Solar Cat Power

See this?

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog...an completes record-setting circumnavigation/

 

its been discussed. Bunch of ultra rich *******. No financial feasibility of any sort.

 

No doubt, but it is impressive.

 

Solar circumnavigation

=============
Thank God for ultra rich *******-if this is how they spend their money for the benefit of all the rest of us. First solar powered circumnavigation is astoundingly significant!

Records include: Longest journey by a solar-powered boat (31,484 miles; not including side trips made by Turanor PlanetSolar); first circumnavigation by a solar-powered boat; fastest crossing of South China Sea by solar power; fastest crossing of the Atlantic by solar power; and largest solar-powered boat.

PlanetSolar's crew consisted of Switzerland's Domjan, an ambulance driver and high-mountain rescue guide; French captains Erwann Le Rouzic and Patrick Marchesseau; German Bosun Jens Langwasser, and Swiss energy-management specialist Christian Ochsenbein.

 

I've got to agree with Doug here (as usual). This is a big world record and a great feat of systems design.

It is a "proof of concept" vessel. As such, it has imperfections, but it shows everyone that a boat need only be powered by the sun, provided certain sacrifices are made.

Probably an even better bet would be to somehow power one by the wind (sails/kites) and solar, so you had infinite range and no emissions.

 

I get the value of trying and proving new ideas. Just didn't like the way this one was done.

And really it only proved that something absolutely impractical can be done.

 

Kero:

Wind and essentially all energy is solar, except maybe nuclear fission. I would think it comes in a distant second place compared to the real time solar power of sailboats.

Porta

 

fully agree - non-photo-voltaic sailboat can travel the same trip in fraction of the time and cost.

I am a pro-alt energy person. But to me this is a bit like proving that you could circum navigate on a boat powered with rubber bands. Might be doable but very impractical and has little relevance to real solutions we badly need.

It has similar problems as the "green" hybrid powerboats that in the end use more gas than similar gas only competitor with better hull design. "hybrid" gets to call itself green even if it actually uses more fuel than boat doing the same job for less gas with conventional (yet better thought out) layout.

I was also very much put off by the attitude of the peeps behind this one.

 

As a demonstration of the power, weight, and reliability of current solar panels and batteries, it's an interesting achievement. I'd be interested to see how their speed compares with that of a small cargo vessel. (I suspect not well.)

As a practical boat, not so much. But it is an interesting tech demo.