Highest Volatge advisable

someday perhaps nantennas will be practical solar power which can be 95% efficiency of turning sunlight into electricity.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/17/mizzou-professor-says-nantenna-solar-sheet-soaks-up-90-percent-o/
http://domesticfuel.com/2011/05/16/nantenna-to-improve-solar-capture-threefold/
You can theoretically harvest a thousand watts per sq meter from the sun for solar cells.
Maybe more in tropics.
Maybe even more with Nantenna collecting light and heat.

If much of boat surface can be transformed into an energy collector could be enough.
Even water reflects sun onto boat sides.
Nantenna captures light and heat energy to make electricity. So perhaps someday the very surfaces of an object can be imprinted with nantennas. So washing the boat will become more important not just for looks.

Sun21 crossed Atlantic only on Solar Power. A giant catamaran with large flat roof for solar panels.
http://www.transatlantic21.org/

 

Sdowney717, you have to approach this from a practical usefull and affordable viewpoint. In the future we may all live in hovercrafts capable of high speed traveling.

Untill such time we have to use what works best and is most affordable.

 

I am always thinking if the technology exists and can be exploited with mass production then costs will be low.
IF they can figure out the high speed diode switching needed, then Nantenna will be much cheaper than photovoltaics
From wikipedia

 

Hi Fanie, thank you for your fatherly advice. Although I do agree with you, but I hope that in the next 5 years, the battery technology in the production line will be improved to such an extend, that the above is then actual not an issue anymore. The problem is always, to get the professors and doctors in their labs to push it into a useful production line technology. I am convinced it is coming. In how far the oilcompanies will delay the progress, nobody can predict. But I can already buy now, from Bill Venter's Altech group, 48 Volt batteries having enough energy to surprise you. Also the price tag. Rand 70.000,- But it can be done.

Fanie before I go onto the sea, I will have thoroughly tested out 2 separate driven motors on the boat, somewhere on a little dam. Remember, original, the design also had a sail? But Don't worry, I am no longer going on the sea with bad weather forecasted, nor to go for long distances or time.

No, I will not have a smelly engine on board. I rather experiment on a small dam other options. Wind >> electric >>> cables >>> control >>> cables >>> electric >> prop. Is one solution. Wavemaking is another, there are other solutions without the use of smelly oil products.
Sorry Fanie to disappoint you. Bert