- The sun21 crew at the press conference after their arrival in New York (Beat von Scarpatetti, David Senn, Michel Thonney, Martin Vosseler, Mark Wüst, from the left)
- Arrival in New York City
- The mayor of Miami, Manuel A. Diaz, presents the crew the Keys to the City of Miami.
- Arrival at Martinique.
- The sun21 heading to Martinique.
- On the way to the Canary Islands.
- Due to a storm the sun21 sought refuge in the harbour of Casablanca (Morocco).
Weblog
Jan 05, 2007: Transatlantic Expedition
The transatlantic voyage by the solar boat "sun21" will give evidence that solar technology is a powerful tool in the future use of sustainable energies. The project includes a demanding appeal to mankind to increase the use of renewable energies and to decrease combustion of oil and coal.
The "Sun21", a catamaran (11 tons heavy, 14 meters long), carries a roof of solar panels that provide enough electricity to drive the two engines and to charge the battery system. Under good solar conditions, the boat should cruise with 5 knots during day and night.
It is the first time that a purely solar driven boat crosses the Atlantic. The planned route goes from Southwestern Spain along the Canary Current (with a stop at Lanzarote, Canary Islands) and then turning into the Northern Equatorial Current in order to reach the New World in the Caribbean at the Island of Martinique. The voyage will then continue Northbound, with stops at Virgin Island and Bahamas to reach Miami. The route then follows inland freshwater channels up to New York.
The transatlantic voyage is not just an excursion with a rather predictable planning. There is no schedule that gives timing and a precise sequence of stops. It is not an excursion, it is an expedition!
Those things which can be prepared are of course set up in advance. Among these are the construction of the boat (hydrodynamic shapes of hulls and propellers, powerful and manageable electric installation), stocking of spare parts, food and water, planning of the route with favorable sea currents and winds and, last but not least, the choice of season in order to avoid Caribbean hurricanes.
But apart from these manageable factors, numerous unpredictable influences remain, mostly due to weather conditions and climate change. Impacts for our solar boat may not only come from bad wind directions, storms and waves, but also from an overcast sky and lack of sunshine.
Crew members are challenged to perform a high degree of creativity and flexibility in finding solutions to cope with unexpected situations. Routing and timing have to be modified after a careful and short evaluation. This expedition provides plenty of unexpected encounters.
For the crew, it is exciting to experience the new technology of the solar boat. An obvious advantage is the silence on the boat. There is no noise coming from the two electric engines; one can hear a discreet humming only. The dabbling and splashing of the water is louder. Even the "whispering" blows of suddenly appearing dolphins are audible. This demonstrates that unexpected events may also turn out as surprising awards.
Looking at history of discovery of the oceans around our globe, most expeditions were planned carefully in advance, and they all turned out remarkably different in routing and timing. A true expedition with creative aims is driven by a "spirit of adventure". By including the unknown, we have a chance to find a new way to travel on the ocean: it is solar energy instead of diesel.
- EN
- DE
- FR
- ES
Comments
Theo Schmidt:
I congratulate you all for the progress so far and wish you lots of sun and fair winds! Thank you also for your statement: "The project includes a demanding appeal to mankind to increase the use of renewable energies and to decrease combustion of oil and coal." Now there is a problem: if you take this seriously, how are you going to get back from New York?! The Queen Elisabeth 2 is the only transatlantic liner left, and I doubt whether her energy efficiency is much better than flying. I suppose you could get a passage back to Europe on a cargo vessel or a sailing yacht and I hope you do this. Personally, I think to achieve the goal of practical and sustainable marine travel will involve craft powered by both solar radiation and wind, be this with wind turbines, sails, kites, or other devices. There may also be some amount of electrochemical energy storage e.g. with hydrogen. All these technologies are available today and they will no doubt become popular when the oil price increases strongly. Today, transatlantic flight is still ridiculously cheap, and I hope the project will provide CO2 compensation for the numerous flights the project will probably generate when friends, relatives and others fly over to celebrate your arrival in New York or take part in the planned sustainability congress. Such CO2 neutrality can be achieved by purchasing "MyClimate" tickets, which invest in external CO2-saving technologies such as solar fruit drying. Future versions of sun21 will no doubt themselves be eligible for MyClimate grants, but in the present phase it would be good if the project is able to use its CO2 deficits to a good advantage and publise this fact.
mathias krebs:
hello guys.your boat is very well and your so sexy martin vosseler. all the best mathias
Elly von Orelli:
Hallo David!
Ist der Atlantik wohl zu kalt fuer meine Lieblinge, die Radiolarien , mit ihren praechtigen Stupa -Formen? Oder hast Du schon welche gefunden? Herzlichst, Elly
Marianne New:
Hi, dear friends. Finally I was able to find you and your fascinating reports. I have been lighting candles and praying for you and admire your courage. I wish I could send you some Maine Blueberries. Instead, my warmest wishes and thoughts go out to you with much love, Marianne
Noel J. Hebets:
You are like most modern architects, who don’t know where the sun rises and sets, and would flunk a quiz on sun angles if it was multiple guess and gave them all the right answers beneath their noses.
You are missing a HUGE benefit because you haven’t stopped to consider the actual sun angles -- where you really find the sun in the sky during each moment of the day as you travel around the globe.
Would you try to sail the oceans in a sailboat with a single fixed sail that can never be turned at angles that vary from the axis of your boat???
So, why do your PV panels only face directly overhead? During how much of any day is the sun really found there?
Where do you find the sun, as you head away from the tropics in the winter time? Well, you only have to put the tropics behind you by about 10 degrees of latitude to find the elevation (its position-height measured as an angle from the horizon) from the south horizon to the winter sun is scarcely over 30 degrees at noon, and that is its maximum elevation angle from the horizon for the whole day.
What happens to the sun’s elevation during the mornings and evenings? On a summer day, before 9:00 am and after 3:00 pm, more of the light is being reflected from the panels than being absorbed because the angle of incidence is over 45 degrees. And, this problem only grows worse as you head out of summer and into the winter months.
In fact, earlier in the winter mornings and later in the winter afternoons, and shortly after dawn and shortly before dusk on any day of the year, the sunlight is completely reflected from your solar panels without being absorbed because its angle of incidence upon them is below the "critical angle." (This is what happens where a smooth water surface reflects the inverted sky beyond it, and you cannot see into the water beneath it.)
And don’t overlook the doubling effect of the light that is bounced off the surface of the water at and after sunrise in the early mornings, and before and at sunset in the late evenings? You are currently getting none of that free light.
You need to reconfigure your solar panel array as follows:
A. Your panels need to be placed as long bands lying parallel and beside one another, but their outside perimeter needs to be a circle. Four points which lie 90 degrees apart on the perimeter of that circle need mention: The diameter of the circle which runs parallel to the length of the panels intersects the circle on what will be the "side" points of the circle. The diameter of the circle which runs perpendicular to the length of the panels intersects the circle at its "front" and "back" points.
B. Then those panels need 3 degrees of movement:
1. First, the entire circle needs to rotate, like a turret on a tank, so it could turn 180 degrees in either direction (clockwise or counterclockwise), and the "front" of the circle can always be pointed towards the current direction of the sun.
2. Then, that same "front" of the circle needs to be hinged so that the "back" of the circle (the part that is further from the sun) can be lifted, and the entire circle can tilt up to something like 20 or 30 degrees, so that the entire circle leans towards that current sun, and the panels which are further from the sun rise above those which are closer.
3. Finally, all of the long parallel panels need to be hinged along the side that is also closer to the "front" of the circle so they too can be tilted up, somewhat like Venetian blinds being rotated, so the surface of each panel will directly face the current sun at that moment.
Your job as "solar sailors" would be to always "trim" these solar sails during every moment of the entire solar day to collect the maximum amount of sunlight, and gain SUBSTANTIALLY more sunlight for your batteries.
Just consider all the extra light you would collect when the panels are just faced horizontally to the rising sun in the morning and the setting sun in the evening when you get that extra skip of light off the surface of the sea?
Do the math; this will probably better than double the power you can collect with a fixed-flat array of panels that only looks directly at the overhead sky.
Alternative:
A. Make every panel square, and place them into your rectangular array.
B. Then those panels need 3 degrees of movement:
1. Make it so the each of the legs that hold up the rectangle can be raised and lowered so the rectangle can lean into the sun at any given moment.
2. Then, make it so that each of the square panels is also mounted on 4 legs that can also be raised and lowered so that each panel can be further tilted to directly face the sun at the moment.
Yes, these configurations will catch more wind. Much of the time a beneficial wind help push you where you are going. And much of the time a crosswind or headwind will work against you, and you will spend some of your extra power overcoming the push of that adverse wind. And, sometimes that adverse wind will be so great that you will have to drop the array to its horizontal-flat condition, (like you sometimes have to furl the sails during a storm on a real sailing ship), and collect the same light you would from your current horizontal array.
But you can allow for much of winds effect that in your rudder and keel design, and how you "sail" your ship.
What if you sewed or "quilted" PV panels into real sails, and merged wind and solar power?
(A while back a magazine article talked about PV collectors being sewed into ski jackets to power music players and the like; so you might be able to find some non-rigid PV material.)
Noel J. Hebets, Attorney