After 117 days at sea, the Sun 21 Catamaran docked Thursday in Miami. The craft, manned by 4 Swiss academics and one Swiss sailor, is the first solar powered boat to cross the Atlantic. The team departed from Seville, Spain, and followed the same route as Christopher Columbus did when discovering the new World over 500 years ago. The crew hoped the voyage would resonate around the world the potential of renewable energy to fight climate change.
The 46 foot long boat is outfitted with 48 solar panels on its 700 square-foot roof, which absorb energy from the sun during the day and store it in batteries, which keep the boat powered during the night. Designed bysolar boat company MW Line, the boat sailed from Basel, Swizerland on October 16th, 2006, and made route via the Rhine River to the North Sea, where it continued along the coast of Europe to Spain and departed onto the open water. The boat, which travels at a rate of 10 kmh, is capable of running for 20 hours with a fully charged battery. A comparably sized gas powered boat would use around 72 liters of diesel each day on the same voyage.
The 46 foot long boat is outfitted with 48 solar panels on its 700 square-foot roof, which absorb energy from the sun during the day and store it in batteries, which keep the boat powered during the night. Designed bysolar boat company MW Line, the boat sailed from Basel, Swizerland on October 16th, 2006, and made route via the Rhine River to the North Sea, where it continued along the coast of Europe to Spain and departed onto the open water. The boat, which travels at a rate of 10 kmh, is capable of running for 20 hours with a fully charged battery. A comparably sized gas powered boat would use around 72 liters of diesel each day on the same voyage.
The spokesman for the group, Daniel Weiner, said about the feat "Just as Columbus changed the mindshift [mindset] of his time [by showing] that the Earth was round and not flat, we want to show that the energy future looks different than the past."
Several European lakes and rivers are already home to solar powered boats, which cruise around lakes and rivers (in France and Austria), and then plug into docks where they disperse excess energy to the grid. In Australia, the Solar Sailor ferries passengers around Sydney Harbor, with a design of movable solar panels (they resemble wings) which catch the wind for even more power. A larger version of the Solar Sailor will soon have a home in San Francisco bay as a passenger ferry.
The Sun 21 catamaran will continue its voyage from Miami to New York, where it will remain on display for a period. The fact that a boat can make the long and treacherous Atlantic crossing relying solely on solar power might show skeptics the large scale potential of solar power, and lead people to think outside of the box when it comes to alternative energy uses. A solar powered car may not be such a crazy idea, right?
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