A boat propelled only by the rocking sea gives renewed hope for a fuel-free shipping future
Posted 07.08.2008 at 5:06 pm
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Going the Distance
Captain Ken-ichi Horie, aboard the Suntory Mermaid II, prepares to travel solo 4,350 miles from Hawaii to Japan on wave power alone.
S. Yamada
It was all smooth sailing for seafaring extremist Ken-ichi Horie. That wasn’t exactly what he was hoping for when he set sail for Japan from Hawaii in the world’s most sophisticated wave-powered boat, named the Suntory Mermaid II
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The Environment, alternative fuel, boating, nicole dyer, shipping, wave powerTraveling an average of 1.5 knots, 69-year-old Horie certainly didn’t set any speed records but he did set one for the longest ocean voyage made in a wave-powered craft, proving along the way that a fossil-fuel-free propulsion system can work, albeit leisurely, under real-world maritime conditions. Congrats to Mr. Horie and team.
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ocean is pretty cool
What's wrong with sails? Should use both... maybe throw some sun in there and could prob make the trip half..
I think technology like this is great. But If I hear news about a wind powered airplane I'm out.
i love that we're finding ways to get around without hurting everything, but i think that he could've made it there sooner if he had used sails. and i think that we should use solar panels to get energy. there's alot of ways to power stuff without hurting eveything and everybody. and it would be cheaper too! now i kmow that sounds good to eveyone!!!
If he had used sails people would have said "It's just a sailboat!"
The point was that the mechanical energy from the ocean's waves could be harnesed as a motive force.
All good things come with time. All things started with an idea and experimentation. Look how far automobiles have come. People used to laugh at electric and look where they are now. This world would still be in the horse and buggy days and using smoke signals to communicate if we all kept our ideas and never expanded on them. Alot of practical things have also come into being from ideas that started out for one intention and were realized to be used in another. Whether something is practical now does not mean that it will never be. I personally think that wave propulsion can in some way be useful one day as the applications are incorporated.
All good things come with time. All things started with an idea and experimentation. Look how far automobiles have come. People used to laugh at electric and look where they are now. This world would still be in the horse and buggy days and using smoke signals to communicate if we all kept our ideas and never expanded on them. Alot of practical things have also come into being from ideas that started out for one intention and were realized to be used in another. Whether something is practical now does not mean that it will never be. I personally think that wave propulsion can in some way be useful one day as the applications are incorporated.
Fantastic. Hopefully this will pave the way for more boats and increase opportunities for would be sailors to cross the the wonderful oceans.
http://www.inflatableboat.net/