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Technology as the solution to the climate change problem – or not?

The technology will solve climate change – or not?

A new invention has been made that allows batteries to store twice as much as the most modern batteries. A solar panel has been invented that is hyper bendable. Something has just been invented to spray solar cells onto a surface. But will they solve climate change? That chance is small.

A look at the past says a lot. The Industrial Revolution would make the products so cheap that everyone could afford them. That’s now maybe 10% of the world population that structurally can afford that. That’s all.

You could even say that the technology destroyed more than it actually solved in the first place. Because at the beginning of the last century, a massive war industry arose and the mass production of weapons meant that anyone could be shot.

The next technology solution were the crop protection products. They would solve the world food problem. Nothing of that came true.What did help were the IMF and UN based food programmes, effective since the late 1970’s (and shrinking now). This reduced the starvation with big numbers. The crop protection products like DDT made the opposite become true, because a lot of agricultural land is now toxic in developing countries, while companies such as Bayer (bought Monsanto) and BASF have grown into large multinationals.

How?

The industrial revolution only started to have an effect on the poor when a counterpower of workers arose. Things started with the right to strike, then insurance and more regulations whereby large groups received a wage with which they could buy the -indeed cheaper- products. Of course, this has not yet spread widely across the world, it only concerns mainly Western countries.

The crop protection industry only started working after regulations. DDT was banned and as more data became available on the damage, more and more variations of crop protection were banned. Did techonolgy help solving the starvation? The opposite has become more true, because a lot of agricultural land is now toxic in developing countries, while companies such as Bayer (buyer of Monsanto) and BASF have grown into large multinationals., but the damage is limited by regulation and control.

Choices, choices

With every new technology there is a choice as to what we will do with it. If you do nothing, the market will do its job and – in short – shareholders of a company will become very rich.

It is often a choice. What are we going to use our new technology for? It is the personal choice for solar panels, it is also the choice of what is sensible for the public interest. For example, the choice to vote. For example, we now see that many national governments are still stimulating the fossil fuel industry with tax breaks and subsidies. A study showed that, for example, the Dutch State spent 17.5 billion on fossil fuel companies. It led to questions from parliament. A self-investigation followed. The State came to 4.5 billion, but had to admit that not all figures could be revealed. It led to more questions. These numbers are still to come.

Of course, politics has perverse tendencies. But isn’t it the world upside down when our chosen establishment, with a strong policy of fossil freedom, spends billions of our tax money to fossils?

Strict and clear regulations are important now. These appear to be insufficient; our governments spend more billions to fossils than to fossil freedom and can get away with it. This leads to the question if you want that? And democracy wise, do you still want to vote for such a shady government?

So coming back to the question in the header, technology itself is just a condition and we are doing great on that. Fossil free living is already cheaper than fossil living. But nothing will happen if you don’t chose to allocate for it. For your private use, and -perhaps of more importance- for strict and clear regulations. These choices are finally your choices.

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Views on sailing through the times.

For centuries people turned to the gods for good sailing. Neptune and Aeolus had to be propitiated with a lamb or a jug of wine. People later discovered sailing routes and trade winds and this is the first rationality. But, to be on the safe side, they continued to pray for a safe journey.

In the Classic Greek times, you’d better sacrifice a lamb and some wine to Neptune, or he would make a simple trip into a long and bad journey.

With the arrival of the steamships, the world view changed. The sailing routes were respected, but together with the machine you got there. This developed into the situation in which the current generation lives. An old fisher man said about this: “Nowadays you can even motor against current and wind with your yachts to wherever you want to go.”

It costed a lot of first quality coal, and oil later, but if the wind is against, the ships engine can still bring you in time.

Now, a new world view is emerging. Our rational ability is so well developed that we use more sophisticated means than just the machine-against-current-and-wind. Reliable weather forecasts, advanced means of communication and smart routing make more nuanced choices possible. There are more and more options to make a crossing, whether that is from IJmuiden to Lowestoft, or an ocean crossing. Do you want slow or fast, a lot of wind or less? The choice is broadly up to you.

That is a good thing. The other good thing is that these options do not have to harm the future of our children and children’s children.

If a simple sailing yacht requests a weather report, the skipper can get more routes, all based on various models. Here are shown three of them.

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Possibly connecting a car alternator to your propeller shaft?

Something a bit more this week, for skippers only I am afraid. And only two pictures (but  one of them is artistic!).

The car alternator

As soon as a sailing yacht sails, it speeds up. The propeller in the water starts to turn. This rotation can drive a dynamo and thus generate electricity. Just as a windmill needs a little wind to deliver, the propeller only turns through the water at some speed. That’s a law of physics. At about five knots, the propeller usually turns hard enough to provide electricity.

Here is the description of whether it will fit on board your sailing yacht at all. (But there will not follow a technical description how to install it.)

Hydrogeneration works well with a fixed propeller, but it works better with a variable propeller. The propeller must be of some size. Small propellers require higher speeds.

It is striking that the rotation of the propeller on most courses has little decelerating effect on the speed of the boat. For example, at a speed of 5 knots, the loss of speed is no more than a quarter of a knot. There is a clear loss only on upwind rates. On that course, all the forward energy is needed to gain speed. With the hydrogeneration in operation, the ship becomes visibly more glued. If additional power is necessary via hydrogeneration, it is better to drop 10 or 20 degrees on that course.

In practice

In practice, hydrogeneration can already yield 50 to 100 watts from a boat speed of five knots. It depends first and foremost on the prop and then on the technology behind it. 50 to 100 watts may not seem like much, but when underway on the high seas the system works 24 hours a day and 50 to 100 watts for 24 hours is sufficient to provide an energy-efficient ship’s household with energy.

With a score of 100 watts, hydrodynamics already generates 2.4 kilowatt hours per day, which is more than solar and wind energy combined on most ships. If the boat speed increases, the efficiency becomes even higher. Hydrogeneration on fast catamarans yields ten or twenty times that.

Why

The huge advantage of hydrogeneration is security, reliability. Long-distance sailors are often concerned about whether they will arrive at their destination with enough energy. With the use of hydrogeneration, the reverse often happens: the battery bank is full on arrival.

The propeller shaft alternator; the oldest form.

Long before solar panels or wind turbines were used on board, sailing skippers already used the propeller shaft dynamo. That was a very welcome additional energy supply because of the energy-consuming lamps and the relatively expensive batteries. Surprisingly, this system is hardly found on board anymore.

The operation of the propeller shaft dynamo is simple: when the propeller starts to turn under sail, it drives the dynamo via a pulley and a V-belt, which supplies electricity to the battery.

Schematic sketch

This is a schematic picture of a propeller shaft alternator. A dynamo is mounted next to the propeller shaft. There is a small pulley on it. A large pulley is mounted on the propeller shaft. When the propeller starts turning, the large pulley also turns and drives the small pulley on the alternator via the V-belt. The alternator therefore rotates and supplies the current to the battery.

The propeller shaft alternator is a cheaper supplier of electricity than the hydro generator from the shop, even if you have it installed.

Align propeller and alternator

When using a propeller shaft dynamo, the propeller and dynamo must be properly matched. Because when the propeller turns, the dynamo also has to turn fast enough to supply power. The speed of the propeller and alternator is matched with the size of the pulley on the propeller shaft. So there must be space around the propeller shaft to mount such a pulley. You can easily calculate how much space that requires. The starting point for the calculation is that the propeller rotates stably at a sailing speed of 5 knots.

Alternator speed

The speed of an alternator is easy to determine, because it is stated on the specifications. An ordinary car alternator usually delivers well at 1000 RPM (Rotations Per Minute). That’s what we assume here.

What is the propeller speed?

You can determine how many revolutions the propeller makes in three ways. The first and simplest is to measure the RPM with a tachometer gauge, an expensive thing that nobody has.

Sound app

The second is by using a sound app on your smartphone. Place a piece of tape on the propeller shaft with a piece of tape sticking out. Place a plank next to it and every time the protruding tape passes it, you will hear TICK. Record this on a phone for exactly one minute. If you play it in slow motion or enlarge the visual representation, you can count the taps. That is the number of revolutions per minute.

Math

The third way is math. Let’s say you have a 14″ X 15″ propeller. The diameter is then 14 inches. The pitch is 15 inches. When the tip of the propeller has made one revolution through the water, it has theoretically traveled 15 inches. How many revolutions per minute is that at 5 knots?

5 knots, that is 5 X 1852 meters = 9260 m/hour.

RPM goes in rotations per minute, so that would be 9620 : 60 = 154 meters/minute.

In inches/minute that is 154 X 39.37 = 6076 inches/minute

To get into the RPM, we need to divide the distance through the pitch: 6076/14 =380 rpm. This is the theory. The propeller with a pitch of 15 inches appears to cover much less distance after one revolution. A propeller does not turn through water like a wood screw through wood. Water is flexible, so it has less grip on the propeller. This phenomenon is called slip. When the propeller is driven through the water, such as when loading, there is so much slip that the propeller runs at two-thirds of its theoretical speed. So: 2/3 X 380 = 253RPM. The propeller turns at 5 knots, so 253 RPM, and the alternator must turn at 1000 RPM. The ratio between the alternator pulley and the propeller shaft must then be 253 : 1000. That is 1:4. If the alternator pulley has a diameter of 5 cm, the propeller shaft pulley must be 20 cm. If that diameter fits around the propeller shaft, then the propeller shaft generator can be installed and it now only concerns the technical implementation.

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Some numbers

we belong to the 10% richest in the world and we cause 50% of the environmental damage. In the first 100 years, hardly anything changed on this planet.. The Earth took it. But then, with a slow response, the nature the Earth is changing.

Biodiversity

70% of all wildlife on earth has gone

Man and farm animals represent 94% of all mammals

Life at sea

50% of life in the oceans has gone

An estimated 80% of the fish has gone in 50 years

Since 50 years plankton is dying 1% per year

The Earth

In 1900-1930 the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere rose 0,22 degrees Celsius each year, but now it rises about 0,33 degrees Celsius per year.

In the current pace, the earth’s temperature will have been risen 4 degrees Celsius in 2100. Not 1,5 degrees. The sea level will be risen 1,5 meters.

Pollution

A long food way short: Every man eats plastic that equals the weight of one credit card per week.

My number

Statistically I would become 84 years old. So I got 20 years to live with less, value what I have, and go down with my consumption. 20 whole years to impove the world.

What is your number?

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A history of water and poop management

Did you know that the French word la rue (the street) originally meant the sewer, the drain?

And so it was. You washed in a convenient place, next to the house a gutter ran into a ditch. That was sometimes more difficult in a city, but otherwise you put a plank over the gutter. There was a bit of turd here and there, but who complained about that?

Things got neater with the arrival of the poop box. In a separate hutch, on the leeward side of the house, there was a a barrel with a lid. That barrel had to be emptied. If you lived outside, the poop box was near a ditch.

This is the classic poop box. A separate room, often outside the house. There is a hole under the wooden lid and underneath it is a large barrel that is emptied once a week.

If you lived in the city, the poop box was mandatory. The poor households, often 6 or more families in a three-story house, shared a poop box that was downstairs in the small backyard. With families of an average of 5 people, it was often quite busy. So at night when the police couldn’t see it, the street was still regularly ‘la rue’. So unhygienic. It also always smelled in the city.

The poop box was emptied into a cart and it was brought outside the city, first to the farmers, but that also became too much. That lugging around with poop was also unhygienic and the manure heaps outside the city formed a new problem.

The poop bucket is emptied into the cart here. The ladies and gentlemen on the left are ready to hand in their bucket.

In the 18th century, the link between non-hygienistics and diseases such as cholera was seen. Many cities already had a water network, such as Amsterdam, but a city like Rotterdam did not. Cholera broke out there in 1832. In response, Rotterdam created a water network of canals through the city around 1850. The water slowly flowed through the city. Very easy, your poop box could now go straight into the girth. It was diluted quite a bit. And you were immediately provided with your drinking and washing water. It could not be better. The rich went to live on such a canal; that can still be seen in the beautiful large mansions and the wealth of trees.

By cleverly connecting a small river (the Rotte) and the large river (the Maas) with a network of canals, a flow-through system was created for the discharge of waste water throughout Rotterdam

It worked great. So good that the entire water network became a source of germs again. And also because at the end of the 19th century the cities became more densely populated.

What now?

A revolution in poop management

From the end of the 19th century, the water supply was introduced, followed by the sewage system. The water came into every Rottterdam house between 1900 and 1920. The water was filtered surface water with a generous portion of chlorine.

The construction of the sewage system followed and that system became a complete system in the first half of the twentieth century with a sewage treatment plant outside the city.

What was so special is that the faeces, together with the urine, were immediately diluted with water and flushed into a sewer.

In fact, we have only been disposing of our poop for a century now by diluting it sur place with water. That direct dilution made it really hygienic.

Also for the longer term?

This dilution, a flush, takes about 8 or 10 liters. Flushing accounts for the largest share of our water consumption.

We are now seeing the water quality decreasing. Even for the technically advanced water companies in the Netherlands, Rotterdam, it is becoming difficult to produce good drinking water.

What will the future look like?

Less is more, the dry toilet as a new revolution

We are now technically much further along. We now have plastic. Even plastic that breaks down fairly quickly. There are now dry toilets that do not require water to drain. It will soon have to be installed on many boats, because boats are no longer allowed to emit poop.

Poo and pee even remain separated in this dry toilet, so that no ammonia is formed and the poop quickly stops smelling.

Your poop comes in a bag and your pee goes into the sewer through a separate exit. Once a week you take out the bag (no, not a dirty job) and throw it away – for example as compost?

This saves 30-40 liters of water per person per day, which currently goes straight into the sewer as drinking water.

This is a selection of the dry toilets that are available. From DIY to classic oak models, but there are also from ‘camping fold-out rack’ to Art Deco.

There is also another option for our future. With the existing flush toilet we will eventually collect rainwater and there will be a tank on your house, with a collection and pumping installation. That tank must be a big one. Below is a picture of the smallest type of tanks.

I know what I choose. The dry toilet is already on board the Ya.

Water tanks for a (very) small household.

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Future developments in batteries

As long as energy consumption continues to increase, energy storage is one of the biggest challenges for the future. Certainly for us, belonging to the ten percent richest in the world. It is precisely these countries that use the most energy.

The supercapacitor (supercapacitor) can hold electrical energy and is very light. It can be charged very quickly and can provide a lot of energy. A disadvantage is that it is not yet able to retain the electrical charge properly at the moment. The capacity is also small. Supercapacitors have long been used to power the flash light on a camera. They have recently also been used in cordless drills.

Supercapacitors are pipe-shaped and not big. You can easily put them for example in the frame of your electric bicycle.

The saltwater battery works on the same simple principle as a lead-acid battery. Only the chemical reactions are not so bright. A saltwater battery therefore requires a lot of space and is relatively heavy. However, many more charging cycles are possible. The saltwater battery has recently been industrialized and is suitable for large ships. The advantages are durability and simplicity, also of maintenance and repairs.

Make one yourself? check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-GcN8aLtX4

A Chinese car battery manufacturer says it will soon come with a so-called ‘condensed battery’ that could contain 500 watt hours per kilo. This would be very light and even interesting for aircraft.

With silicon as a basis, a relatively light battery could be made. Even lighter than an LFP battery. The grain size of the silicon then only needs to be a few nanometers, making it more expensive than gold. A method has recently been invented to separate the silicon from old solar panels and then grind it into nano-granules. All this in a simple and cheap way. Now that the development of solar panels continues, the old panels automatically become waste. The circle seems complete: who knows, discarded solar panels may be the basis for the future battery.

It is all much promising, and all these developments makes man optimistic. If mankind makes a small step, it will end up in a giant leap.

f you want to invest in a battery at home, please don’t wait, because many promising developments are soon overtaken by new, even better discoveries. And before they become available in practice, it will be ten or twenty years later. For example, it took three or four decades before the solar panels from space projects were first found on decks of boats here on earth.

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Water – for whom in the future?

Here and there one can pick up the first light consequenses of climate change. In Holland the summers become drier. A climate denier tried to be funny: “We are lucky, less rain when we are sailing.”

The Pacific side of Panama is warming up. The hottest 8 years of the past 100 years have all been the last 8  years. No matter El Nino or El Nina.

In Bocas del Toro,Panama, the archipelago where ‘Ya’ is now, the last three months it rained about half the normal volume. This is the second year that this happened.

There is no water supply network here. Every house has its own cistern or tank and catches the rain. The marina nearby has an extensive rain catching system and tanks. This is for potable water and It also has a groundwater network, for washing water. An abundant amount. Even Americans (the biggest consumers of the world) have enough of it.

But you see the first signs of the climate change.

Drinkwater tanks of one of the marinas here in Bocas del Toro, Panama.

This year the marina manager saw a first empty tank. It never happened. But even worse, the washing water became a bit salty. How come?

It is easy. There is hardly any rain, so the islands soil doesnot get fresh water influx. On the other hand, the sea level is rising. OK, it is only a bit, but it rises. It is enough to let the sea water flow further into the soil of the coast. Till the first water reaches the well of the marina – bingo!

This first sign of climate change is what we sailors here experience. We don’t care. We have tanks on board. We have water makers. Worst case is, we buy water bottles. Although the price has risen of these bottles, we will get away with it. But households with smaller tanks have a problem. You know who have the small tanks? The poor people. They buy the most bottles, and when they are the most expensive.

More than 50% of the climate change is caused by 10% richest people. That is us. You, me.

What about a moral appeal to you this Sunday, and you start to spend your money to live fossil free now?

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Short history of the Solar panel

Do you know that Becquerel is the unit for radio activity? It is from Edmond Becquerel and he was the very first man  who created electricity from sunlight. It was 1839 that he discovered this photo voltaic effect.

But it took some decades before someone took the challenge and made a solar panel. In 1883 it was Charles Fritz, an American who took Selenium and covered it with gold. It worked. It was expensive, but it worked. He could capture about 1% of the solar energy to get electricity from it.

One of the first solar panels, end 19th century, somewhere on a New York roof.

A few years later already, Edward Weston started to focus light with lenses, then on a solar cell. This cell became hot, then electrons start moving, which is electricity.

Meanwhile, the German Heinrich Hertz (the unit for Ffrequency is named after him) discovered that you get more power whit Ultra Violet light, better than visible light. This is called the photo electric effect and still today the solar cell uses this to create electricity. Right away, in 1888, the Russian scientisch Alexander Stoletov built a solar cell and proved it.  

One of the many inventions is this apparatus to collect and focus sunlight and put it together in a heat battery, and from that heat one could make electricity OK, it is a bit off-topic, but it is a beautiful picture, though?

A new wave

In the 1950s a big breakthrough came. Three men from Bell Laboratories, Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson, invented the Silicon solar panel. So no gold nor Selenium, but just ordinairy Silicon which is everywhere to find. OK, they were expensive to buitd, but the efficiency was 6 percent in stead of the lousy 1 or 2 percent.

It helped NASA  al lot to get electricity on their space rockets.

Later, in In 1970 the first building was provided with a solar cell roof, it is the Solar One building of the Delaware University.

More people became enthousiast. President Carte put 32 panels on the White House as a statement: ““the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.” His administration set up fiinancial incentives promoting renewables.

President Carter with ‘his’ solar panels on the White House roof, as a first example and a start for a trickle down

But the wave waned away. Reagan came to power, said that the government was the problem, not the solution, and teared the solar panels down, with the excuse of roof repairs, but never put them back on. Carters incentive system was ended and the first fledging American solar industry died shorty after it.

Percent. by percent

From that time the solar industry was mostly settled in Europe. Solar was expensive, but many governments were willing to subsidise. At the end of the 1980’s  you could find a solar panel here and there on a boat. A subsidized one. And what did they deliver? Already over 10% and every three or four years it could grow a percent.

Still, it was not profitable. A pity was that all subsidies were not continuous, so the industry, so there could not grow an industry with continuity. And, on the other hand the oil industry was powerful, and well subsidized.

The wave till now

In the early 2000 years things changed. When solar panels could deliver over 15 percent, a tipping point was reached. The USA and many European states started to give grants (or tax incentives) for installing and using solar power. A bottom-up approach. This was competitive with the fossil driven power.

With  that subsidy many people dared to  cover their  roof completely. The amount left over, could be sold to the power distribution company, and based on a long term contract. The first percent of people took the chance.

Then in some five to ten years these changes came:

China’s solar industry grew and could deliver panels for less than any Western industry could.

Al Gore’s movie ‘An inconvenient Truth’ became known worldwide.

The subsidy regulations still continued.

The efficiency of the general solar panel passes the 20 percent.

So, many many people became interested, that it was sheer luck if you could get the grant. People tried it, tier after tier. And when they did not succeed, they installed without subsidy.

It also helps that the banks offer zip interest rates since 2010. The credo: Don’t put your money on the bank, but put it on your roof, with solar.

Now we are in 2023. The reality now is, that solar power beats fossil fuel power, despite the fossil fuel companies are still well granted with subsidies and tax cuts. There is coming more and more pressure to cut these billions down to zero.

Meanwhile, Putin makes a mess in the fossil fuel market and the fossil rates are expected to go up.

What would the next wave look like?

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The first fossil free motor yacht

Yes, it is possible. The Silent 60 is the first production motor yacht that could sail fossil free.

Normally people dare tto try to sail the ocean (nearly) fossil free with sailing yachts. But now, this is a motor yacht. It is a breakthrough.

The yachts are rather big. The smallest is a 60 feet (20 meter) yacht, and I don’t dare to call the price. But what the heck, you have to start somewhere!

As you can see, it is fully covered with panels, doing together about 16 kW peak. The warf promises that the yacht would do a continuous 5 knots. This is theory, but with following wind and waves, it would be realistic. OK, it is not fast for this size again, what the heck. It is enough to cross an ocean, to have a pleasant move on the waves, and you cross oceans for pleasure, not for speed. So you have more time to enjoy.

But, people who buy it have to have a big wallet. These people mostly go for luxury. So they want airconditioning. A big galley, an oven, all big energy consumers. So they will build in a big diesel generator. A step backwards.

But what the heck. the Silent Yacht warf made a huge step forward.  And, you can buy an extra kite sail for it, to save energy (or to speed up).

For people with an awful lot of money, there is also a 120 feet version. see  https://www.silent-yachts.com/

The yachts are rather big. The smallest is a 60 feet (20 meter) yacht, and I don’t dare to call the price. But what the heck, you have to start somewhere!

As you can see, it is fully covered with solar panels, doing together about 16 kW peak. The wharf promises that the yacht would do a continuous 5 knots. This is theory, but with following wind and waves, it would be realistic. OK, it is not fast for this size again, what the heck. It is enough to cross an ocean, to have a pleasant move on the waves, and you cross oceans for pleasure, not for speed. So you have more time to enjoy.

But, people who buy it have to have a big wallet. These people mostly go for luxury. So they want airconditioning. A big galley, an oven, all big energy consumers. So they will build in a big diesel generator. A step backwards.

But what the heck. the Silent Yacht wharf made a huge step forward.  And, you can buy an extra kite sail for it, to save energy (or to speed up).

For people with an awful lot of money, there is also a 120 feet version. see  https://www.silent-yachts.com/

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Fossil free fast forward

Nowadays it is easy to cross an ocean fossil free.
This trimaran does it, with an average of 30 knots, foiling her way over the ocean.

Now it is doing close to 25 knots (46 km/hr) with moderate winds. She gets into the foil, so the last wave tops hit the bottom of the boat.

Foiling is also possible on two ‘legs’. This balancing across the ocean needs good trim and subtle steering.

This looks faster, but is slower, because here the hulls touch the water, creating the spray. The crew doesnot like it, also because it makes everything wet.

The trimaran lying still. Time for a visit.

The trimaran consists 3 floaters and 2 beams. That is the construction. All this is covered with solar panels. In between these rigid parts are  nets, nets and nets. And there are lines everywhere. Here on the starboard side of the main hull, you see some 20 lines find their way to the mast. The Ya has three lines there.

The direction of this picture is abeam. On the right you see the aft beam. With solar of course.

The chair at the end is for the crew, the red stick is the helm. It steers the foil rudder blade.

Why all that solar? The trimaran doesnot have hydrogeneration, because that takes speed. So dumb head me asked: “But that takes hardly any, perhaps 0,05 knots of the 35 average you make! That was really dumb, because they lost the last transatlantic race from London to New York on 11 seconds with number 1. So it counts. (And I rubbed it in, I am afraid).

Anyway, these speeds are that high, you’d better not put a generator behind it, because the water would blow it off anyway.

The solar energy is used for making the hydraulic systems work, for winches et cetera. However, everything also works by hand, with grinders.

They sail the trimaran with 6 crew: 3 men on, 3 men off.

This is the cabin. One man can sleep here, and two in that dark hole behind this man (a fellow skipper, not a crew member). In that hole, there are also the sails and the spare parts.

Behind the photographer there is the galley. Sorry, no picture made of it, but it is nothing more than a single induction cooker, a pressure cooker, a plate and a spoon.

The crew: “It is not cosey, but it saves energy and weight.”

So sorry, but this sort of fossil free sailing is not my cup of tea.

But interesting is, if you want to win a sailing race nowadays, then you’d better do it fossil free.