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Solar Boat To Cross the Atlantic
Roland Piquepaille writes, "A group from Switzerland will soon attempt the first Atlantic crossing in a solar-powered boat. This ship, named SUN21, is a 14-meter-long catamaran able to sleep 5 or 6 persons. The goal is to leave Seville, Spain, in December 2006 and to reach ports in Florida and New York in the spring of 2007. This boat will achieve its 7,000-mile trip at a speed of 5-6 knots, about the speed of a sailing yacht, by using photovoltaic cells and without burning a single gallon of fuel. The consortium behind this project wants to demonstrate that the time has come for solar boats." The boat will cost about $556,000 to build and it will be for sale at some point after its crossing.
Every sailing vessel is basically a solar powered boat. Been doing that for eons. Why change now?
Catboats with sails makes a very reliable clip night and day with little or no fancy technology - and can easily be mated up to such a solar-panel system for an added kick and redundancy...
Why would you want to do this rather than using wind power and ocean currents?
Finally, an alternative to the environmentally dangerous effects of the sail.
The performance and fuel-efficiency of sails, at a price that's a mere order of magnitude higher! Sure, it might seem pointless now, but when our reserves of fossil sails are exhausted, these guys are going to have the last laugh.
Another Roland Piquepaille submission. I guess it's not enough that Slashdot wants to post troll articles,dupes, and slashvertisments, they have to top the week off with another STUPID Roland spam. I sure hope whatever deal y'all have cut with Roland is worth the $ for wasting our god damn time.
...but haven't people been crossing the Atlantic in boats powered (indirectly) by the sun, without burning a single gallon of fuel, for around 514 years now?
But how much oil did it take to make the solar cells?
Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
With the current price of wind, why not use cheap solar power and all the equipment that comes with it? A sheet of cloth is so expensive! Oh hold on, these guys got it the wrong way round!!! What a waste of time!
I know this whole story is filled with comments like the above, but I really hope the sailors read this slashdot story and realise they've wasted both time and money to prove nothing.
What if the sun doesn't shine at all during the journey? After all, there's a lot of funky weather patterns going on these days.
Will it run (embedded) Linux to control the solar cells, battery, motor, etc.?
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Once that's established a solar/convenional Sail hybrid is the logical next step.
It's a proof of technology, not a planned usurper to sail power, at least that's how I see it.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
"The team's next journey will involve a cash-powered boat where they will use $556,000 in one-dollar bills for fuel."
No word yet on weather this next boat can be adapted to accept a check.
With a trimaran design, one could make a low displacement ship with a huge deck area. Of course, there's always the cloudy day to mess things up, but with enough batteries on cuold get through a day or two. Really though, this isn't about efficiency, it's more of a "Look what we can do." kind of thing, and a good starting point for research into marine solar applications. How much does salt water effect common types of solar panels? What's the most efficient type of motor for this application? What's the best way to mount solar panels onto a rolling and pitching surface? These are all questions that might be answered by a program such as this.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Wind-powered boats?
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
This seems utterly useless. I could see adding a bit of solar for thew little bit you'd use an engine (getting into port, etc) but reports suggest people who LIVE on sail boats year round only use about $1500 worth of diesel in a year (depending on price, this figure was from a few years ago).
Its not like they're sucking the well dry everyday.
Solar energy will be the future of navigation techniques. But it needs more publicity and more confidence. -- from the site
These people sound like Charles Lindberg in his book, The Spirit of St. Louis, except that he was writing about the future aviation in general while they're talking about solar naval transportation. "Lucky Lindy" was right, but are the transatlanic21 people as talented prophets as he?
If the people on the journey drift along having their engine shut off for most of the day, and then go at max speed for about 30-40 minutes, they would get to New York at their planned time, assuming that they used the planned course and that no major storms occur. Or, if they were able to keep the engine running for the whole time (going straight across the Atlantic), the trip would take them about 20 days.
Given the complexities inherent in solar panels and the photoelectric effect, I applaud these people for trying to start something. I do wonder why traveling skewedly across the Atlantic is taking them about 8 months, even assuming that there are no anomalies.
Well, I guess it is an improvement over Kon-Tiki which only had an ave speed of 1.5 knots. But at least it didn't use all this new-fangled technology!
If transportation advancement followed CPU speed or Disk Drive storage - whoa nelly! We'd be burning our nads off, zipping around!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Oceans are great. Nothing in the way (bar a few icebergs and whales), few hills, low friction and its everywhere... well 2/3 of everywhere. Great for transporting huge amounts of stuff all over the world. Solar power not so much. Its only light for a few hours a day, its really hard to store, unless your a plant, and our currently technology extracts just over a third of the 1kW per square meter. I know container ships are measured in football pitches, but most of that surface area is doing something already. The other solar power, wind, is better, but we've done that already. If wind was a viable technology for the sort of sea transportation that we are used to we'd be using it. Wind power makes solar look reliable, and has a relatively low top speed - thats why we went to fossil fuels - its not because sea farers like change.
;)
Why are people ignoring the temperature differencial? Toronto is already using one of the great lakes to generate power, there are trials in the Bahamas. Why not use it power ships? The oceans temperature is stable (at least in a human time frame) and there can be as much as 10 difference between deep sea and surface waters, thats plenty to drive a turbine using the syphon effect. Extend the range of tugs, and we have a winner.
Do you know whats better about it? Global warming makes it work better (at least until the deep seas catch up with the surface
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these things!
And the environmental cost of building these solar panels is...?
Okay, so we currently have the ability to have the front page not show articles posted by specific Slashdot editors. How about expanding that, so we can specify specific submitters, such as Roland Piquepaille for example, who's articles don't show up?
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
the ship will undertake the first motorized crossing of the Atlantic without using a drop of gasoline
Except for all the nuclear powered ships and submarines.
I'd have serious concerns about reliability etc. too. Consider that many sailing adventures end up with broken masts and similar misfortunes that people are able to recover from because they're using ancient technology. They can put together something that sails from broken masts and torn sails etc and limp in to port. Fixing up broken PV is probably not something you can just do armed with a hammer, saw and a knife.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Of course the Swiss, being world reknown for their sailing abilities, came up with a totally innovative solution. Of course, if a hurricane happens to block out the sun for a week they would be up the creek (or ocean) without a paddle, or a sail, or one drop of gassoline.
"...a civilian some of the time, a soldier part of the time and a patriot all of the time." -Brig. Gen. James Drain
.. to applaude these people for trying something new and different? we need people to go out there and attempt things like this, just to see if its possible. mark it up as another human achievment and advance of knowledge and ability. and if it creates potential new ideas and methods of using renewable energy source, all the better. it raises the profile of such efforts, and one day the money and technology may be available to bring this sort of thing mainstream.
yes, at the moment its slightly gimmicky, but if we want to move away from needing oil for everything, we have to mess with new ideas for a while along the way. if only so Joe Public can think more about renewable energy.
Voice Over Mr. and Mrs. Watson of 'Ivy Cottage', Worplesdon Road, Hull, chose a very cunning way of not being seen. When we called at their house, we found that they had gone away on two weeks holiday. They had not left any forwading address, and they had bolted and barred the house to prevent us getting in. However a neighbour told us where there were.
...(ditto) and of course here.....(a series of quick cuts of various atom bombs and hydrogen bomb at moment of impact) and Manchester and the West Midlands, Spain, China ...(mad laugh)
The camera has come to rest on a very obvious isolated beach hut; it blows up. Cut to a building site in a suburban housing estate. There is a Gumby standing there.
Voice Over And here is the neighbour who told us where they were (he blows up) Nobody likes a clever dick. (cut to stock film of a small house) Here is where he lived (it blows up) And this is where Lord Langdon lived who refused to speak to us (it blows up). So did the gentleman who lived here....(shot of house: it blows up)... and here
Cut to a presentation desk. The film is on a screen behind. We see it stop behind him as the presenter speaks.
Presenter Ah, well I'm afraid we have to stop the film there, as some of the scenes which followed were of a violent nature which might have proved distressing to some of our viewers. Though not to me, I can tell you.
(cut to another camera; the presenter turns to face it,)
In Nova Scotia today, Mr Roy Bent of North Walsham in Norfolk became the first man to cross the Atlantic on a tricycle. His tricycle, specially adapted for the crossing, was ninety feet long, with a protective steel hull, three funnels, seventeen first-class cabins and a radar scanner. (A head and shoulders picture of Roy Bent comes up on the screen behind him) Mr Bent is in our Durham studios, which is rather unfortunate as we're all down here in London. And in London I have with me Mr Ludovic Grayson, the man who scored all six goals in Arsenal's 1-0 victory over the Turkish Champions FC Botty. (he turns) Ludovic... (pull out to reveal that he is talking to a five-foot-high filing cabinet) first of all, congratulations on the victory.
Mr Grayson (from inside filing cabinet) Thank you, David.
Anyway, very silly stuff, you get the point.
http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode24.htm#11
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
You run into a dark, cloudy storm, and lose power. And the worse the storm is, the less chance you have of developing any power. For some reason, that doesn't sound like much more than a one-off gimmick to me.
Yes, you could store energy in batteries, but storing enough power to get that boat very far in storm winds means a LOT of weight, which means a lower draft, more resisitance, and the need for more panels....
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
What I want to see is some of those automatic sailing vessels from Blue Mars.
I think what's most interesting about this is hybrid vessels, that use both sail and solar power. Obviously the big limitation with sailboats is a lack of wind, which often occurs in fair-weather scenarios (high pressure system, thus clear skies). Solar propulsion would often complement wind power when needed most. It would also be useful for the other times when sail power is not used, such as navigating in and out of the docks.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
But how much oil did it take to make the solar cells?
Certainly no more than some percentage of its wholesale cost (cost of manufacturing includes cost of materials, energy, labor, and lots of other things like marketing, licensing fees, etc.) Panels usually pay back their RETAIL cost in a few years (depends on the area you are in, if you use a tracking mount which grossly increases their daily output, etc.) There's a substanial net gain, since they easily last another decade past their break-even point.
People whine about solar panel efficiency, but guess what? The largest power plants around are at most 30-35% thermally efficient, and that's before you figure plant-to-home transmission losses.
Wikipedia has a nice article, complete with charts, showing cost per kWhr and such.
Please help metamoderate.
BIG problem here: sails tend to block a lot of sunlight. Even relatively clear sails will probably cut down on insolation significantly, especially if they're relatively heavy-duty (as moving a 46' boat would suggest). Also, monohulls need keels, which add tremendously to their weight. There goes your motoring performance.
A sailing catamaran might be able to do this, however; if the motors can be used to charge the batteries while under sail, the charging issue goes away (many cruising boats that use propellor shafts will attach a generator to the shaft and leave the engine in neutral to charge the batteries while sailing). I can see myself buying a boat like that... when I find myself with a million dollars to spend... (a new 45' sailing catamaran can cost over half a million easily).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
time for what? really expensive toys that take several months to get across the Altantic?
anything but mainstream.
maybe someday we can get the sail to BE the solar cell
If you're going to claim wind power is the same as solar power you may as well call gasoline engines solar powered too: In each case the energy originally came from the sun. In reality, it is useful to make the distinction between all of these because each power source requires different methods to use and has different downsides. Even the environmental consequences of wind and solar voltaic are different if you consider the manufacturing process.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
From the web-page: "Much of the expanding long-distance goods traffic on our oceans as well as many leisure boats could be powered by ecological solar energy. Solar energy will be the future of navigation techniques. But it needs more publicity and more confidence."
It sounds nice, but the practical application for the actual transportation of goods is something else.
The great things about ships is that the volume increases as a cubic function (roughly) of the length, but the drag only increases as the square. The area available to solar energy is more like a direct linear relationship to length what with ships being kind of long and skinny. That means that you can eventually build a ship big enough to carry it's own fuel to cross an ocean, and if you go bigger it can carry cargo even. Bigger still means more cargo with less fuel per cargo needed (generally). This is why we now have 1000 foot long container ships and 300,000 DWT ULCCs (Ultra Large Crude Carriers). But these ships that require less energy per volume still require a *lot* of energy, and not just energy, put power too (they need that energy fast). For example, the ship I work on (600 feet long by 75 feet wide, about 20,000 GRT--small by today's standards) requires about 14,000 horsepower to travel at about 17 knots when fully loaded. Just using a crude area approximation for the ship's dimensions and, say, 33% efficiency for solar cells you would get about 1630 kW of power, or about 2180 horsepower. 2180 horsepower won't even move a ship that size fast enough to maintain steerage. This isn't even mentioning the other auxiliary electrical loads associated with a ship (pumps, motors, air conditioning, sewage processing, etc.). Factoring average load for my ship in to that, you get about 1000 kW (1350 HP) available for propulsion. This is like trying to row a canoe with a spoon. Of course, if you don't put anything in the ship power consumption goes way down and you eventually get to the point where you have a boat like what they're using. But what business that makes money by moving lots of goods from A to B on a schedule is going to build a fleet of boats that can't carry anything and go very slowly? Maybe recreational boaters, but I don't see it so much for the commercial shipping industry.
I do wish them fair winds and following seas for their crossing, and hope that they are indeed correct that "Solar energy will be the future of navigation techniques" if for no other reason than we need to, as a society, start reducing out carbon footprint. As an engineer (a marine engineer, at that), though, I see a very long a tortuous path ahead.
If your toast does not accquire any kind of royalty, please do not contact us. We can't help you.
I dunno about your puny little boat but the last time I filled up my ship I used raw crude oil.
For about one fifth that amount you could build a 14 meter sail powered catamaran that will easily do 20+ kts on an average open ocean day and quarter 10 people. However, you would need to be an expert sailor to handle this boat because catamarans turn over very easily. I know because I've done so many times on small (5.5 meter) cats which, by the way, can do about 30 kts with a good wind.
So, I would really have to ask the question, "What's the point", other than we have the technology to build a solar powered boat; and have had for a very long time.
Someone needs to take the crack pipe away from these guys. Making this crossing with a solar boat is a novel idea, but is is far from efficient, or even reasonable, especially at the slow speeds they plan to attain.
Sailing catamarans have been averaging over 20 knots on the open ocean for more than a decade. small sailing boats like Catalina 22's can travel at 5 or 6 knots (certainly not in the open ocean of course), but larger ocean going sailing (monohul) vessels go much faster these days.
For truly cutting edge clean and pure boat technology, check out the Hydroptere A hydroplaning sailing trimaran capable of over 45 knots!
Solar is fine for charging batteries for the electronics on the boat, but why try to propel a boat with it when the proven centuries old technology of sailing is still cheaper, cleaner, faster, and more efficient.
When a solar boat can make that crossing averaging more than 30 knots, I'll consider that to be news worthy. Until then, it is just a silly publicity stunt.
I don't think anyone is getting the big picture. This is more of a move towards powering larger and larger vessels up to the size of today's fuel-burning ships. I don't think they're going "lol, who needs wind guys, am I right?" I think they realize as you must that it's rather impossible to make modern day ferries and passenger liners that don't burn fuel with current research. Hey maybe it's even possible to add to the technology of sails so much that you could make faster boats that use sails. Who knows?All I'm saying is, they're probably looking at this as the first step in a larger process and picture. If they're not, then they're missing out.
'Nuff said.
Someone double check my estimate here please. I applaud all research efforts, but I believe that there is such thing as "useless" research/exploration/etc. A typical solar panel of a given size will take anywhere from 7 to 14 years to pay for itself in terms of energy used to produce it in the first place. In other words, it takes X watt-hours of energy to produce the panel. The panel then takes 7-14 years to produce the equivalent X watt-hours of energy.
Would a solar panel even survive 7-14 years out in the sea? Would it be affordable to maintain and prevent the solar panel array from corroding away? I personally don't think so. This sounds like just another way for the "comfortably wealthy" to contribute to pollution and feel better about themselves at the same time.
Yet another gimmick story.
4 8 15 16 23 42
..Jeff Keegan
seven syllables explain TiVo: kee gan dot org slash ti vo
Think about it, the one drawback to using sails is that you have to sail with the wind. If the wind dies, you just drift. This solar boat is going to suck because what if there's a catastrophic storm that blots out the sun for days? Overcast skies + Solar Panels = Mutiny on the Geocruiser.
Even if you can't face buying, say, a used 20-footer for your daysailing needs (and if all you're doing is going out and coming back, they're plenty for great fun as well as the club racing community), which can usually be picked up for much, much less than $50K (i.e., less than 10% of what you're discussing above) ...
Check out a few boat designer names. Phil Bolger. James Wharram. They design boats for real people to build, sail, and even live on, themselves, on tight budgets.
If you think sailing needs to break your bank, you just keep on filling that ol' fuel tank.
This boat will achieve its 7,000-mile trip [...] without burning a single gallon of fuel.
Unless you consider the fuel required to manufacture the solar cells, including the vast amount of electricity consumed during manufacturing and refining of materials which mostly comes from burning coal and the transportation of raw materials and intermediate products over long distances using oil fuel.
Not too long ago it was more than the usable energy the cell could produce over its entire lifetime. It's no longer that bad but it's still far from where we'd like it to be.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
While $500k+ is a lot of $$, in the yachting world it's not really so much.
Not so many young people have 500k to spare but how many pensioners (who are more likely to have the time and money to spend on pottering about on yachts) are in any condition to clamber up masts to fix sails? Powerboats make more sense for many people.
Even those with 500k to spare for a yacht may find the fuel costs of traditional powerboats are a bit exhorbitant for long distance cruising.
Sure at night the solar power stops - but I suspect the designers of this boat are well aware that the sun does not shine 24 hours/day. I think they are likely to have batteries to store power for a while and yes those batteries may be heavy but so are sodding big masts, sails and lead keels.
Think about where such a boat could come into its own - summer cruising around the med. Sun shine pretty much all the time, no need to hurry anywhere.. just a leisurely (daylight) cruise from port to port around the med wih none of the hassles of sails and none of the expense of traditional fuels.. such a pastime then becomes very affordable and enjoyable.
This technology could certainly become popular and as it does it will no doubt improve, this is a significant step in the right direction.
"This boat will achieve its 7,000-mile trip at a speed of 5-6 knots, about the speed of a sailing yacht"
Excuse me? The current world record for circumnavigating the world (in a yacht), not just the Atlantic, is 50-something days, if I'm not mistaken, at an average of ~20 knots. Of course, this was a sophisticated catamaran, but this solar-powered business is still extremely far from that level of performance. Not really impressed at all.
Let's assume, from the picture, they have a full 14 by say 5 meters of solar cells. If you do the math, starting from the number of watts of sun per square meter, the typical cell efficiency (when new and clean), the amount of sunlight, hmmm, the numbers are really dismal.
I get about 0.6 HORSEPOWER average over 24 hrs, 2.2 PEAK at noon. Unlikely to be able to budge the craft against even a light headwind or current.
For winds in your back, sunn o)))
Did anyone else think of the solaris?_ gold
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterious_cities_of
I can't wait until they work on the giant condor - all that gold could cost a little more than this $1/2 Million though...
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
If you read the site about that solar powered boat you will see they say it can sail at 6 or 7 knots 24 hours per day as long as there is sun in the day and when there is no sun they go slower.
It is not a race so comparing it to how fast you could go with a sail powered yacht is missing the point entirely.
the Gulf stream moves at 4.8 knots. If they're going to be fighting the current, their net forward movement will be somewhere between 2 and 3 knots.... or drifting.
http://www.CelloFourteGroupie.net
No, it's not. You're thinking of the future, when it may be possible to do so. But this article is about "[demonstrating] that the time has come for solar boats".
Make your argument based on what's possible now, please. Right now, solar cells require a large up front investment for a small long term payoff.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If we did, then we might notice that 14m * 6.5m * 1 kW m-2 * 15% efficiency ~= 13.65 kW ~= 18 horsepower. At mid-day, with no cloud cover.
From "Choosing the Right Outboard For Your Boat", we find that an 18 horsepower motor is sufficient for a boat up to 25 feet (7.7m) and 600lbs (272 kg). The boat in question here is an Aquabus C60 variant, at 14m and weighing approximately 10000 kg when empty.
Note that the standard boat has 2 x 16 kW motors, but a solar surface of only 20m2, which will produce only about 3 kW (4 hp); i.e. for all practical purposes, it is battery powered.
If this boat even makes headway on an open sea, let alone 5-6 knots 24 hours a day, I'll eat my tin foil hat.
It's a cute advertising gimmick though, I'll give them that.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Sail. It makes so much sence to incorporate sail technology back into shipping. Wind after all is free. The only reason sail was abandoned was because diesel became so cheap, ships faster and larger that sail became too costly.
...sail's last hurrah...
k /
1949 - "316-foot, four-masted square-rigger Pamir on the last voyage around Cape Horn by a freight-carrying sailing ship, a passage from Australia to England that marked the end of the Great Age of Sail."
http://www.sailingmagazine.net/fullby0104.html
Seems someone has the idea...of using wind to aid ship propulsion.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13325827/site/newswee
http://www.skysails.info/
array or maybe just make a floating flexible solar array that you could trail out behind you? This might work OK in the deep ocean for those monsterous container freighters: just have then reel-out a couple of hundred yards of floating solar array and reel it back in when close to port?