World's Largest Solar Boat Heads To Miami

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Nov 22nd 2010 at 10:01PM

Earlier this year we mentioned the plans for the world's largest solar boat. The boat is now on the water. It left Monaco in late September 2010 and will arrive in Miami on November 29, 2010. The 102-foot yacht has a 50-foot beam and weighs around 60 tons. The topside of the ship is covered with 5,300 square feet of solar panels and it can hit a top speed of around 15 knots. The catamaran is being piloted around the world by five men and one woman to raise awareness of the carbon footprint created by boats used to ship goods. Craig Loomes of LOMOcean Design designed the Turanor Planet Solar to piece waves, which uses less energy than riding atop them.

Raphaël Domjan, a Swiss engineer and founder of the PlanetSolar project, entlisted German entrepreneur Immo Ströher, an advocate of renewable forms of energy, to join forces with him in this project. Ströher invested $17.5 million into the development of Turanor PlanetSolar. "We want to help drive forward the development of sustainable energy technologies on the water and in other mobile applications," says Ströher. "The aim is to offer future-proof solutions for sustainable living in major cities and environmentally responsible mobility concepts."

After Miami, the yacht will held to Cancun, Mexico, the site of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Tags: planet solar, planet solar yacht, solar power, solar powered yacht, Turanor