witoman
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Wave Runner
This month, 69-year-old Japanese sailor Ken-ichi Horie will attempt to captain the worlds most advanced wave-powered boat 4,350 miles from Hawaii to Japan. If all goes as planned, hell set the first Guinness world record for the longest distance traveled by a wave-powered boat and, along the way, show off the greenest nautical propulsion system since the sail.
2.24.2008 at 05:18pm - Comment by witomanOf course, this is nothing short of brilliant. I don't believe that the authors of this article or the owners of this boat claim that this is anything more than a prototype. It's pretty kludgey. Later generations will no doubt improve on this both in efficiency, power and elegance. Will it ever be commercially viable for international freight shipping? Maybe not, but amazing technology approaches to shipping will surface as the price of bunker fuel continues to rise, carbon taxes are implemented and stack emission requirements are tightened by ports. I look forward to seeing how this wave powered boat turns out and hope that the owners are collecting lots of performance and operation data.
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December 2009: Best of What's New
In our December issue, Popular Science names the 100 best innovations of the year: bombproof wallpaper, self-parking cars, the fastest helicopter, and 97 more. Plus inventor profiles and videos.
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