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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) by RS3 on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:30AM (2 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:30AM (#540661)

    The article is very short and the summary above covers it. I also use several ad/etc. blockers but it let me see the article. Which blocker that you use is blocking that site?

    Also I don't think the solar panels will survive Cape Horn.

    Why not?

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 18 2017, @07:04PM (1 child)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 18 2017, @07:04PM (#541100)

    Adblock plus on chrome, nothing terribly interesting, kinda surprising I had trouble.

    Cape Horn is the roughest water out there, not fun. I suppose given an infinite amount of money and not being in any rush (6 years...) and being a long (aka fast) ship, you could "camp" until conditions are ideal then scoot thru. Supposedly a quarter of the people who try to climb Mt Everest die, trying to round the cape is not quite as deadly but people still make the comparison. Of course in an absolute sense the cape has probably killed far more people than mt Everest.

    They could use the canal and avoid the cape but there are nasty storms everywhere and nobody makes tornado shelters out of solar panels WRT durability. Although that is an interesting idea that if a hurricane proof solar panel could be made cheaply it would be useful to affix it to hurricane shelters...

    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday July 19 2017, @02:26AM

      by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday July 19 2017, @02:26AM (#541280)

      Right now on this computer (I use several) using Vivaldi I have Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin, and uBlock Origin Extra. I have many more waiting in the wings: uMatrix when I'm feeling energetic and have time to kill, and a bunch of "Fair Ads" ones but disabled right now.

      Cape Horn might be fun, in an Everest climb kind of way. The PV boat looks pretty seaworthy to me. Looks like standard PV panels. Standard PV panels are pretty rugged- I've seen (crazy) people walk on them, and I and others certainly lay on them while reaching to tighten hold-down bolts on the other side.

      More and more thin film PVs are being used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-film_solar_cell [wikipedia.org] Often bonded to a "standing seam" metal roof, I could envision them bonded to boat roofs, decks, etc.