That’s actually a good location for a Solar boat - lots of Sun year-round, sheltered waters, and the Solar panel roof acts as needed shade. It is also a tourist destination so the layout makes sense. THey should add a couple small wind turbines for charging at anchor or docked.
Catamaran maximize solar collecting catchment area. And minimize water drag . You need the maximum area possible for the solar cell . No other choice but to choose catamaran hull
Had my first ride 2 days ago here at Le Bora Bora. Omg... it’s awesome and now it is becoming my goal to own one since I do not make enough money yet. If I can own it for $100k and become like promoter, I am ready to sign the check now, haha. I live in Huntington Beach, California.
I took a look a the performance numbers at your website, but there are some things left I'm curious about: As kW/h peak power (here: 8.6 kW/h) usually isn't realistic, how much actual total kW over the course of a typical 24 hour day (in the sunnier parts of the globe) do you accumulate? How far does this cumulative result get you (and at what speed - optimized for max 24 hour range - and for how much displacement) in theory on solar alone (=without draining the batteries more than you would recharge the following day under continuous travel conditions, without a recharging stop-over)?
You're getting your units all confused. The panels provide 8.6kW peak generation. So an hour of peak sunlight would get you 8.6kWh. In colder climates during summer, 4-5 hours peak is about right, with 6-8 in warmer climates. Overall we tend to use 'solar hours' - so how much total generation as a multiplier for your peak generation can you expect. So looking at a whole year, the English Channel gets ~900 solar hours (so 900h*8.6kW=7740kWh). The Bahamas gets about 2100 IIRC, so 18060kWh generation through the year. Now, the generation will follow the weather - less in winter, more in summer, but it gives a ballpark, especially for equatorial waters where there's less seasonal change. I can only extrapolate from their numbers, but the SoelCat 12 has a 120kWh battery. That means you can recharge 64 times in a year in the English Channel, and 150 times in a year in the Bahamas. They think at 6knots you're getting 18 hours run time, so thinking no current, no wind, you've got 108 nautical miles range per charge. If you're charging on solar the whole time, they think 30 hours, or 180 nautical miles range. This suggests you might be able to run indefinitely at a low speed in the sunniest climates. If you multiply out the numbers, running about the English Channel you could do 6912 nautical miles per year, and in the Bahamas, 16200 nautical miles per year. Hope that helps.
So, if they say they can do 18 hours at 6 knots with a 120 kWh battery, they are moving with a 7 kw power more or less. That is ridiculous. Many boats of that side have like 300 HP motor, and I don't think they do because they like to expend money
@@pablofernandez2894 You're not wrong, but you're comparing apples with oranges. Some boats are optimized for efficiency, others for max speed, others for max load capacity. Any given boat is a chosen compromise. It's like you're saying that a motorcycle is unrealistic because a Humvee has more horsepower. A solar boat has to be built from lightweight composite sandwich materials and with a hull shape that is optimized for purely displacement physics, not semi-planing or planing, then it's a completely different story and you won't need "like 300 HP motor". For example, take a solar catamaran with 4-5 tons of displacement, narrow hulls, low windage of the upper structure and combine it with ~10 kW peak solar, then the math works, as long as the boat speed stays safely below hull speed, let's say Froude number ~0.3-0.35. You can calculate the required power under semi-displacement or planing conditions with the Barnaby/Levy or Crouch formulas. On the other hand, under displacement conditions (with Froude number Fn<0.4), you can estimate the required power as P(kW) = 64 * Fn^3 * D, with D as the displacement in cubic meters. The Froude number is Fn = v / (3.132 * sqrt(L)), with v = velocity in m/s, L = boat length in meters
A boat like this, I guess, would have a lot of problems with strong wind, rough seas, or running against current, right? I mean, even if the battery/solar allow it, seems dangerous to get away from the coastline
