing will continue...

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Congratulations on a great showing! I've been wondering about the effect of the solar panel on stability-any wind limits to operation?
Great job!

[bad dog]

Theory only at this point as there hasn't been a strong cross wind to test it in yet, but above 5kn I intend that the panel is fixed in the horizontal position by the two carbon tube tilting braces on the aft A frame, as well as the tilt control lines on the fwd A frame.

In practice, this is the easiest position for general navigation anyway. The tilting is really for a quick extra charge early or late in the day. If we go to a production version, this feature will be dropped - it's not idiot-proof. We will just do the raising and lowering with side arms not A frames.