Wave-powered boat ahoy!
A Japanese man has created a wave-powered boat.
To test it, he has set out from Hawaii for Japan, hoping to complete the 7,000 km (4,400 mile) journey using only the power of the waves beneath his boat.
The catamaran-like boat, the Suntory Mermaid II, has two wings in front. These convert the energy from waves into a movement similar to a dolphin’s kicks, making it the world’s first boat to be powered by the vertical motion of waves.
harnessing waves
“Twenty years ago while sailing, an accident broke my main mast which actually fell in the sea,” the white-haired Horie said. “The boat kept rocking and I thought how great it would be to actually harness the power of those waves to push the boat forward.”
Inventor Horie has previously sailed around the world solo, and has sailed from Hawii to Japan several times. He has used a pedal-cycle boat, a solar powered electric-motor boat and several boats built from recycled materials.
recycled materials
In 2002, he sailed a yacht made from a variety of recycled materials, including whiskey barrels for the hull, aluminum cans for the mast and plastic soda bottles for the sails.
creativity needed
The Transition Towns model says that people used immense amounts of creativity, ingenuity and adaptability on the way up the energy up-slope, using coal and oil. Therefore, there’s no reason for us not to do the same on the down-slope.
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