Traveling Around the World on Solar Power - 15th September 2011

The TÛRANOR PlanetSolar, a solar powered vessel, which stopped inBrisbane in May, is set to arrive in

Singapore later this month. It is the first fully solar powered vessel of its kind to circumnavigate around the world.

The catamaran was designed in New Zealand, built in Germany and is flying a Swiss flag. The futuristic vessel is 31 meters long and cost $15 million to build. The top part of the TÛRANORPlanetSolaris covered with about500 square meters
of SunPower solar panels.

With this experiment, Raphael Domjan, who spent years collecting the funds to create the vessel, hopes that this effort will at least provide an impulse to the shipping industry to consider alternatives to reduce their energy needs.

According to the International Chamber of Shipping, ships now carry 90 percent of the world’s trade and account for about 3 percent of global carbon emissions – equivalent to those of a major national economy.

The TÛRANOR PlanetSolar will continue its voyage via Mumbai, Djibouti, Abu Dhabi and the Suez Canal, arriving back in Monaco next May.