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Self-Fueling Boat Sets off From Paris on 6 Year World Trip

posted by martyb on Sunday July 16 2017, @04:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the interesting-but-will-it-pay-back? dept.

WaPo and many other outlets
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/self-fueling-boat-sets-off-from-paris-on-6-year-world-trip/2017/07/15/03b2ac7a-6976-11e7-94ab-5b1f0ff459df_story.html

report that a 100 foot (~30m) racing catamaran has had the mast(s) removed and instead fitted with a combo of solar cells and vertical axis wind turbines. It also makes H2 by electrolysis of sea water and can run off a hydrogen fuel cell at night.

Originally designed in 1983, the boat enjoyed a successful career in open-sea sailing races before skippers Frederic Dahirel and Victorien Erussard and a French research institute converted it into the Energy Observer project.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @06:02PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @06:02PM (#539954)

    They removed the masts and sails and instead take the circuitous and extremely ineffecient route of converting sunlight to electricity, store it in batteries, then drive an electromotor that drive a propellor. If you take in all the conversion rates, you end up with perhaps 5% of the original power input?

    Granted, wind is not always available (and there's always either too much or too little) but even in the 1500's they could sail around the world in 2-3 years. I can see this being used to supplement wind, but not replace it.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday July 16 2017, @07:56PM

    by Whoever (4524) on Sunday July 16 2017, @07:56PM (#539991) Journal

    It produces its own hydrogen through electrolysis of sea water.

    They chose one of the most inefficient energy storage mechanisms. What's the point of this? To show that you can sail round the world using only renewable energy? I'm fairly confident that people proved that was possible a few hundred years ago.

    In fact, the winner of a recent single-handed round the world race (Vendee Globe) finished in only 74 days. They have electricity on board the Vendee Globe boats: generated by turbines running just aft of the boat in the water.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @08:08PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @08:08PM (#539996)

    store it in batteries

    They're not using batteries. They're electrolyzing seawater to make hydrogen. It's in the summary.

    I can see this being used to supplement wind, but not replace it.

    Suppose Solar Impulse had used solar power to supplement a piston engine.

    • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday July 16 2017, @11:26PM (1 child)

      by Whoever (4524) on Sunday July 16 2017, @11:26PM (#540078) Journal

      They're not using batteries. They're electrolyzing seawater to make hydrogen.

      Less efficient than batteries. I assume the primary advantage of using hydrogen is lower weight.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 18 2017, @07:08PM

        by VLM (445) on Tuesday July 18 2017, @07:08PM (#541103)

        too light to accumulate in the bilge and blow the ship to bits like gasoline sometimes does.